Celebrating the New Year ? Not for
Muslims !
Celebrating the New Year -?
January is named after Janus, the
Roman god of doors and gateways.
He was commonly depicted in
statues, carvings and paintings as a
two headed
man with one head facing forward
and the other head facing backwards.
In 46BC Julius Caesar chose January
1st as the first day of the New Year as
Janus symbolically represented the
door
to the New Year. Wild parties and
orgies were held on the night before
the New Year’s Day as a re-enactment
of the chaos which Roman mythology
depicted as preceding the cosmos or
the ordered world whose
organization was set by the gods.
Furthermore, by
that time, Janus had become, in
practice, the highest god receiving
the ritual sacrifices of Roman
worshippers before the other gods,
including the chief god, Jupiter. Thus,
in its essence the celebrations of the
New Year on January 1st and New
Year’s Eve, the night before, are a
part and parcel of pagan religious
rituals based on idolatrous beliefs in
false
gods. Consequently, it is completely
Haraam (sinful and forbidden) for
Muslims to participate in or adopt
any of its related rituals, customs and
symbols.
If a non-Muslim greets a Muslim,
“Happy New Year”, the Muslim is not
allowed to respond in a similar
manner or say, “Same to you.”
Instead, in order not to offend or hurt
the feelings of non-Muslim friends or
acquaintances, one may say instead,
“Happy holiday.”
As for celebrating the New Year
according to the Islamic calendar
which begins with the month of
Muharram, this is also not
permissible from a number of
perspectives. First and foremost, if
one does so believing that
it is pleasing to Allah to do so,
thereby transforming it into an act of
worship, it becomes a Bid‘ah or
cursed
innovation in the religion about
which the Prophet (pbuh) said,
“Every innovation in religion is
misguidance and all misguidance
leads to the Hellfire.” If
one does so merely as a custom, it is
still impermissible as it falls under
the prohibition of imitation of pagan
customs about which the Prophet
(pbuh) said, “Whoever imitates a
people becomes one of them.”
[1] Pope Gregory 13th who set the
modern calendar, the Gregorian
calendar, also officially fixed the first
day of the year for Christian Europe
as January 1st in 1582. U should learn
2 lay more emphasis on d Islamic,
Hijri calendar, bcus each month in it
contains a lot of medicines.