Abdur-Raheem McCarthy – What Should We Do With Our Children On These Occasions

			The last question is, you know, people ask about the difficulty when it comes with their children
because the children see, other Muslims have, especially this is in the West for us. And the ones
who see you, they see the other ones celebrating and having fun, they're having gifts and things
like this. A lot of times this comes back to living in poor Muslim communities, where we don't have
any alternatives. And it's very, very important that we have alternatives to make our children enjoy
our celebrations. And I'll give you an example. When I arrived in the city that I live in, in
Waterford in Ireland,
		

			there was nothing for the eighth, the kids, they would give them, you know, some sweets, and that
was about it. So I sat down with some of the brothers and some of the sisters, I said, Look, we have
to make a celebration. And we have to make it as big as possible and as beautiful as possible. And
from there, we had, you know, brought in the bouncy castles and making the balloons in the face
paintings. And it was a huge celebration for the kids with the sweets and the food. And then the
food for the brothers and the sisters. And people really enjoyed it. Even the people were saying if
it costs too much money to do to eat, just do what I said, No, this is a must for our community, we
		

			have to do it Alhamdulillah after that the kids really started to enjoy, they start to really
benefit from the eat so much so that they found as an alternative. So the ones who were influenced
before we want to celebrate these other holidays like Christmas, they had no need for it. Like, I
don't need any more because I have my eat have my celebrations. So we have to find the alternatives.
Secondly, it's very important that when we're living in the West during the season, where we're on
vacation, and we're on holidays, that we benefit from the alternatives that we have in a humbler,
when you look in the UK, you look in America, Canada, Australia, other Muslim, any non Muslim
		

			countries, but where we have strong Muslim populations, you'll find that the Islamic Center has many
of them anyways, they have beautiful programs, for example, we have during the days of family
retreats, where families go out and you're told the Muslim environment, we have different
		

			retreats, we have all kinds of lectures and events in the masjid. So we needed to take advantage of
this time this season, to have other alternatives for our kids to have fun and to enjoy themselves.
Because when they go back to school, and John and Sally, they're talking about, you know, we got
this gift. And we did this, that we say that we get our gifts during aid. But nonetheless, we had a
lot of fun over the over this vacation period as well, because we did this and we did that and went
on this trip and that trip. So we benefit from these times, and with our families and having fun
alternatives of Halal things, not celebrating their things. We're doing our own things in our Muslim
		

			communities, and Muslim events and genitalia. And this brings us to the end of this lecture where
hope is clear now to all of us from the statements of the scholars who went into depth explain to us
from the Quran, and from the Sunnah, and from the consensus and the statements of the prominent
scholars of Islam. The rulings when it comes to celebrating, or taking part or attending or greeting
non Muslims during Christmas or in any of their religious holidays. And like we said, this doesn't
mean this because we don't celebrate these holidays, we don't take part that we are against our non
Muslim neighbors and colleagues and our communities. In fact, this is something that is very far
		

			from the truth and something we always call to in our lectures is that it's upon us as Muslims in
the west, to be part of our community and to take part and have strong roles in our community to be
positive and productive members of society. But at the same time we hold firm to our religious
beliefs and we do not celebrate other religious beliefs or other festivals which go against what we
believe in and and if anybody has anything they didn't understand or something they'd like to add or
question you can contact me on my Facebook page or my Twitter page and Chautala and I will get back
to you and we can discuss these issues together. May Allah subhana wa Tada blessings and Baraka, it
		

			was said to me a little benefit as for was said, May Allah help us and assist us in being from those
who implement the Quran and the Sunnah on the understanding of the scholars of Islam, the true
scholars of Islam and implement that in our lives, and Allah knows best Allahu Allah. Wa sallahu wa
sallim wa barik ala Nabina Muhammad wa salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh