Thanksgiving Q&A: Participating Without Founding

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture (question and answer) delivered on November 23, 2017, which is the continuation of the preceding lectureSource: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Some of these social occasions are good: I may have a social occasion that carries a good significance. And I may have another social occasion that may carry a bad significance, like Halloween: what is its origin and what are its details, which devils and which spirits, and are you going in this direction or that one?

What Have We Understood?

So let us conclude the topic and ask: what is before us, lawful or forbidden? And what have we understood so far? Personally, I have understood a number of things.

First: that the Muslim should not be the one to initiate. You do not invent the idea that we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving and that this is a sacred day for us as a Muslim family. Do not initiate that, and do not teach your children that this is a landmark of my creed and my religion.

And yet, at the same time, I cannot prevent you from sharing with society in what it is living. Someone, for example, has guests on this day, so he brings them turkey and cooks it up very respectably, with traditional ghee and some olive oil, and life is beautiful, and that sheen of the frying or browning, you smell it from the door. So what is the ground for prohibition in that, from a very simple and very modest point of view?

On the contrary, I see, and Allah the Exalted knows best, what is to prevent us from making it an occasion to bring to us those who do not know us?

An Open House at the Mosque

In some mosques we used to, glory be to Allah the Almighty, on Thanksgiving Day specifically, which falls on a Thursday, and the default for you is that you are fasting on Thursday as a sunnah from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, we would hold on this very day an "open house," and say to all the neighbors: come to us, we are fasting on this day, and we will have dinner together; the dinner is in their name, and the breaking of the fast is in yours. Is that not so? You are opening your day while he is closing his day, but we meet. And if you wanted to bring us something sweet, bring it, but mind that you have come to a mosque, and there are two forbidden things, wine and pork, so be careful and do not bring these things with you. So he comes to you carrying his own respectable turkey too, and the people have come, and you have your properly prepared food for the breaking of the fast of the people fasting with you, and we break the fast together and talk, and there is a respected shaykh standing to speak to the people about Islam.

And we, praise be to Allah, are open to the communities and the communities are open to us, and we have no barriers that obstruct us from others, and so on. So I imagine this could be one of the doors of individual da‘wah to these people who live around us.

And second: that you tell people that Islam is not a religion closed in on itself, but a religion open to everything positive, everything beneficial to humanity, and everything humane; it deals with the human sense.

Our Little Children

And third: the children who grow up among us, our little children. I come to Christmas and say to him: this is forbidden, and I come to Halloween and say: do not do such and such, and I come to this and that and say: such and such. If I forbid him everything, he will one day slip through my fingers. But if he knows that there are positive things in matters because they follow the foundations of the religious constants, and that I have things that are forbidden because they are forbidden, and that I do not believe that the Messiah is such and such, and my son too does not believe that, then when I say to him: this is forbidden, we do not do it, he says to me: I believe in Almighty Allah.

But at the same time, imagine your children when they go back to school after "Thanksgiving" week:^[3] the first thing they will talk about, what do you imagine, sir? The first thing the children will talk about at school: did we bring a turkey or did we not? So if my son is the only one who says: no, I did not do it, why? Because it is forbidden. And why is it forbidden? Because I do not believe in the Messiah. They say to him: but you are Muslim and we are Christian, and we believe in the crucifixion and such and such, and you do not believe in such and such. The boy has an independent creed, so he defends it and says: I acknowledge that, but food, my dear, we did not tell you to celebrate by drinking wine, this is food. So when you come and say to him: no, in my view this is forbidden,^[5] what you say to him about it may increase his distance from the foundation of the religion, and it may bring him closer to it.

So the matter of da‘wah, my brothers, needs art and needs flexibility, as long as we preserve the foundations of the constants we have. In the name of Allah.

A Word on the Name and the Substance

And I want to conclude, as we deal with this issue, with a few words.^[4] I have gone on too long with you, forgive me. (And in the midst of this, some of those present said: No, you have not gone on too long, Shaykh, continue, Shaykh.)

And in the last words I have gathered, we do not want to forget that, as regards the name: the word "thanks" is not forbidden in my view. And as regards the substance: that behind it is thanks for the blessing of Allah, glorified and exalted, that He saved human beings and brought them to a certain place, or fed them or gave them drink, whatever it was. The basic position on it is that it is not religious, and does not point to a purely religious matter. And the manifestations that exist are good social manifestations. So by all the evidences, or the constants against which I measure matters, I, and Allah knows best, Allah the Exalted knows best, do not see in that any prohibition against our taking part with the society in which we live. But, as I said, do not found the idea, and do not urge the children toward it as though it were part of our personal life, but let matters pass in a natural way.

Occasions Made by Commerce

And we also do not want to forget that we are being misled as a society, it seems, in occasions like these.^[6] Halloween is a silly idea in my view, but what inflated it to this extent? The companies promoting the products that come out at these times. Commerce, commerce of course, and an economy built entirely on such occasions. Likewise "Black Friday," which is the day after tomorrow, God willing. As for us, we have no "Friday black," praise be to Allah; our Fridays are all white, praise be to Allah, glorified and exalted, for Friday is a great day for us. But imagine the volume of sales at that time: something extraordinary, billions moving within a society, and the cars going back and forth on the roads, and credit cards swiped every second.^[1] Glory be to Allah the Almighty! So let us be careful too, and let us teach our children to keep away from extravagance, and to be economical, not to overspend, and so on.

Questions After the Talk

And when he had finished speaking he invited those present to ask questions, and he was asked about Christmas and said: leave Christmas to me, God willing, and we will talk about the topic at the first occasion, God willing. May Allah the Exalted reward you well, and for any other questions, we ask Allah that we have done the topic justice with some detail, and the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted, bless you in what is in your hands. And whoever has something sweet, let him invite us, so that the fatwa comes out a little better! And who has a turkey?

And one of them asked him about what he had said, that the Muslim should not "invent," and he said: I said the Muslim should not invent, meaning that he should not found it. That is, he should not go and call the children and say: children, tomorrow such and such, come let us do such and such. Rather, let matters pass in a natural way, and do not be the one calling for this issue. And after that he said some light, joking words whose meaning does not appear in the transcript.^[2] May Allah the Exalted reward you well, and the peace of Allah be upon you, and His mercy and blessings.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The transcript's wording here is garbled ("like every sinal second"), and the likely meaning is that cards are used every moment. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The phrase "simbl h tasnbul ya hajj verb alsunbula" has no clear meaning in the transcript, and appears to be a joke modeled on "basmala," so it has not been included. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: In the transcript, after "alanks jiven week" there is an unclear phrase ("wala alkashan"), so it has not been included. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer says in the transcript that he will conclude "with this story," then no story appears, and he moves on to the conclusion; so nothing has been included beyond what he said. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The transcript's wording here is confused ("wai jj ana asku … z mik sns"), so only the general meaning of it has been included. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The transcript's phrase "bigger bina" is unclear, and its form here is an estimate of it; what is certain in the context is that the companies promoting products are what inflated these occasions.