Abdullah Hakim Quick – The New Muslim Corner – The Myth Of Christmas
AI: Summary ©
The concept of "tawhid," which is the ability to achieve perfect memory, power, and authority in Islam, is discussed in detail in the title of the segment on the topic of Islam. The sh codes and mythology related to "tawhid are also discussed, including the belief that individuals are only going to worship once they have recognized it. The shrooming of the church during the winter season and the history of shrooming practices are also discussed. The Christmas celebrations in various countries, including the British, French, and Latin America, are also discussed, along with the myth of Christmas trees and the use of materialism as a base for political discussion.
AI: Summary ©
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم.
الحمد لله رب العالمين.
وصلي وصلم على سيد الأولين والآخرين.
نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه.
وبرك وسلم.
All praise are due to Allah, Lord of
the Worlds.
And peace and blessings be constantly showered upon
our beloved Prophet Muhammad, the Master of the
First and the Last, his family, his companions,
and all those who call to his way
and establish his sunnah to the Day of
Judgment.
As to what follows, As-salamu alaykum wa
rahmatullah.
Alhamdulillah, this is another chance for us in
the New Muslim Corner to review and to
try to come to an understanding of the
foundations of Islam.
And that is so important today in a
world where there is so much information that
is flowing around.
As-salamu alaykum.
Wa alaykum as-salam.
Is this the new beginner class?
Yeah.
Come on in, man.
Yeah, this is so important today in a
world where we are surrounded by information.
Some of that information is beneficial and some
of it is confusing.
And so the intention of this class is
to take off the veils, take off the
misunderstandings, the stereotypes, and to go to the
basis of what Islam is.
So that a person who is interested in
Islam or a person who has just embraced
Islam can actually benefit from the essence of
what Islam is and not what the culture
of different people has put forward.
So in this light, when we look at
the word Islam, we are talking about submission
to the Creator of the heavens and the
earth.
And we understood that if there was any
quality that a Muslim could be described with,
how would you describe?
You see somebody coming along.
You meet somebody.
What should be the most important thing about
that person?
It's not that they eat halal food.
It's not that they look a certain way
or they speak a certain language.
But it would be the Arabic word Tawhid,
which is unity, monotheism.
And that is the unity in our understanding
of the Creator of the heavens and the
earth.
And that is something that was understood by
people throughout the planet.
This is the root of Islam.
This is the basis of what the religion
actually is and not what is projected by
the media or what you might have misunderstood.
And so we are taught that prophets came
to every nation and every tribe.
And in the Qur'an, the Book of
Scripture of the Muslims, in the chapter of
the B, Surat al-Nahl, Allah tells us,
وَلَقَدْ بَعَثْنَا فِي كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ رَسُولًا عَنِ أَرْبُدُ
اللَّهَ وَجْتَنِبُ التَّغُوتُ And we have sent to
every nation a messenger informing them that they
should worship Allah and avoid false deities.
So every nation at one point had somebody
like this.
And if you go to the root of
most cultures, or what is left, because some
cultures are like oral cultures, and maybe there's
not much trace, but if you can go
to the root of most cultures around the
world, you will see that at one point
in time there was an individual or a
group, there was strong belief in one God.
Whether they called that one God the Great
Spirit, the Cosmic Spirit, whatever their concept was,
but it was that there was one being
who existed before life that we know.
And He said, Be and it is, and
all life came into being.
That's the Creator.
Okay?
And that is the essence of Islam.
When we talk about the word Islam today,
people will generally connect it with Prophet Muhammad,
peace and blessings be upon him, who lived
over 1400 years ago.
But he described himself as the seal of
the prophets and messengers, not the first prophet
of Islam.
And this is important in our generic understanding
of what this faith is, because you don't
have to be a certain color, a certain
language, dress in a certain way to be
a Muslim.
And after the death of Prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, he had asked his followers
to spread this message, take it around the
world.
And surprisingly enough, within 100 years, Islam reached
much of the known world at that time.
And not with great armies, not with weapons
of mass destruction, but with an interchange, a
movement of people for different reasons.
It spread around the world and within that
100 years, just about all the major religions
either came under the banner of Islam or
recognized the importance of this religion.
So, tawhid is a key point.
And we emphasize this because this is the
basis of being a Muslim.
That you believe in one God.
You're a monotheist.
And somebody might say they're a monotheist who
believes in the river as God, because there's
only one river they believe in.
So therefore, over the years, the scholars have
put together some different explanations of tawhid in
order for us to be able to fully
understand what the term means.
Because sometimes, and what was happening is that
people were coming into Islam with their own
religions, with their own way of looking at
the world.
The people who were Hindus had many different
gods.
Buddhists had Buddha.
Christianity, or what was being taught in the
name of Christianity, was affected by Greek and
Roman polytheism.
Many gods.
So therefore, one of these definitions we're using
as a base of understanding the word tawhid.
And so we said that when we say
Allah is one, we mean Allah is one
in His rule.
That He is the Lord.
He is the Master.
And there is no rival to Allah.
Okay, and that we learned in Arabic, it
was called tawhid al-rububiyah.
Okay, so it's one Rab.
And that is shared by some other people
who believed that maybe the Sun is the
Supreme Being.
But that's the first part of it.
No rival to Allah.
Secondly it is, that Allah is one in
His names and descriptions.
There is none like Allah.
And so the Quran says, there is nothing
like Allah.
So therefore, if somebody says that man is
God, then that's wrong.
Because our belief in tawhid is nothing similar
to Allah.
The Sun can't be God.
The Moon.
The mountains, the rivers.
No part of creation.
And that was called tawhid al-asma wa
-sifat.
So that is unifying our understanding of the
names and descriptions of Allah.
And the third part is, that Allah is
one in His divinity and worship.
There is no partner with Him.
So the only divine being is Allah.
And when we say divine, we're saying He
makes no mistakes.
He's perfect in memory, perfect in power, perfect
in authority.
Divine.
And so therefore, He is the one who
deserves alone to be worshipped.
So that's tawhid al-uluhi or tawhid al
-ibadah.
And that is the section of tawhid that
brought some confrontations.
Because when tawhid was taught and accepted by
people in different parts of the world, once
it was established that we're only going to
worship Allah, there was reactions that came.
Tawhid al-ibadah is a very important subject.
These three forms of tawhid, if you go
to an Islamic university or you go to
higher studies in many universities, they go into
this in details on the highest levels.
So this just gives you a basis of
tawhid.
The opposite, or the antithesis of tawhid monotheism
is polytheism.
So that means that you're taking a partner
with Allah.
Remember, the last form of tawhid said there's
no partners.
So that is like the human being instead
of praying directly to Allah then goes through
the partner to get to Allah.
So that person believes in God.
But they believe there is a force that
can lead them to the Creator.
And it comes in different forms.
I spent some time in southern Africa and
there in southern Africa and in China as
well, they have what they call ancestor worship.
So they believe that your ancestors when they
pass away that they go into the hereafter
and they're closer to God.
So therefore if you can pray to your
ancestors, if you can keep a good relationship
with your ancestors, then you got a good
chance of having your prayers accepted.
So that's a form of shirk too because
you're going through the ancestors to get to
God.
So any form that this takes that would
be considered shirk that we learned in our
previous discussion is the worst possible thing that
a person can do.
So we looked at shirk last week in
Rububia.
Now we want to look at forms of
shirk just to show you how it manifested.
This is shirk in Asma' wa Sifat, in
the names and descriptions of Allah.
How did people make partners?
Or how does it manifest in cultures?
So to give you some examples, in the
time of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
the Arabs at that time, they knew Allah.
They knew that there was a creator.
And part of the proof of that is
the fact that Abraham, Ibrahim, peace be upon
him, built the first house of worship in
Mecca for the one God.
So the belief in one God was there.
But after some time when people got weak,
they wanted something to see.
Because sometimes people need to see something material
in order to really believe in God.
And so they took from the names of
the creator and they made gods.
So one of the names of the creator
that we learned is Al-Aziz.
Al-Aziz, right?
The most powerful and majestic.
His strength and power.
So they made...
And you'll see a person by the name
Abdul Aziz.
So Abd means you're the servant or slave
of Al-Aziz.
Al-Aziz is the name of Allah.
So what the pagan Arabs did was they
took this name and they made an idol
and they called it Al-Uzza.
Al-Uzza.
And they set up an idol for this.
And so that would be shirk coming out
of the name of Allah.
They also took from the name Al-Manan
who is the most kind and generous and
they made another idol called Al-Manat.
Al-Manat.
So that was a form of shirk because
they would pray to Manat to go to
Allah.
So that's your shirk there.
To give you another example, in Europe in
Christianity or what was left of Christianity saint
worship began long after the time of Jesus.
And there were different saints.
And many historians believe that these saints could
be based upon the many gods of the
Greeks and the Romans.
So the Greeks, the Romans, they had Neptune
for instance the god of the sea.
Venus is the god of love.
So when you deal with matters of the
sea they would pray to and sacrifice to
Neptune because they were going on a seafaring
journey.
In matters of love and procreation it's Venus
or Aphrodite.
And then saints started to develop.
So individuals who were generally good people but
they gave them godlike qualities that if you
can give reverence to the person, to the
saint the saint will help you to get
to God.
And there's many different saints that came over
the centuries.
One is Saint Jude.
Saint Jude.
And some of you may know Jude maybe
before your time, this is in the time
of the Beatles, right?
So you know the Beatles, the famous rock
stars they say, hey Jude, don't make it
bad.
So hey Jude was one of the most
famous songs.
They won all the awards with this, Jude.
And there's different understanding about who Jude was.
You know, was it John Lennon's first wife?
Or whatever, there's different theories.
But this spread all over the world.
All over the Christian world.
Because Jude, according to some reports they said
that Jude was preaching the gospel and he
traveled to Mesopotamia meaning Iraq, Libya, Persia and
he traveled with another famous person by the
name of Saint Simon the Zealot.
And it is believed, this is all within
their stories and mythology but it's believed that
they were both killed they were martyred either
in Persia or Armenia.
But Jude became, Saint Jude became the patron
saint of hopeless a person who's hopeless, lost
desperate right, impossible situation you have an impossible
disease right, you're an impossible so you call
to Saint Jude and you'll see many hospitals
are called Saint Jude Hospital especially the ones
that were dealing with cancer you know, when
it was really, people were really afraid of
these things and the Beatles said, you know,
hey Jude you know, don't make it bad
but that meant a lot to a lot
of people so by praying to Jude to
get to God, that would be shirk see,
so this is how the shirk comes in
partnership and any way that this partnership comes
in it is considered to be something that
we avoid as Muslims so that's one of
the base points that we want to understand
as we continue on in our topic in
this season and everybody knows now we're in
the winter solstice our clothing has changed right,
the days now, it's dark most of the
time okay, so we're in a different season
now fortunately for us, we have lights and
we have television we have social media, we
have all just imagine if you had none
of this and you're in a dark season
and cold you don't have central heating okay,
so in many of the ancient societies this
was a very serious time of the year
it's the winter, so solstice is right in
the middle so it's 21st, 22nd that's the
solstice, the medium point in the year okay,
and you'll see that nature-based ancient pagan
religions had big ceremonies on the different solstice
times right, that was one of the key
points for the basis of the nature-based
religions okay, and so but also the Greeks
and the Romans they had special ceremonies during
this time as well, one of them for
the ancient Greeks it was called the Bacchanalia
the Bacchanalia, so this was December 21st for
the so-called god Bacchus and Bacchus was
the god of wine and sport and play
and what not, so this Bacchanalia a riotous
event that used to go on in ancient
Greece, right around this time okay, so the
winter season now going into it is a
riotous time, for the Romans they had what
is called Saturnalia and that is a festival
for Saturn the god of time, the god
of the sun right, and that began on
the 17th and it continued for seven days
so that would take you like right into
the 24th okay, because the 21st is the
actual center of the solstice but this ceremony
was also known for drunkenness, obscenity disorder, so
it was a time where you just get
drunk and wild go into different things let
it all out as they say okay, like
Nike they wanted to sell their shirts so
they said, just do it, you remember that
so if you saw someone say just do
it what does that mean, what does that
mean to you just do anything, right, that's
a mentality that's Saturnalia mentality okay, and the
Druids who had some of the ancient religions
in the north especially in the UK and
these northern regions they had ceremonies especially in
their places of worship like the Stonehenge you
find the Stonehenge Avebury and these things in
England so they had different ceremonies during this
time as well and they had this mysterious
plant that they called a mistletoe okay, so
this was one of their plants, they said
it's got god-like qualities the Germans, because
it gets cold really cold in Germany like
us so the ancient Germanic tribes, they had
a feast 12 nights from December 25th to
January 6th they had this festival December 25th
to January 6th okay, and this is interesting
because if you look at the Orthodox Church
the Greek Orthodox Church it's Christian but they
don't have Christmas on December 25th okay, their
Christmas is then in January, January 6th, 7th
this is their Christmas because it's connected with
this festival because it ended on the 6th
of January okay, so that was their festival
with this struggle going on between the gods
and the planets, so that was the winter
feast held in Germany so these things are
long before the time of Jesus that's part
of the original religion of the people there
in that area and we have discussed a
little bit also but it's important for those
who might not be familiar with what we
said is that there was a cult formed
originally in Persia and it spread all around
the Mediterranean so these were the followers of
Mithras and they called this time Sol Invictus
representing the time of victory of light over
darkness because after December 21st it starts changing
back so the days start getting the nights
are shorter and shorter the light is starting
to win again so that's Sol Invictus and
Mithras was their sun god he mediated between
people and the supreme being that's the shirk
again he's like a mediator and his birthday
according to some historians what was celebrated in
this cult was December 25th so a lot
of big birthdays and festivals happened on December
25th so it was a key day for
them amongst the days of the solstice it
was December 25th and amongst them Sunday the
seventh day of their week his number was
seven that was Mithras consecrated number and the
seventh day of the week that we now
call sun day that was consecrated not in
early Christianity because in early Christianity they were
Jewish all of Jesus followers so they had
the Sabbath, Saturday but Constantine in 325 AD
instituted as the holy day Sunday not Saturday
for the sun and this is where the
cult of Mithras comes in and it's interesting
because the church for a period of time
they banned the name Mithras because when you
start studying Mithras his image is almost the
same as what some people say today is
Jesus Christ where did that image come from
why can a Jewish person look at a
Christian person and say I'm Jewish and you're
Christian like there's two different religions not supposed
to be two different religions because Jesus said
and it's even mentioned in the Bible he
did not come to destroy the law of
Moses but he came to fulfill the law
all of his followers they were all following
the law of Moses why is it that
now there's a separation it's this image this
other religion that was superimposed over the teachings
so Christmas that's really the epicenter of this
season and people will say Christmas is the
birthday of Christ but the reality is is
that even according to Christian historians and theologians
when they talk about Mary in the manger
they say that the shepherds that's how the
story goes the shepherds had their flocks outside
they didn't do that in the winter season
it's cold in Palestine now may Allah make
it easy for them it's cold at this
time so the way they describe even in
their texts it would have been in the
warm season when he was born according to
the Quran that Mary or Miriam may Allah
be pleased with her she was told to
go out when she was right having her
baby go out of the city under these
date palms shake it and ripe dates will
come down ruta banjaniya ripe dates the dates
ripen in the heat so it's like late
July, August early September that's when you're going
to get ripe dates so according to us
he's born in the summer not born on
December 25th so this you see now something's
happening here how can it switch how now
can they say that Christmas which has nothing
to do with Jesus the ceremonies in the
winter season the bacchanalia the feast of the
twelve nights has nothing to do with Jesus
so like what is happening here there was
some amalgamation and how it happened we don't
know but we do know that those followers
of Jesus who were left generally following Paul
and his teachings they were being tortured by
the Romans they really suffered and some people
say when in Rome do like the Romans
do or if you can't beat them join
them like people can only take so much
torture and pressure so somebody mixed it like
it came together somebody brought it together fusion
it's a fusion of the different religious systems
one is strictly monotheism it's following the law
of Moses the other one is nature based
or sun god based they came together to
form this new understanding Christmas season also for
most people is the time of Christmas gifts
don't go shopping in the mall this weekend
next weekend madness the closer you get to
the 25th madness now they change things Black
Friday now the business people have imposed things
because they want you to buy gifts it's
a materialistic time but where did the gifts
come from it actually was in the Saturnalia
they would give gifts to people sometimes they
make little figurines and they would say to
each other in their Latin Buona Saturnalia that's
what they used to say to each other
today they give the gifts and they say
Merry Christmas so it carried on it continued
decorations the decorations illuminations of everything these decorations
Christianity as a religion believing in God this
is dying in this culture even some of
the Christmas traditions are not celebrated when I
was growing up here in North America I
wasn't in Toronto but close enough lights would
be all over the place you'd walk down
the street and you'd see houses lit up
especially when you come close to December 25th
these were also done by the Romans in
their Colosseums that was part of the Saturnalia
so lights that's part of it as well
the most important person in this season is
Santa Claus and they've already had a parade
for him in Toronto it's the Santa Claus
parade it doesn't mean much now in this
society but you go back 30-40 years
ago these things were big things especially for
the younger generation but the point is now
when you say the word Christmas to most
people the first thing that comes in their
mind would be Santa Claus so who is
this individual?
Jesus is a Semitic person coming from the
Middle Eastern region who is Santa Claus?
Santa Claus generally is an older man large
face, big white beard for the Bacchanalia he
would be Bacchus the depictions of Bacchus would
be this type of individual and Silenus the
chief of the Satires Saturnalia had Saturn in
all of these events there was a venerable
older man who was the image so this
is the image now coming in the place
of Jesus but now they're saying Santa Claus
break the word down Santa Claus comes from
Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas Santa Claus so Saint
Nicholas was they describe him as a very
serious Christian Bishop who lived in what is
now Turkey it's called Asia Minor, Anatolia in
the 4th century and he was known by
the Christians he was the saint of children
throughout the Western world but he wasn't a
heavy set man with reindeers and flying around
no, he was fasting all the time very
serious kind of person but his name, because
he was the saint of children so somehow
somebody who is piecing these things together for
a culture in the society they used his
name and now he becomes a key person
in this ceremony and he's an important person
because according to the beliefs, what they were
teaching to children unfortunately, I grew up in
a society like this where we had Christmas
tree in the house and even though we
didn't have a chimney I lived in a
housing project like the hood we didn't have
a chimney, but those who had a chimney
this man was supposed to come down your
chimney and then put the presents under the
Christmas tree that's what we're told and we
would even look out to see is he
coming and your poor father or mother who
spent their time earning the money, got no
credit Santa Claus got the credit how can
this man keep his beard white if he's
going down millions of chimneys with the soot,
right somehow he doesn't so it becomes a
type of godlike creature he is, right and
the chimney now this chimney the early Germans
they had the north goddess or Bertha, the
goddess of domestic life in the home so
the chimney meant something in Scandinavia and in
the north so they superimposed poor Santa Claus,
there he is he's trying to make it
down that chimney but he's got to hold
his breath but he's making it down inside
the house there's different decorations holly is one
of them and the druids believed that this
evergreen plant because you'll see it in the
Christmas trees and in the holly and mistletoe
so these plants are alive and all the
different other plants died look at the beautiful
trees that were around us they're all stripped
but there's certain plants that stay green why?
the ancient people believed there's something holy or
special, some power inside of that plant so
it becomes a type of amulet so this
now got really serious for the Christian church
and when they tried to go back there
was a group in the 17th century in
Britain they're called the Puritans and the Puritans
took over power in the UK just to
give you an example they actually banned Christmas
think about this, this is the British Parliament
they banned Christmas they didn't want to hear
about Saint Nicholas because in the German area
Saint Nicholas was actually a demon called Nicker
he was a demon dressed in red in
German culture and so they didn't want to
hear about Saint Nicholas and he was an
evil spirit from the north so this is
what was going on during this time and
the diffusion came and then with the world
changing and materialism coming in it's transported, American
culture comes in and they make everything commercial
it's money making now and now we see
what's going on Christmas has become more of
a commercial thing there are some Christians who
will still celebrate in the church but unfortunately
it's very few now it's mainly a materialistic
time and if you look at the roads
there's more accidents our classes will have one
more class next week but the next two
weeks we're going to take a break because
driving on these weekends is insanity and people
are drinking alcohol there's more accidents on the
road during this time than maybe any time
of the year why?
if it's the birthday of Christ then why
are there more people drunk on the road
why are there more accidents on the road
that is because it's not the celebration of
the birth of Christ it is the pagan
Christmas it's the Saturnalia which has now come
and seized the mentality of the people so
this is what we're dealing with now and
it's important for us to know it's not
a major thing some people are trying to
bring this back now as Canadian culture they're
trying to bring it back and some Muslims
get confused one Muslim came to me and
said no, I'm a Canadian, I want a
tree he said ok, I'll use a date
palm tree in my house I won't use
evergreen so we need these ceremonies just like
they said Halloween that we learned was the
time of the devil some Muslims said ok,
we won't have Halloween we'll have Halalween we'll
have our version of Halloween so we need
to understand what it is and the youth
need to know what it is because this
new type of paganism is coming back in
our society but it's seeping back in especially
using materialism as its base so I want
to open up the floor for any questions
that anybody may have concerning this is the
myth of Christmas the myth of Christmas floor
is open for any questions yes,
myths develop it's a natural thing, it's not
just in Europe all over the world as
a matter of fact, in the Muslim world
we have serious problems with these myths we
have saints that people will go to their
graves and worship more than in the masjid
in Muslim countries, right that's shirk that came
into the Muslim world like it came into
other religions as well Christianity is more clear
because at least we have a base to
go back to but because Christianity did not
have the solid authentic sources to go back
to, they lost it and now you have
different churches, different understandings but we have shirk
in the Muslim world as well and it's
powerful and we have to struggle against it
also but fortunately we have our sources we
can go back to in order to know
what the original message was so this is
something that is very serious and happens all
over the world any other general questions?
anybody has?
floor is open so this is the myth
of Christmas and we have done a series
on this called Holiday Myths and you can
get that online in book form, you can
get it in lecture form to understand more
what it is and again this is something
creeping back into our culture and it's important
for us to understand where we stand as
Muslims with this so the floor is open
now for any general questions that anybody has
concerning Islam the floor is open any general
questions everybody is cold, everybody is frozen floor
is open, this is the chance to ask
questions whatever concerning other issues in Islam, the
only thing the only issues I can't deal
with right now because of the confusion is
politics if you don't know politics, this is
not the class for a political discussion but
the floor is open so
this is a good question it's not like
trick or treat where they are knocking on
your doors all the time generally Muslims, you
can accept a gift we accept gifts however,
we don't give gifts at the time of
Christmas especially if the gift is from your
neighbor you don't want to be negative on
people but we don't give gifts maybe what
you can do on Eid day when we
have our celebration then give your neighbors a
gift this is our time to give gifts
but we are not going to carry on
like that but when you have a Christian
family we still have to respect our families
and sometimes Christmas season is a time when
people get together so you may go over
to your parents house nothing wrong with that
the only problem is, and I have experienced
this myself and others who have come into
Islam is when people start drinking some people
put rum in the pudding or wine when
they start to drink then you need to
excuse yourself the other thing is in some
cultures not all Christian cultures on your Christmas
table would be a big piece of pork
that part of it we would avoid but
to pay respects to your family there is
nothing wrong with that
Question?
each family might be slightly different but the
more we can have our families understand that
we are Muslims and we don't drink they
should understand that I would look at it
as dawah you explain to them I don't
drink and then you can explain but if
alcohol is right from the beginning that would
generally be a problem because alcohol changes people
they start saying things and doing things inhibitions
go like but in some families they wouldn't
do that especially if they have some respect
for the fact that you are Muslims based
upon the level of the family's respect and
their knowledge they might hold the alcohol for
later the more we can establish the better
anything else online?
the myth of Christmas was challenged even amongst
the Christians there is a group called Jehovah's
Witnesses they openly came out and other Christian
groups came out against it and you will
see I remember years ago when people used
to read the Toronto Star nobody reads papers
now but every Christmas there is an article
editorial almost talking about the pagan myths so
it's known and it was challenged but it
was kept I think in America more like
a business thing they are making more money
now than they do for the rest of
the year so they want Black Friday Saturday,
Sunday, Tuesday, whatever as long as they can
keep the money flowing you destroy Christmas you
are destroying half of their income but generally
speaking more and more people understand that there
is so much confusion and sometimes Muslims are
more confused and innocent we are trying to
take on culture I'm Canadian now that's not
being Canadian that's somebody's culture you don't have
to do that to be a law abiding
citizen in Canada you can be a Muslim
don't be ashamed to be a Muslim another
question it's
changed so much originally the whole idea of
the birth of Christ the mother being a
virgin the real religious ceremonies there is some
truth in that next class I will go
into it a little bit originally there were
some traditions similar to ours but now the
paganism has taken it over so much it
becomes confusing and Muslim countries wanting to be
impressive to the west they just follow along
the west one year I was taught this
class on the myth of Christmas we stopped
in Abu Dhabi they had the biggest Christmas
tree on earth this is Muslims the biggest
Christmas tree on earth this thing is a
pagan symbol in the house symbolizing life inside
your house it's like an amulet but they
wanted to impress the west and they have
more extra money than anybody else so they
had the biggest tree but we have to
separate and be clear and distinct especially with
the younger generation last question Arius
was 325 that was before we are going
to break the class now the Isha prayer
is going on I will be here for
a little bit longer if anybody had any
other questions the official class is over now
we will see you again next week have
a safe journey home