Since no more new prophets will come in the future, isn’t it OUR responsibility to be more conservative against adopting innovations and improvements of various kinds? Shouldn’t we be making every effort to avoid being of the 72 misguided groups and belong to the one guided group of the 73 mentioned in the hadith? Wouldn’t we be held responsible for doors we unknowingly opened for following generations?

I fully agree that taqwa and any level cautiousness would make one avoid using his left hand. However, knowing the opinion of some of the Shafi’is on this matter would make one proceed with more wisdom when advising another about this matter.

Actually I think Sh. Abu Majeed mentioned this point earlier (or maybe it was Sh. Yasir Qadhi–can’t remember exactly who), but we should NOT introduce any religious element into such holidays. For example, we should NOT make birthdays a time to recite certain Surah’s, etc., because then we would be creating a religious bidah and making a religious holiday, even though we are agreed that the Muslim only has three religious holidays, which are the two Eids and Fridays.

So I think it would be better to just celebrate birthdays as a purely secular day, without any religious connotation at all.

Fi aman Allah,
J

I like your pluralistic vibe but have some reservations. I was saying intentional. According to many scholars it would be makrooh to persistantly eat or drink with the left hand out of heedlessness of the Hadith. The reason for seriousness is the Hadith which states that a man told the Prophet (pbuh) that he can’t eat with his right and then he was not able to raise his left hand again. So it is in al-Ihya and al-Majmoo’ as mustahabbah to big Shafi’ee schoolars, but the opinion of Shafi’ee himself in ar-risaalah and al-Umm is Wujoob. This is because of the mentioned hadith as well as the one about Shaytan eating with the one who intentionally ate with his left. This is the majority opinion amongst the scholars. Even if it was Makrooh to eat with the left why would anyone intentionally do Makrooh as we know that from the stations of Taqwa is to obey and abstain from prohibtion regardless of the ruling?

Dear brother, the point of this article is to show that there is nothing wrong with christians starting a given tradition. the point is- Is it a tradition known (specific) for Chritianity? I have read some correlations as to how those who built America by genocide and displacement of the natives, but the vast consensus of the origin of this holiday is that some Pilgrims and Native’s got together to thank God in general for the harvest- kind of like the beginnings of US interfaith. In my opinion Eid Al-Adha is sufficient for Muslims in this regard but the issue is mainly with Muslims with non-Muslims in their families. So for them it is permissible based upon the texts and the overall point of this article with regards to non religous specific/representative customs. So no this isn’t a call for Muslims to go out and get a turkey on thanksgiving and watch the sooners and the cowboys battle in out in bedlam.

if you come to Florida, i will personally insha’Allah help you settle in!

On a more technical note: I have heard that amongst Shafi’i scholars drinking (and maybe eating-not sure) with the left hand is not haram but makruh. Just a point to take note of and perhaps research. I know that most other schools consider it haram and caution and taqwa should prevent anyone from using his left hand for eating or drinking.

However, knowing this fiqh opinion of (some) Shafi’is may make us more tolerant when for example, we visit Malaysia (mostly Shafi’is) and see many people drink with their left hands.

OK, so unlike my comment above, this one is about Halloween. There was a news article in the USAToday about Halloween being a dangerous holiday for kids, because, sadly, they tend to get hit by cars on this day (since they’re out in the streets after dark).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-10-26-halloween-safety_N.htm

I know Halloween is over this year, but insha Allah for next year those of us who are OK with celebrating Halloween, please be extra careful with your kids. And those of us who are not planning on celebrating, please be careful drivers (as Muslims, insha Allah we always are, unless it’s Ramadan, we’re ten minutes from home, and it’s two minutes to iftar

I don’t know if I saw anyone mention this, but I would like to know how much do intentions play in this? We are all familiar with the hadith about actions being my intentions, so I would like to know if it’s applicable in this case.

For example, during the Christmas season people tend to wish others a Merry Christmas. I usually say it back. Not because I’m celebrating, but because I want to maintain the good will.

So, why not give out chocolate to the neighbors as a sign of good will? (Of course, if one has kids this is probably difficult because the kids will then want to join in the fun, so that’s a whole other issue).

As for celebrating birthdays, I think Muslims have been debating this forever. And I think what happens is once we have Muslims kids many of us relent because we can’t stand to see their little sad faces when all their buddies are having parties and inviting them to come. And this is true whether the little buddies are Muslim or not.

Why not incorporate some Islam into your child’s day, talking about being thankful to Allah for making him/her a year older, and even reciting some new surahs for them (birthday Surahs . When we turned 13 my parents bought my twin sister and I beautiful Qurans. We had been making a big deal about being teenagers and being all grown up (man we were obnoxious!). So Mommy and Daddy explained that since we were now all grown up they had gotten us grown up Qurans, and we had a responsibility to read them. Twelve years later it’s still the only Arabic Quran I own.

I guess my point is that we need to find some sort of compromise (like injecting Islam as much as possible on these occasions for our kids), because it seems we have these same discussions every year, and everyone regardless of position makes some really good and valid points. But we end up not coming to a consensus. And then the whole discussion starts again next year.