Greeting the kuffar on Christmas and other religious holidays of theirs is haram, by consensus, as Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimmah: “Congratulating the kuffar on the rituals that belong only to them is haram by consensus, as is congratulating them on their festivals and fasts by saying ‘A happy festival to you’ or ‘May you enjoy your festival,’ and so on. 

Well, there are a number of reasons why Muslims are prohibited from participating or even greeting others in Christmas or any other non-Islamic religious festivals for that matter. 

One reason that comes to my mind is Islam being a religion which celebrates the Unity of God like no other faith. Consequently, accepting Islam necessitates the rejection of all other walks of life or philosophical doctrines that do not cohere with Islamic teachings. This obviously does not mean that Muslims are intolerant of other people’s beliefs. It simply means that in matters pertaining to religion we can never coalesce with those who hold beliefs different to the ones Islam is a proponent of. Partaking in any non-Islamic religious festivities is therefore a tacit admission of the religious observances that the festival celebrates.

So, by participating in a festival which celebrates… say, Hanumans conquest of Sri Lanka, you would not only be supporting the notion that Hanuman existed and conquered Sri Lanka, but you’d also be celebrating his so called “victory”. Note, I used the word “support” and not “believe”, this is because participation in this scenario does not entail belief. It is possible to not believe in something but still support it.

This same idea applies to Christmas, a fete whose roots are entwined with the Pagan tradition of “Saturnalia”.

History of Christmas 

When was Eesa (peace be upon him) born? 

The popluar myth is that he was born on 25^th December in the year 1 C.E. The New Testament gives no date. The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus.  This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate. The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery.

How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

Roman pagans introduced the holiday of saturnalia. It was a week-long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. In this period the roman courts were closed and no one was punished for any crime. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.”  Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.  At the festival’s conclusion, December 25^th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

  In the 4^th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.  Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25^th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

The Origins of Christmas Customs

The Origin of Christmas Tree

The pagans had long worshipped the trees. And they brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

The Origin of Mistletoe

The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.

The Origin of Christmas Presents

In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors used to force their most hated citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January).  Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church adopted this custom by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas.

The Origin of Santa Claus

Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE. He became the bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6^th.  He was only named a saint in the 19^th century.   Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament.  The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.

in 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy.  There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children’s stockings with her gifts.  The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult.  Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans.  These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw.  Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn.  When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing. In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25^th instead of December 6^th.

Talking about the impermissibility pf other festivals. The worst of all of them is Christmas. The festival alone can make one a kafir. Just try to undertand the severity of this ayah when you celebrate and wish people, you can’t please people by displeasing Allah. Eesa (peace be upon him) is one of the Prophets of Allah. He was never his son and never ever a God. Allah begets not nor was He begotten.

And yes, Eesa (peace be upon him is going to return to the earth soon to affirm the same and to kill Dajjal Insha Allah. 

I would like to conclude by the Quranic Ayah, 

“The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits asunder and the mountains collapse in devastation. That they attribute a son to the Most Merciful. Al-Quran (19:90-91)

Reference 

Author not mentioned (28-03-1998). 947: Ruling on celebrating non-Muslim holidays and congratulating them

Retrieved from:

https://islamqa.com/en/answers/947/ruling-on-celebrating-non-muslim-holidays-and-congratulating-them

Kelemen Lawrence (n.d). The History of Christmas

Retrieved from: https://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm