The Historical Origins of Christmas

Today As you're all aware, it is our national holiday. There is nowhere else to be all restaurants are closed, shopping centers are closed. So we have nothing else to do other than come here and inshallah to Allah not only increase our Imam by praying together by remembering ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala but also by educating ourselves as Muslims about what we believe, especially for our youth, our children, they need to know this, what do we believe about Isa Jesus? And what do we do as muslims when a person we're also respecting and venerating Jesus Christ, he is being celebrated but in a way or a manner that we don't agree with. So today I wanted to therefore, talk very plainly

very boldly about how Muslims should view this celebration of Christmas and of course primarily as you know, this is really meant for primarily our youth, but inshallah everybody will be inshallah educated and learn something about today's today's festival. Now, of course, for us as Muslims, the key question is as follows. This is the question. We all know, Jesus or ISA did not preach anything of what modern Christians believe about him. Jesus never taught the Trinity. Jesus never talked redemption, Jesus never taught the 25th of December as his holy day and festival, yet the bulk of those who follow Him are believing and doing things that he did not do. So, we as Muslims should

understand and learn where is this coming from? Where what is the origin of these ideas, these beliefs and obviously, today's 20 minute lecture is not going to be a full you know, survey that that will take many many dissertations many many lectures and there are many books out there I'll recommend one of them inshallah today, but very briefly, just so that we understand what is going on. We of course, believe Isa, his Arabic name is Risa his Aramaic name is Esau. And of course, it has been Latinized to Jesus. If you call Jesus Jesus, he wouldn't even recognize the name because the job letter did not exist in his language. He never called himself Jesus. This is a Latinised

a lotta nice transliteration of Esau, he saw is most likely how he pronounced it in Aramaic, and in Arabic Isa, so we all believe that a seven Imodium, Jesus, the son of Mary was one of the most blessed human beings to ever walk the face of this earth we believe he was one of the mightiest prophets. We believe ALLAH chose him. We believe that out of the five greatest messengers, our profit system and Jesus are amongst them. And we believe that the Prophet Jesus had one speciality no other human being had at all. And that is he was the only human being to be born without any male intervention, no male intervention and the mother who gave birth to him. We also believe as Muslims,

she was the most pious lady in all of human history. She's so pious, The Quran mentions her by name, and does not mention any other woman by name. The Quran does not mention any other lady by name. She's so holy. There is a whole chapter of the Quran Chapter 19 called meridiem. So Mary, Madame and of course, even Mary is an anglicized Latinised, her name was medium or medium. The Aramaic would be medium or medium. And, of course, Mary is again the Latinized version. We believe that Maria was the most pious lady to ever walk on the face of this earth. And she was raised in the temple. She was raised in the Temple of Solomon, the aunt, where we now of course the Masjid Al Aqsa is that which

is holy, for all of us. It was holy because Allah made it holy. She was raised there as a child, her whole life. She was worshipping Allah, she never lived and interacted with society. She was raised as a worshiper, and her whole life was just a bada. And the Quran tells us that there was no need to even bring food. Allah would feed her directly when her uncle's Korea would bring food to feed her. Lo and behold, there would already be beautiful sumptuous food over there. And Zekeriya would ask where's this food coming from? And Madame would say, Allah, you just gave it to me. It's right there. It's not even something that she needed to have. So in this story, as we know, Risa was born

a miraculous birth. Maria was shocked. How am I gonna give birth I have never been married. I've never been with a man. And Allah said through Gibreel that this is the decree of Allah coolfire. Kuhn, you will give birth without any male intervention. So she leaves the town because she doesn't want people to suspect or what is going on with her pregnancy. She leaves the town she gives birth, and then she comes back into Jerusalem and she has the

Baby. And the priests recognize this is Miriam, who we raised in our temple, the priests recognize what are you doing with the baby? And they said, your family as a holy family, we never have thought that you would give birth outside of marriage. How can you have a child outside of marriage? And because Allah had told her through Jibreel, you're not allowed to speak. She could do nothing other than point to the heaven and to the baby, meaning Allah gave me the baby, but you couldn't say anything more, and they didn't get the sign. I mean, how would we get such a sign? They didn't get the sign. And so Allah blessed Isa, with the first of his many, many, many miracles. And of course,

that was that he spoke as a newborn. He spoke and he said, all that in the Abdullah tourney al Kitab. Allah need to be here. He said, I am Allah's chosen servant. He has revealed a book unto me and he has made me a Nebby and watcher, Eleni Mubarak and a NEMA come to he has made me blessed wherever I go. Allah's blessings will go wherever I go, there will be Allah's Baraka, which I didn't eat without a camera Quinto Sani was Salatu was the karate modem to a year and he has commanded me to pray and be generous as long as I live. What about rhombi Walidah T and to be good to my mother, this isn't isa giving a whole tuba as the baby Salah Zakka kindness to parents, this is generic

hotbar across all civilizations and prophets, Salah Zakah and be good to parents. And then he says was Salam o Allah Yeah, Yama will lead to what you're about to hear, and there shall be peace on me the day I was born. This is the real Islamic Christmas. We don't need 25th of December I'm gonna talk about where they came from. We don't need it. Allah has declared the birth of Jesus and the day he was born to be was salam, O Allah, your piece will be on me. This day, the day I was born, there will be Salam. And the day I shall die there shall be Salam. And the day I shall be resurrected, Allah Salam will be upon me. And then of course we know that Jesus ASA preached for around 30 plus

years. And what did he preach? He taught the people of Israel, the children of Israel, that unless they repent to Allah, their status in the eyes of Allah would be gone.

They had committed too many sins. And Jesus said to them, I am the Messiah, and the Messiah, they were waiting for him, they were waiting for the Messiah to come. What is the Messiah? A Messiah is one whom Allah has chosen. And the Jewish people knew there would be a chosen one, there would be the best of their prophets to come. There would be a prophet like unto David because David is their main prophet, and like unto David, like unto Moses, there would be somebody coming, and there would be a number of miracles that he would do. When they saw the miracles, they rejected the Messiah, they rejected Jesus. And instead of supporting him, they made up lies, and they cause they

engineered the execution of Jesus in their eyes. They thought they had killed Jesus, but we don't believe this. We believe ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala saved him but the Quran has a phrase here. Well, now Cthulhu who mo Salah boo hoo, Allah can shoot Behala home, they neither killed him, nor did they crucify him. Now listen to the Quran. But it was made to appear that he had been killed and crucified. This is what the Quran says, While I can shoot be alone, it was made to appear that something happened and they thought Jesus had been killed and been crucified. And the Quran does not tell us what this means later or there might have given interpretations. And there are a number of

interpretations. We don't want to go into that today. But we firmly believe the message of Jesus was follow the law that Moses gave you worship your Lord, be pious and righteous, that's it, nothing else. Jesus did not come with anything that modern Christians believe in that is separate to Judaism. In fact, Jesus was himself a practicing Jewish person. He was circumcised, He ate kosher. He practiced kosher. He practiced Jewish law. He did not work on the Sabbath, which is Jewish law, even in our Shediac. Allah says, We ordained for the Jewish people that they must worship on the Sabbath. What is the Sabbath, the Sabbath? Saturday, you're not allowed to work. You're not allowed

to do anything other than worship and vicar and not do any work. Not to any thing for your risk for your sustenance. You're supposed to take it as a literal holy day, you're supposed to just do a bada and that's it. And Allah says, We ordained the Sabbath for the Bani Israel. So it's there for them. Jesus Himself worshiped the Sabbath. He did not work on the Sabbath, and he observed Jewish law. How did all of this

Ange what happened? Very brief summary. And every Muslim should know this, every Muslim should know this. There are two people you should know, that are the primary causes of the corruption of Christianity. And these two people, they helped formulate doctrines that eventually led to what we now do and Christmas. The first of them was Paul Paul. He is mentioned multiple times in the New Testament because He has authored more than a dozen books of the New Testament. Paul was one of the earliest converts, but he never met Jesus. He never saw Jesus, the actual disciples of Jesus, Paul does after them. He interacted with the disciples, he didn't interact with Jesus. And there's

clashes that took place between the actual followers and between Paul, read your Christian history, you will, early history you will know this. What did Paul introduce? So how did Paul become famous? Paul said he saw Jesus in a vision on his way to Jerusalem, he saw him in a vision, like he had a live interaction with him in a vision. After Jesus left this earth, Paul said, Oh, but I saw him and he told me you are, you know, the apostle, I'm sending you so he proclaimed himself that Jesus chose me. And when he began, came to Jerusalem, he began preaching a different version of Christianity. What did he say? So

Paul said, Jesus wasn't just the Messiah for the Jewish people. Jesus was the salvation to all of mankind. This is the fundamental difference. Paul is saying, Jesus was sent because Paul was claiming now that Jesus is meant for all of mankind, whereas Jesus himself and the Quran tells us, I had been sent to the children of Israel. Paul said no, he sent to the Romans as well. And he sent to the Chinese he sent to the Asian he said to everybody, and he came to abolish the law. You don't have to follow halal and haram. There is nothing halal and haram, there is no kosher, no Sabbath, no circumcision. You don't have to do anything of the laws of God. All you have to do is to believe

that He came to save you. This is redemption, they call it so the doctrine of redemption, and the abolishment of the law. This is coming from Paul, what happened? I'm just being very simplistic here. Christianity split into multiple groups. For our purposes, we'll mention two of them. There's more than two. For our purposes, we'll mention two of them. The first of them is called Pauline Christianity, Paul's Christianity, and the other is called Jewish Christianity. Jewish Christianity is Islam. What we believe Jewish Christianity is, we are the followers of Moses and Abraham and Jesus, we must follow the laws of God. We must be pious and righteous, we must pray we must give

charity. It's exactly what we believe. And these groups, there were multiple groups. They continued to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and they practice Judaism. Pauline Christianity, began preaching to the Romans, and began converting Roman pagans to Christianity. And in the process, a new theology developed this theology had nothing to do with monotheism, Trinity begins to be introduced other gods, there's multiple gods, there's not one that will lead heaven, there are three and Jesus and God the Father, and in early Pauline Christianity, some group said, Jesus, Mary, and God, the Father or the Trinity, I'm not making this up early Christian group, some of them said, this is the

Trinity. And others said, Jesus, God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, and other set others they had their different interpretations of how of how to understand the Trinity, until finally the second major figure comes along, and this is the Roman Emperor Constantine. So Paul, we're talking about around 4050 CE, like after Jesus Christ right of the Christian era, and then the Emperor Constantine around 300 CE. These are the two figures you need to know the Emperor Constantine coming 300 years after Jesus Christ. Now you have to realize another thing a lot of Muslims are not aware of this. Early Christianity was persecuted by the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is pagan. They believe in

Gods Jupiter and Zeus and all those holes uses the Zeus is the Greek god but they believe in the Saturn, for example, they believe in the Roman god Jupiter, they have the entire pantheon of gods and when Christianity comes along, the empire begins to persecute the Christians as heretics. In fact, I recited to slaughter borouge And Allah subhana wa Tada describes torturing of pee

pulled to death via fire. In the Surah Bucha, Allah describes that they made a big fire and they threw people into it only because they believed in Allah. If you look at the tafsir This is Allah praising the early true Jewish Christians, the real Christians, they were persecuted for their beliefs, and the pagans killed them. One of the worst emperors, his name is Nero Emperor Nero look this up in one anger, a fit that he had, he ordered all of the Christians of the city of the town to be gathered and use them as lanterns at night, pour oil on them, and use them as lanterns as lights. Literally, this is an some MUFA city and say the Quran is referencing that other facilities say

another Christian group was persecuted another time, but the reference can apply to both because it talks about burning to death, and the pagans would burn people to death that they considered heretics. So for 300 years, Christianity was a persecuted religion because it was persecuted. The beliefs and the doctrines were not codified. You didn't have famous Buddha and theologians writing treatises, it's underground, because it's underground. Christianity had many weird interpretations, because it's a hidden religion. It's not a religion that is public, and this facilitated bizarre beliefs facilitated beliefs of Pauline Christianity and others. When Emperor Constantine comes to

power, Constantine's mother was from this Christian sect, Pauline Christianity, Constantine's mother, his father was a Roman emperor, a pagan, his mother, as you know, the Roman Empress has plenty of wives and mistresses. So this particular lady was a Christian. And he was raised. Obviously, the father has so many children, he's raised from the mother, and it shows you the influence of the mother here. Constantine was raised by his Christian mother. And when he comes to power, he then makes Christianity the default religion of the Roman Empire. This is a key point in human history. One of the most important historical events we should all be aware of, is around

310 315 ce not Ah, not Hijra. See. This is 200 years before the process, I'm trying to figure out whether the Emperor Constantine officially declares that Christianity is the state religion.

And this is what provoked a mass conversion across the Roman Empire, up until 300 ce II, the bulk of Roman Empire is paganistic, England is paganistic Rome itself pips paganistic, Europe is paganistic in 310, or to be more precise, 314. See, Constantine comes to power and his most important decision. Christianity is now the religion of the empire. And because he's the Emperor, and because the Roman Empire is at its pinnacle, within two three centuries, paganism had died out. It took a while there were clashes, some of the pagans went to war with the Christians. England remained pagan for another two, three, the Nordic countries are in pagan further 500 years. So it wasn't immediate. It was not

immediate. It took 3456 centuries for the clash between idolatry and paganism. Pause here footnote, how long was the clash between Islam and paganism?

How long was the clash?

If you want to say 23, you're accurate, accurate, but the actual clash Yanni from the conquest of Makkah, basically, until all of Arabia accepting Islam is three years

from the conquest of Makkah, until there is no paganism in Arabia, it's three years in the lifetime of Abu Bakar. paganism is eliminated from Arabia, there are no out of machinery con. There are no out of any idol worshipers of a Latin or is that they're gone. Our religion took two three years has gone. Christianity took in some places in Norway. 600 years. The Vikings were pagan, and the Vikings attacked Muslim lands. The Vikings interacted with the salons. And they're pagan, they're not Christian. This is Norway. They're not Christian. So it took a while for Christianity and paganism to interact with one another, but the main decision was Constantine's Jade. Now Constantine what

does he do? Constantine had to decide which version of Christianity to follow. Because remember, we said there's multiple versions you still had, you still had Jewish Christianity, and you had Pauline Christianity, and you had others I don't want to go there. May Gnosticism and others are multiple strands. And Constantine decided to convene a group of Christian theologians in the land or the city of Nicaea, which is

is now in modern Turkey. Because Turkey back then, of course, Turkey is a modern name for it. Back then, that land was the bastion of Christianity. Constantinople was the capital named after himself. He's such a humble guy. He named the city after himself, right? Constantine, Constantinople, Istanbul, that was the capital. And they see as a distance away from their Constantine called the clerics, he wanted to call. And he basically said to them, This is what I want. And they then made forth what is called the Nicene Creed. And the Nicene Creed is the fundamental creed of Christianity that caused all other Christian movements to die out, including Jewish Christianity. What is the

Nicene Creed, there are three that rule in heaven, God, the Father, God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are not three, but one. This is the Nicene Creed. It's not in the Old Testament. It's not in the New Testament, as it originally was. This is the Nicene Creed. So the Nicene Creed, then the emperor said, any other version of Christianity shall be persecuted shall be expelled. So one remnant of that went all the way to under loose by the way, and that's why when Islam came to Andalus, they were still following a version of Christianity that was closer to Islam. And that's why so many Muslims and so many people converted and unbelievers because they fled the

Roman Empire. They fled as far as they could, how far could they go? They went all the way to Spain. And these were the Visigoths. These were they they followed what is called the Aryan Christianity, and Aryan Christianity is the closest version to Islam. When Islam came to Andalus. Aryan Christianity Islam is like, very similar. And that's one of the reasons why so many Andalusi Ian's converted to Islam, but that's another point not related to our talk today. So So Constantine, what did Constantine introduce? Constantine introduced the Trinity. Even Paul did not introduce the Trinity. Constantine introduced the Trinity. And Constantine introduced Christmas, and Constantine

introduced Sunday. All of this is coming from Constantine. What year is this guy's what year

325? Roughly? 325 330. Why Sunday? Because in paganism, see, Constantine was his mother's Christian, his father's pagan, so be very simplistic. He's, I'm being very simplistic. So an academic would be very angry at me now. But I'm being very simplistic here. He's kind of sort of merging the paganism of his father and the Christianity of his mother. This is too simplistic, but it's also true. It's not untrue. It's factually correct, because what is he doing? The Trinity is a pagan notion. Not even Paul has the Trinity. Paul does not talk about the Trinity. The Trinity is a pagan notion. Greek paganism and Roman paganism had a trinity.

So Constantine wanted something his people would recognize. Sunday was a holy day for the pagans. That's why it's called Sunday, son, meaning Son, and the Holy Day of the Sun. Sunday was the holy day of the Roman Empire. And so it was Constantine who said, for the first time ever, Sunday shall be the holy day for us new Christians. And ever since then, Christianity has said Sunday, otherwise, before Constantine, it wasn't Sunday, there was no Sunday. And where did then this? Also, by the way, some of the symbolism of the papacy and the clergy roles and the robes and all that some of this also comes from that timeframe, the liturgies and the some of the motifs of modern

Christianity, it comes from Constantine's timeframe, but for our purposes, we're talking about Christmas here for our purposes. What did what did he introduce when it comes to Christmas here? Why did he introduce Christmas? So he introduced Christmas, because around this time, was one of the most popular festivals of the Roman Empire, and it was called Saturnalia, the festival of Saturn Saturnalia, the festival of Saturn, and it was a festival of gifts and wine and merriment, and it took place around the winter solstice, what is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day of the year means the longest night, the shortest day of the year is December 2122. The

shortest day of the year, right? You all know this, the, the the days and the nights they change. And so in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day is 21st or 22nd. Around this timeframe, the Roman pagans would celebrate why would they celebrate that now the sun is becoming stronger. They had this mythology mythological notion that the sun the sun was a god for them. Remember, they worship the sun, that the sun comes weak and strong. We

weak and strong, that's what they believe. So the winter solstice, the weakness is over and the strength is coming back. And when the sun becomes strong, what happens? The crops will grow, and we're gonna get food. So they celebrated the coming back of the sun on the winter solstice, and therefore, around this time, December 22 23rd, eventually became 25th. This is why December 2015, was decided in this timeframe in Constantine's era, he decided this is going to be the holy day of the year 25th December, complete, straight out of paganism. 100%, no Christian before Constantine celebrated the birth of Jesus, much less on the 25th of December. This is completely a pagan idea, a

pagan notion that he's now again, he's trying to bring a hybrid because He wants His people to convert, what's the easiest way to convert? You package something that they understand. So the Trinity they understand it, and the symbolisms they understand it, and the Sunday they understand it, it's the same day it's just different gods No, you just do the you holy day hold the the and the Saturnalia festival, we will convert it into what is now called Christmas. But by the way, footnote here, not every Christian sect is exact on the date, the timeframe is the same, but exact dates are different. So for example, the Armenian churches, January 6, the Oriental Orthodox is January 7, and

the Eastern Orthodox is January 19. So there's different days but the season is the same, ie the sun is coming back, the sun is getting stronger. So all Christian groups that celebrate Christmas, are actually celebrating the return of the sun and the strength of the sun, SUN Su and not so Ensign, right, Sun Su and the sun. It goes back to this pagan festival and Saturn in particular Saturnalia, Saturn was the god of agriculture. For the Romans. Saturn was the god of agriculture. And so that's why the festival was called Saturnalia. Now another point that you should be aware of. By the way before we move on, the book I want to recommend for you is a very important book and it's very easy

to read. Very, very educational book before I move on to the issues of Christmas. The best book I can recommend for every person to read is written by Bart Ehrman B AR t h r ma N Bart Ehrman, he's written 12 best selling books. One of the best ones is how Jesus became God, you will find it for $5 on Amazon a used copy. And it's actually very easy language even though he himself is an intellectual but he wrote this book for the average Christian the average person to understand and his story is also very story very interesting and his ideas of Jesus are literally as if they are Quranic. Literally, I even asked him, I met him once I asked him how do you explain your research

and conclusions matches exactly with the Quran? And he didn't have an answer to me and he just said, Well, he didn't have a direct answer to me. I make dua for him. Honestly, he's such a, his research is so close to what we believe. And it's amazing to me that he hasn't converted yet. And the Quran actually mentions this reality what reality that your version of Christianity is not from Jesus. It's from different people in Surah tilma Aida, Allah says, Allah Hillel Kitabi, Lata Hulu feeding them are children of the book. Do not exaggerate the status of Jesus in your religion. And don't say about Allah accept the truth. Wala tiberiu wa Coleman, a double lumen blue Waldo Luca Theon Waldo

unserviceable do not follow the false opinions of other people who went astray took others astray, and they became misguided from the correct understanding. Allah literally calls Christianity the misguided opinions of other people. The Prophet sallallahu sallam was at a time in place. Nobody knew this history. Everybody thought Jesus taught Christianity. Everybody thought this nobody did the research was not there. And Allah says these ideas are not coming from Jesus. These ideas came from people miracle they came after Jesus and they invented these doctrines. And literally you can pinpoint now that we have all this information you can pinpoint to this reality now very briefly

before we conclude because I know mashallah all of you here also for the samosas and Chai I know that as well inshallah. So let's finish up inshallah as well, very briefly just out of interesting sake, that okay, we got the idea of Sunday where it came from, we got the idea of of Christmas, where it came from, but how about the motifs? How about the symbolisms, the, you know, St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus and the elves and all of this, how is this coming about? This is another interesting story, and it shows you that actually modern Christianity is a hodgepodge. A mixture of ancient Paganism, European mythology, you know, different things come

together, there's nothing of original Jesus. So when Christianity spread to Europe, the Vikings you all know the Vikings, right? Famous people, right? The Vikings had a whole different mythology then the ancient, the ancient Romans, and of their mythology, the Vikings were Celtic people, they had a whole different mythology. And they believed in the God Odin, god of war, and they had their own, you know, sacred symbols. Now, the Vikings believed that the god Odin during the winter solstice would actually come to the peoples and give them gifts. And he would use reindeers because they're up in the north, the Vikings, so they had this image of their God and their God. They portrayed him

as an old man with a big beard. They portrayed their god is an old man with a big beard. That's our version, the Christian version of Santa Claus. This is where the reindeer comes from, as well. Because again, Americans reindeer, come on What is reindeers the Nordics. It's the Celts, it's the the P the Vikings, right? So when they converted to Christianity, again, they added their twist, and they brought in the god Odin, and they brought him the reindeers. And this became eventually, there was a version of Christianity that they also had their version of this is getting I'm going to confuse you because multiple legends coming together. There was a sect of Christianity that

venerated a saint called St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas. And St. Nicholas was known to be very generous, and he would give gifts to the children. So St. Nicholas become Santa Claus. The god Odin becomes the figure, and the reindeer and all of this put together along with the 25th winter solstice of, of constant Constantine. And slowly but surely this mythology comes up now, haven't other Christians seen this? Yes, they have. And that is why very interestingly, that is why a number of early Christians were anti Christmas. In fact, this is something we should all be aware of. When Europeans first came to this country, our high schoolers know, what version of Christianity did they follow?

Which version of Protestant

puritanism England the Puritans are high school kids know this. Our uncles and aunties haven't studied, understandably, you have a different that's fine. That's that's the way it is.

Our high school kids told us the first version of Christianity where the puritanical, the Puritans, the most hardcore. They were the ones who founded New England, Massachusetts, whatnot. In 1659, listen to this. The governor of Massachusetts enacted a law declaring anybody who celebrates December 25 is going to be find.

Why?

Why? Who can tell me why?

Because they said it is a pagan festival.

I'm not you can look this up the Puritans in Massachusetts. They had a decree because you have to realize before America was founded, you had the Christians here, and they wanted that portion of land to be hard, strict Christianity. And that's why there were 13 colonies. Every colony had different stripes of Christianity, you would migrate depending on which version of Christianity you followed only in the 1770s when the Founding Fathers said no, no, we don't want religion. We wanted to be a secular state, the actual original people, they had a very strict interpretation. And so the Puritans of Massachusetts were the most hardcore, and they made a law if you celebrate Christmas, we

will find you penalize you any decoration. It goes into detail. You cannot hang this, you cannot do that a long, detailed list. If you had a Christmas tree in Massachusetts, the police would come and arrest you and find you. Why? Because this is a pagan festival has nothing to do with Christianity who I'm not saying this. Puritans said this. So then how did it become mainstream? Well, where did the notion of St. Santa Claus will not come from from Northern Europe, from Norway, and that spread to other regions in particular than Germany and Germany was the primary place where this notion of Christmas and Santa Claus and whatnot comes from. And in fact one of the main catalysts Believe it

or not, very interesting. One of the main catalysts how it came about just interest interesting story is actually Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria, why Queen Victoria. So again, an interesting tidbit here, Queen Victoria and the

Royal Family of England. Where are they from?

Where's the royal family of England from England? No, they're not from England. Germany? No, not Scotland. Germany. A lot of people don't know this, the Royal House of Windsor. It only changed this name in 1917. Because of World War One. And World War One. This is a whole different tangent, but just an interesting you should be aware of it in World War One, because the Germans and the British are fighting. The royal family is a German royal family, you know, the British royalty. They're all interconnected to one family. Every one of them. They're all distant cousins and whatnot. The royal family of England is actually German. Queen Victoria spoke only German for the first part of her

life. She did not speak English as their first language. The royal family is German.

In 1917, because of World War One, they changed their name from some German name, I forgot to the House of Windsor to make it sound like British. The House of Windsor is pure German 100%. They are German, German. And so Queen Victoria, her festivals are German. And so when she became queen, the they didn't have photographs. They had lithographs that had paintings, and they had those things that printed in papers. So they made a postcard of her and her husband with all of the kids and their German, Christian, you know, decoration.

historian say that postcard, I think was 1840 something. It went viral because it was a very beautiful postcard. You have the queen, you have the the her husband, you have all the children, and you had the Christmas tree, and you had the gifts. This is when the Christmas tree and the gifts are introduced to the rest of Europe. Because when the Queen does it, everybody wants to do it. Right. And from Queen Victoria, it came all the way to America as well. The Puritans are long gone, this is 1600. Now it's 1850. This is a modern people. And so slowly but surely it now spreads. And it is what it is. But still there are some Christian groups such as the Quakers such as the Seventh Day

Adventist they consider Christian Christmas to be a pagan holiday, and they do not celebrate it. And there are many Christian genuine believing Christians are either trying to be pious people who who bemoan the fact that Christmas has lost all spirituality is just a festival of pleasure of shopping of materialism, and there's no spirit of giving to the poor and whatnot. And this is actually a fact. So I'm going to conclude on this point. And that is, what do we learn as Muslims from all of this, we learn how easy it is that ideas can creep in. And Christmas is actually a mixture of at least four different you know, strands of paganism, at least four if not more. And slowly you know,

we have the Nordics here, the ancient Romans here and this there the Germans here because I forgot to tell you the mistletoe is German. The mistletoe is the German the reindeer is Nordic. So everyone has its own little thing coming in. You know the gifts coming from here St. Nicholas is from Turkey. To the Kia we say he's from Turkey is from Anatolia is the term there. So everyone's coming from a different thing. But this is the reality of modern beliefs which is why we as Muslims, we thank Allah Alhamdulillah our religion has been preserved. To give you one simple example. Christians were debating who God is in 320 after Jesus Christ, how many gods who is by 300 Hijra. The schools of law

are all codified. The books of Hadith are all written the books of tafsir are done. We have no equivalent Alhamdulillah our religion has been preserved from the beginning. There was no major controversy over God to this day, the Muslim ummah does not differ over God. Yes, we differ about the Sahaba we know this, but can you compare to Christianity there are differing over who is God, the nature of God, how many gods who's the third of the Trinity, there is no equivalency, much less God, our books of Hadith and FCF are all compiled by 300 Hegira. Whereas Christians don't even know their version of God and hold holidays and festivals and whatnot. So no wonder when there was so

much chaos in the beginning. We have such you know, convoluted ideas that are so far removed from the teachings of Jesus Christ, and therefore to conclude, we thank Allah we have the truth and not only that, but we firmly believe that when Jesus comes back to earth, and He will come back to earth, He will recognize his religion and his teachings amongst us, and He will recognize us we are the real followers of Jesus Christ. And every person here when you meet your Christian friends, you need to say that to them, we are the real followers of Jesus. We love Jesus the way Jesus should be loved. And we genuinely celebrate his birth the way the Quran celebrates it was salam O Allah, yo mo

will lead to where Yama moved to or Yo Ma to Hey,

Yes, we are the followers of all the prophets, including Jesus Christ. So we ask Allah Subhana Allah to Allah to allow us to preach the truth to allow us to be role models for our fellow colleagues and citizens to allow other people to see the truth and beauty of our faith, which is our Kamala who Clara was salam ala come Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

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