Islam And The West

Image source: G.J. Charlet III

The festive season of Christmas is once upon again and throughout western Christendom the 25th of December will be celebrated as the day that God was created.

For any non-Christian it is very easy to slip into the “merry making” of the festivities. I still remember my childhood at school celebrating Christmas with the rest of the student population.

They were very funny times. Growing up in Europe in those days was a completely different kettle of fish to the politically correct world that we live in today. Everybody else in my class was given an option of either taking their lunch break outside to play with amongst themselves or to spend the 40 minutes after food engaged in Christian hymn practice. As you can imagine representing the only non-Muslim section of the class I was not given a choice but was told that I had to attend the choir practice. For that very reason to this day I have the Christian Lord’s Prayer etched into my memory and whenever I hear a Christmas carol being sung my memory is sent spiraling back to the days when I used to sing “We Three Kings Of Orient Are” and “Hark The Healrd Angel Sing Glory To The New Born King.”

Christmas for me personally was a strange occasion. I knew that I was Muslim but I celebrated the season just like all the other children in my class. So I had a Christmas tree stationed in the living area of my house. I ate roast turkey for Christmas lunch and just like all the other children I thought that Santa Claus had brought me and my sibling a sack full of presents.

In reality the pagan origins of Christmas were never explained to me or the other children in the class. That is the funny thing about Christmas it’s pagan origins have become so obscure for the vast majority of Christmas that when confronted with the truth they tend just to bury their collective heads in the sand. This has not always been the case in the mid seventeenth century the Christian Puritan movement in England outlawed the whole Christmas spectacle citing the evils of the season for its prohibition:

“In the mid-17th century, a wave of religious reform transformed the way in which Christmas was celebrated in England. Oliver Cromwell — a statesman and General responsible for leading the parliamentary army during the English Civil War….

…In 1644 he enforced an Act of Parliament banning Christmas celebrations. Christmas was regarded by the Puritans as a wasteful festival that threatened core Christian beliefs. Consequently, all activities relating to Christmas, including attending mass, were forbidden…..

…In the first half of the 17th century Christmas was an important religious festival and a time when the English population would indulge in a variety of traditional pastimes…..

…As well as marking the day’s religious elements, there was also non-stop dancing, singing, drinking, exchanging of presents and stage plays. The population indulged in feasts of roast beef, plum porridge, minced pies and special ale. Twelfth Night, the final day of celebration, often saw a fresh bout of feasting and carnivals.

It’s no surprise that the daily celebrations often led to drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling and other forms of excess. Sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritans frowned on what they saw as a frenzy of disorder and disturbance…..

…As well as disliking the waste and debauchery that went along with the celebration of Christmas, the Puritans viewed the festival (Christ’s mass) as an unwanted remnant of the Roman Catholic Church and, therefore, a tool of encouragement for the dissentient community that remained in both England and Wales. They argued that nowhere in the Bible had God called upon his people to celebrate the nativity in this manner. They proposed a stricter observance of Sundays, the Lord’s Day, along with banning the immoral celebration of Christmas — as well as Easter, Whitsun and saints’ days. Preferring to call the period Christ-tide, and thus removing the Catholic ‘mass’ element, the Puritans reasoned that it should remain only as a day of fasting and prayer. (Source: Time Travel Britain)

As a Muslim I feel that Christians left the religion of Jesus when they decided to follow Saul of Tarsus rather than Christ. But if the Puritans found the Christmas their day debauch I wonder what they would make of today’s Christians and Christmas ? I am unable to answer that question for with certainty for obvious reasons. However I am sure there will not be that many as a percentage of Christians engaged in fasting and prayer this Christmas that for a certainty I do know.

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