Abdullah Hakim Quick – The Origins Of Christmas
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In the winter season,
around December 25, the people celebrated the winter solstice. And those of you who have lived in the north, I'm coming from Toronto, Canada, there's four seasons, not two, or three like you have here. There's four seasons. And these four seasons in Canada are very distinct seasons, although el El Nino and La Nina are changing that also. But they're very distinct seasons. And so within the seasons, there are certain high points or low points. And the solstice time is the time when the essence of the season comes about. And so the winter solstice would come about somewhere between December in December from December 21. And it goes all the way to around January 6 or so. And so the
people of the North would celebrate different holidays have different occasions, based upon the winter solstice, put yourself in the northern countries. I went to Norway and spent some time with the Muslims in Oslo, may Allah subhanaw taala help them they really far up north. And also I had the chance to go to Alaska, and there's Muslims in Alaska. Now when we were there in the summertime, and it was time for salata lava tube, and we looked outside, and the sun was still out. Somebody looked at his watch, and he said, Well, that's sunsets, and it's time to make it up. So we made a lot of money that is normally made with the sunset according to the watch. And the sun was out.
The time for Isha. They looked at their watch again. It's supposed to be darkness of night, according to the phip. They looked at their watch, and they said it's time for Isha. We made Isha and the sun was out.
around one o'clock at night, I looked at my watch and realize it's time to go to bed, but the sun was out.
And so in those parts of the world, you are in a situation where for the Muslims, you make taqdeer and the fukuhara have told us that you can use the closest reasonable city for your base or you can use Mecca, Tomoko Rama, some different fuqaha have used different positions where I was, they use Seattle, Washington, as the base of their time where they were in Alaska. What is important, though, is that in the wintertime, there is a period where there is no light, you are literally in darkness, 24 hours of the day.
And this stretches for a period of time. Now, could you imagine if you're living in Alaska, or living in Canada, or living in Norway, and you don't have central heating, and the cold is outside, its darkness around you. People are dying from disease. It's a terrible time and every family would probably lose somebody or they would know of somebody dying from the cold and disease during that season. This is the winter solstice. And so when the sun starts to come out,
the people now are looking at the sun as a life giving force. And so during that time, a number of ceremonies were held in northern countries. In the far north, was the feast of the 12 knights, which stretched from December 25 to January 6.
Also in ancient Greece, there was the Bacchanalia which was held for their god Bacchus, the God of wine and sport and play. The Romans had the Saturnalia for their gods, Saturn, their main sun, Gods Saturn. And so you find during these times, that the people held ceremonies in the north, they would burn bonfires, the light was important the fire, because the fire represents the light, the life giving force for those who worship nature. Also in the north, they recognize that there was one tree that even that, despite the cold would still remain alive. The evergreen, the evergreen tree, the fir tree, and so in some cases they would take this for a tree, believing that there was powers of
life within the tree and they would put it in their homes, set it there and put a light on the top of it or burn them in the front or they would make a missile toes and put them over their doorways. A type of what we would call Tyrese or taneema. It is an amulet and they would hang the amulet.
over their doors, hang the amulets in their home, hoping that this for a tree that this so called life giving force would protect them from the danger of the winter.
And so their ceremonies developed around this. And this went on for hundreds of years. We also find in the ancient northern countries, we find
the druids, and the druids of the North, and they carried out special ceremony surrounding the mistletoe, and surrounding the tree, and the beliefs and they would meet within circular areas. And they had a secretive cult that spread throughout the far northern countries. One of the interesting individuals and you can look this up, if you can find it in the dictionaries or encyclopedias, is a man called Mithra or mithras. This is a very mysterious character.
And when you look at history, you find that this individual called Misra was born on December 25.
His day of the week was the seventh day of the week, that we still call Sunday.
He was supposed to be the son of the son God Himself. And they had a special sacrament made up a bread and wine, and they would make this drink during this time. And supposedly He died for the sins of the people. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But when you try to find midterm or midterm in the encyclopedias, they threw through state intervention erased the name? Why is this? That is because after the time of Jesus, Isa Allah Islam, when his followers when the message began to spread, and they went north, and you see within historical writings, that Barnabas, one of his disciples met a man named Saul or Paul, later columns of Paul, Paul said he saw Jesus on the Damascus Road. And he
went to the disciples, but the disciples turned against Paul, only Barnabas stayed with him. But when Paul and Barnabas went into Greece, Barnabas left him. Now, what is the reason why they all left him?
What are the concepts coming through Paul, many people say, well, they left him because he was Sol before and he used to torture, the early followers of G de la sala. But also you can see, and if you look at present day Christianity, that most of the concepts of the trinity
of the blood sacrifice, the original sin, and most of the concepts, which relate to more than one God are coming through Paul, the preachers are quoting Paul sometime more than Jesus during their sermons. And so Barnabas left Paul. And somewhere in the early days in Rome, or Greece, somewhere in that area, those missionaries who were teaching the teachings of Jesus, Isa Ali Salaam, met with this force coming from the north. And so you will see an ancient Roman history that in some cases, the Roman Emperor would go out to the Colosseum.
And the gladiators would be fighting each other. And everybody's cheering for the gladiators sounds like one of our football games, they would go to the Coliseum, right.
And the gladiators would fight. And then if one of the gladiators was down, and they would look at the at the Emperor, should I kill him or not? And if he wanted to kill him, he would say, you go like that. Right? You know, that sign down? If he said keep him alive. He goes like this. You know, we use it today. Yes. Okay. It gives that sign. Okay.
One of the terrible things happening during these rituals at the Colosseum, is that they would bring the Christians out, literally men, women and children and feed them to hungry animals. They would take a hyena, or a wolf, or a lion, and get it hungry and crazy and beat it and throw raw meat at it. And then send it out on the people and they would literally chair and watch as the animal rip the bodies apart. This is a terrible culture, tear the bodies apart. And so somewhere along the line, somebody who couldn't take the torture, who felt that maybe we can win these people over, made a compromise. And you start to see changes going on. From the early part of the Christian era. In
southern Europe, where the the major ceremonies, held by the nature worshipping people
Combined with Christian names and Christian ceremonies, and therefore what comes forth to us is a mixture with the two streams coming together, where you get a monotheistic name, or a monotheistic character with a pagan ceremony.
And so the mixture of this together is what is giving us the present day holidays that we see. Number one, we understand that Isa alehissalaam. According to the different reports of the different scholars, in many religions, he was not born in the cold weather. History shows us that he was born during the warm weather.
Even in even in the Christian traditions, they have the belief that the shepherds were tending their flocks outside and in Palestine, you cannot keep your flocks outside.
In the wintertime in the evening, you bring them in, because it's cool at night. And so it was the warm weather. It was also the time of the taxes in the north.
In the story coming in the Quran, when we see the mention in chapter 19, and verses 24 to 25. And we see the mention of the story of Mary, because it is the belief of the Muslims, that Miriam may Allah be pleased with her
was a virgin, and she had dedicated her life to the worship of one God, prayer and fasting and by the power of Allah that the creator breathed His Spirit into her. And she she conceived Jesus he said Be and it is she can see Jesus he saw a solemn without a father without a man. That is a belief of Islam. It is also a belief that when she felt the pain of the pregnancy, that that the angel came to her and told her to go outside of the city. She went outside of the city to a remote area. And then she found a palm tree and she found water. And it was speaking about lots of Junya it was speaking about a type of job or a type of dates. And those who know who have lived in the desert
area know that when the dates become ripe, when you start to see the color of the dates change, because dates are not Brown, you know, dates are originally red and the yellow there are other colors, but they turn the brown it's it's at the height of the heat, that the dates become ripe. And so it's at that time that she gave birth to Isa al Islam. So from different points of view, different historical points of view and different religions. We understand that Isa Ali Salam was not born during the winter season. He was born in the warm weather. So who was it that was born in the winter season? What is that? Who is that character? Now? Let us become detectives and try to
find out the answer to this problem. Number one, you have to understand this concept of Saturn.
The concept of Baucus when they are portrayed by the different artists who drew pictures of them other sculptures, they're usually portrayed as a heavyset man with a white beard.
And when in the Sistine Chapel chapel, Michelangelo drew his picture you can see the long flowing beard and there are actually pictures of this man on a sled being drawn by snakes with wings.
Snakes with wings, snakes do not normally fly.
But in this case, the snakes have wings. And the heavyset man is on a sled being drawn by these flying animals sound familiar to you now, doesn't it? He's being drawn by the flying animals. He's before performing miracles.
He's coming out on December 25, which is not the birthday of East La Silla has nothing to do with Christianity. It is the title of the of the Bacchanalia and and the Saturnalia and he is representing riotous fun, drunken revelry. And so what happens on Christmas the Christmas season, especially in America, people today are not even thinking about a salesianum they're not even thinking about Jesus. They look and how they can get drunk on Christmas, what is going on in the Caribbean, and many parts if they offer you a Christmas pudding, or Christmas pie, or Christmas drink, watch out because it's probably laced with rum or wine. That's the spirit of the season.
Now this riotous occasion that was going on.
went so far
that the Christian church banned it. And the Church of England, according to historical sources, actually banned it all the way to 1647. It was prohibited in England to celebrate Christmas, because they saw Christmas as being a pagan holidays. This is an official position taken by the Christian Church, the Church of England who are known at that time, as Puritans. What happened was an individual was super imposed, a name was superimposed. We hear about the name of St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas. Now, according to some historical reports, St. Nicholas was a Christian Bishop, who lived in the fourth century in Asia Minor, which is now known as Turkey. He was a very thin man, very
austere, used to spend this time in prayer and fasting. And he loved children. And he spent this time dealing with children.
And because of this now, his name, some belief was imposed upon that day, and St. Nicholas or St. Nick comes into that position as being the main man of the day. There's another concept, which is even deeper than that. And that is that St. Nicholas himself is actually coming from the anxious writings of Bill wolf. And in these writings, which are done in the Scandinavian region, we find the name Nic, or nickel, or Nikkor, he was known as a demon, the demon of the North. He was known as the evil spirit of the North, the name of Odin, the evil principle. And so in Germany, and in many of the northern countries, the people actually looked upon this so called Saint Nick, as being an evil
force and they would tell their children in the wintertime, don't go outside because if you do, Nikolas will come along, Nicole will come along, he'll capture you put you in his bag and take you away.
And so they use it as a negative concept in Isaiah, in what is left of the Bible in chapter four in in 1413, the devil is known as the prince of darkness, and it is an understanding that his throne, the seat of his power is in the north, somewhere in the North is the seat of power of this evil. And so, the Germans also when they depict it, this Nicolas or this Pels, nickel, as they would say Pels, nickel in German, it means a fairy devil.
When they when they depicted him, they depicted him as a man with red fur. He had red fur coat,
and he was his base was in the north, and he was the essence of evil.
And the Church of England till 1647 took the position that this celebration could not go on. So what we are actually seeing is that the Christmas occasion was actually the time of evil.
It was the time of the belief in the Saturnalia, and the Bacchanalia and because of this, they shifted the occasion to New Year's Eve. They shifted all of their feelings and their merriment and their evil to New Year's Eve. Now, before we go to that, looking back back at Christmas, what is happening now on Christmas season? I don't know what goes on in Miami. But in the northern cities, on Christmas occasion, they put lights around Santa Claus parades, do you have a Santa Claus parade if they have Santa Claus parades and St. Nicholas is outside and he's in the streets and everybody's talking about St. Nicholas and the poor children are taught that St. Nicholas is going to come down
your chimney. Most people don't have chimneys in Miami anyway. But a 350 pound man is going to come down your chimney and bring you presence and keep his clothes white and red.
And go to all of the homes in the area and put our presence in your stockings and and put our presence under your tree and then fly back out into space. And the father the poor father who sweat and toiled all year to get you the presence gets no credit for the present given to the child. Saint Nicholas comes down the chimney gives you this present flies off into the night.
And many of us were raised, thinking believing in this. Some of us would sneak into the night and look and see our father putting the president of the tree. We knew what he was doing anyway but
You went along with it. And the people say, Well, you know, it's Christmas. Don't you like to have fun? You want to stop the children from having fun? What kind of people are you? But what is the what are you teaching the children, you are using the name of Jesus using the name of Isa alayhis salaam. And you are using a figure who historically is the devil's the devil himself when he has a Billa
they are using his figure, and he has now taken over the Christmas season. Christmas now to most people means materialism, you have to buy presents for your cousins and your friends and you got to buy about 34 presidents, and you find that most American people are in debt for six months after Christmas.
Now where is Jesus, you get drunk, you fight. You lose all your money, the stores raise their prices
is Ali Salaam is described as a very humble person.
Most of the time you didn't wear shoes, only one or two changes of clothing. A very simple person eating very simple food fasting most of the time. You see what is going on. There are two streams now a stream of polytheism a stream of monotheism and now the polytheism the materialism is overtaking the monotheism
and standing in the way and taking over our society. And some foolish Muslims coming along from outside of in their country say, Well, I just want to be an American. I want a tree too. So I said one of the brothers said he had a Christmas tree in his house he came for I said, Brother, do you know what the tree stands for? He said no. Okay, I'll get a palm tree with dates.
I'll make it halau a halau Christmas tree. But brother You have to understand what it means. You have to understand what it means. Number one, the properties of Islam when he spoke about he talked about a Rukia what Tamar him what to Allah. He said all of these things are sure
that if you hang amulets, thinking that this tower wheeze or this airman is going to protect you from something, then you are actually giving power to the creation of Allah and taking it away from the Creator. If you think that by making some spells going to a magician, and asking them to put a spell on someone, you want to get married. So you go to the site here and say, put a spell on Ali, I want to marry him. put a spell on Xena. What kind of marriage Are you going to have if you go to the magician?
And so the Prophet peace be upon him name all of these things, the superstitions, the amulets, all of these type of things are the other stream which goes away from monotheism from the belief in one God and takes you into another religion.