Lauren Booth – Muslims And The Holidays Trap
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their experiences as Christian during the first Christmas season, including their belief in Christmas Day and the difficulty of traveling during the holiday season. They also acknowledge their past struggles with their parents' traditions and express their desire to convert to Islam. They emphasize the importance of being visible on social media platforms and sharing good wishes for their community.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum, I pray this finds you
well and blessed wherever you are in this
beautiful planet earth.
So as you can see this is my
festive season decorations and if you've watched my
previous videos you'll see that there's no difference.
So in today's video I'm going to talk
you through and share with you some of
my experiences as a convert to Islam on
changing Christmas for Ramadan and Eid and how
that feels and how that happened and also
to have some reflections as well if you're
Muslim on the confusion that is entering the
mainstream so much now about do we partake
or don't we.
Alhamdulillah this is all from my point of
view and I pray to Allah that it
is with truth and sincerity that we follow
our deen without it being influenced and changed
by other traditions whilst also remaining polite and
kind.
This is my 14th holiday season as a
Muslim and this is the first one where
I honestly can say that Christmas day passed
and I had to ask what day of
the year is it?
All of the other years I've been aware
and that is especially true of course when
you're in somewhere like London or especially if
you're in America or a Canadian Muslim it's
all around and for me I come from
that tradition.
I loved Christmas.
Christmas with my grandparents was special and they're
built into my hardwired into my memory bank
mashaAllah as happy times of year and then
when I had kids of course the dad
would dress up as Santa my granddad would
dress up as Santa loads of Christmas cultural
practices and we lived in France and we
had the special food and the family came
over and lots of presents for the kids
but even when I was a Christian I
started to feel a little bit sick about
the materialism that had crept in to what
was at the end of the day what
is at the end of the day a
religious time of the year.
Christmas celebrates the date when Christians believe that
Jesus peace be upon him was born and
not just born because we as Muslims acknowledge
that and we're very happy that it happened
alhamdulillah he is one of our most blessed
prophets he's so important in the faith of
al-Islam but what we don't believe as
Muslims is that he was born the son
of God and this again is one of
the first and primary places of note which
made me when I came to Islam go
oh I'm not coming to all that now
Islam is a monotheist religion that means we
have one God and we have prophets who
advise and give the message from God to
humanity but what we don't have is three
in one two on a Saturday and one
on a Sunday all built into one and
Jesus alongside we don't have any of that
confusion alhamdulillah so that was something that I
immediately began to feel uncomfortable with but I
didn't as a convert come to not having
Christmas straight away and I'd really like to
ask you if you're a born Muslim if
you're born into a Muslim family not to
be hard on new Muslims okay my first
Christmas I came to Islam in October December's
around the corner now I'm like oh my
god this is going to be really hard
on my kids they've got non-Muslim family
and non-Muslim father what am I going
to do how am I going to just
break them like this like mummy are we
still going to have Christmas it's it's it's
really hard to navigate that so the first
year may may Allah forgive me inshallah we
had a Christmas tree but I didn't buy
them gifts because I knew their their other
family would buy them gifts and I took
them to a couple of West End shows
like what was it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
I think was out there and and and
some ballet because we were because we come
from an acting family and that was our
tradition so they had their traditions and mince
pies and lots of smells and sounds of
Christmas around and then the next year I
took away the tree and we just had
some of the foods and the next year
after that it went and went and went
and until it was just their family their
non-Muslim family who hosted them at Christmas
time and the holiday season and that was
what they did and it just kind of
passed as an everyday thing for me well
that's not quite right is it Miss Booth
that's not quite right because what did I
do about my family what happened to me
um what was my relationship like with my
family over the holiday season well I was
soft on my kids I'm very hard on
myself and hard on my mum and my
other members of the family because I said
haram I'm not coming on Christmas Day I
might come on the 27th I'm not even
coming on Boxing Day because you're still going
to be believing it's around Christmas I'll come
on the 27th and I'm not doing anything
on the 27th like well that's your problem
not mine and I was really tough on
myself not kind to my family and soft
with my kids and I think that is
uh something that's something that um Allah knows
I had to go through and make do
before because I missed out four years with
my mum who died soon after um you
know died recently I should say and um
I think I hurt them and I don't
think I gave them a good appreciation of
what Islam is so again um be kind
to the converts around you and hard on
ourselves hard on ourselves in that we have
our own traditions and values as Muslims we
don't need to bring other people's traditions into
our houses any more than somebody um an
expat living in Saudi will we say to
them well you really should have Eid lights
up they'd be like yeah well we got
Christmas why do we have to do Eid
are you forcing us to do Eid you
know if the kids said to them well
Eid looks really fun and they get money
they'd be like yeah well we're not giving
you money just on some random day so
why do we do it the other way
perhaps because we don't is it because we
don't value our own traditions enough is because
we don't have confidence you know all of
these things they have to come with yakin
and a love for Allah and the Prophet
so all of these things all of these
changes have to come just because we love
our tradition alhamdulillah and we know it's enough
it's enough for our families Ramadan is just
around the corner this year what is it
68 69 days from this from the Christian
holiday season a couple of months away and
we have a whole month of you know
impactful moments with Allah and remembrances to do
followed by a huge holiday two to five
days depending which country you're in mashaallah to
barakallah we have enough in fact if you
think about it we have more one of
my favorite holiday seasons since coming to Islam
was actually with a very learned sister from
the north of England and she's a convert
as well and she was like well you
know what I like to do a dinner
on Christmas day because that's our tradition and
there's no harm in it and so I
went around to her house I was lonely
one Christmas my kids were away and we
had all roast and all the trimmings and
we cooked together and we even had crackers
I don't know that's kind of taken from
their tradition may Allah forgive us okay you
can you can do haram police on me
for that but the basics of getting together
and having a nice time when it's when
it's an extended holiday are really important and
that was my takeaway from someone who knows
their deen mashaallah and intention the nia is
really really important but what we don't need
to do is copy and we don't need
a pretext to to bring something that annoys
Allah and confuses our children into our house
so that's the advice I gave to myself
and some reflections I hope they're useful and
if you're a Christian just know this that
in the holy land these are very very
different I know there that the Christians and
Muslims in say Syria in Palestine they've always
wished each other well at these times of
years but there's a lot of love between
these communities at their celebrations but you know
what those are ancient communities we in the
west don't have that excuse yeah we are
Muslims who come from a Muslim country to
a non-Muslim country and we have our
own traditions so we need to be around
that whilst being polite and loving to other
people that said we have a place in
society and the Muslims in London and in
Wales in different parts of the UK that
I know often give themselves to soup kitchens
at Christmas to feeding the poor we have
a role to play in us in these
societies and that's to beautify and to help
and when my kids were smaller I used
to make fruit cakes and deliver them to
all of our neighbours at this time of
year not to celebrate with them but to
give them some love and kindness and to
wish them well the holy Quran advises to
you your religion and to me mine that
doesn't mean go your separate way and we
don't speak it means I wish you well
on your path but your path is not
my path and my path may not be
your path I wish you well if you
like these videos and find them useful it's
great if you subscribe it's really important for
us to be visible on these platforms spreading
love and hope and joy all year round