After prayers at the mosque, Ibrahim Lo is off to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Soon he is eyeing the rows of dolls wrapped in plastic bags on a wooden table as he searches for gifts for his four children.

It looks a lot like Christmas in Senegal, where 95 percent of the 12.8 million residents are Muslim. Even the Grande Mosquee, or Grand Mosque, is aglow in holiday lights.

"When they go to school, the children learn about Santa," says Lo, wearing a flowing olive green robe known as a boubou. "We are born into the Senegalese tradition of cohabitation between Muslims and Christians. What is essential is the respect between people."

Senegal, a moderate country along Africa's western coast, has long been a place where Christians and Muslims have coexisted peacefully. Most Christians here are Catholic and live in the south of country and in the capital.

Still, not everyone in Senegal thinks embracing Christmas is all in good cheer. Mouhamed Seck, a Quranic teacher and imam for a mosque in a Dakar suburb, says taking part in the holiday is supporting a non-Muslim's religion. "Islam forbids Muslims from taking part in these festivities," he says.


"To make my two children happy, I buy gifts for them and ask their mother to prepare a very hearty meal but we don't go to Mass," says Oumar Fall, 46, who has a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old.

Santa Claus, known in this former French colony as Pere Noel, also makes the rounds at upscale shopping centers and grocery stores in the weeks before Christmas.


link: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/12/24/dakar-mosque-decked-in-christmas-lights-as-mostly-muslim-senegal-joins-in/