Can I Give Thanks & Throw Down on Some Turkey this Week?
Question
Can I celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents? I converted a few years back and it is very important to them. Things haven’t been great since my reversion. What are your thoughts?
Answer
There is a legitimate scholarly difference surrounding this issue. Those who hold such celebrations as forbidden do so contending that such celebrations are “religious in nature” and amount to imitating the religious rites of others. One of my teachers, Shaykh `Abdul Jalil al-Mezgouria told me, “There is nothing religious about this celebration.” In fact, I remember him giving a khutbah about it a number of years back.
Some Background
Those who contented that such celebrations are permissible, do so contending the opposite: such celebrations are not religious in nature and that the origin of things is permissible unless explicitly forbidden. Sheikh al-Qaradawi stated, concerning Mother’s Day, there is no way he considered it forbidden. He based his contention on the legal axiom: “Nothing is made forbidden except with a clear text.”
It is well known that al-Rajabiyah was a holiday observed by the Arabs before for the time of the Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) up until the third century A.H. and the jurist differed on its ruling. The Hanabalis considered it permissible, while the Malikis held it to be disliked.
Those who hold it permissible also note that the statement of the Prophet ﷺ, “Our holidays are two” is not a prohibition to celebrate other holidays outside of the religious sphere.
The Indigenous Imperative
As a convert to Islam and based on my humble legal training, I agree with the second opinion. Many of us, those of us who have converted to Islam, can use these moments to share the beauty of our faith with our families and loved ones in an non-hostile environment. Perhaps, by giving gifts to our parents we can heal wounds, build relationships, and move forward. At the same time, such celebrations are based on the foundations of our faith: honoring one’s parents. Therefore, we should engage such holidays with the intention of fostering noble relations and spreading the beauty of our faith with others.
Allah knows best.
Tweet This
Share on Facebook
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
Aswk
Why do we require a holiday like thanksgiving or any other non-muslim festival to forge better relations with our non-muslim family? Allah SWT has given us other days in which we can invite them or go to their place to sit, talk and enjoy with them and hence improve our relationships and consequently invite them to Islam.
JAK
I concur in part. The original intent of this day is not was not to give thanks with a turkey or raoming chicken. Instead it was a day resulting from landing on a land that wa thought to be non-existent. those who landed were sentence to death on the seas for crimes against the spanish government. they happened on this new land a apeople their and in their joy decided to take some of them back home to prove their clain to the sentencing government. this acquisition almost certainly meant enslavement. Methods were devised which resulted in the contless loss of lives… thereafter, the day became a day misnomered Discovery and then of Thanks. So god has very little to do with this day, and i see no reason you should equate the two. eating then, is not only fine, but normal…