Christmas and Muslims

Being born and brought up in a Western place can be sometimes difficult for someone who enters a Western place from a non Western country. For example, being a Muslim and coming into a place where Muslims are known as an ethnic minority. Most Muslims have to put up with the non Muslim ways and the whole Western style culture which includes the way of living.

I have a slight vivid memory of my childhood, especially when the days of Christmas came closer. I have missed some parts of my childhood and sometimes there are some things in my childhood that I remember clearly, even though they aren’t extremely important, and other memories are vague, even though for some reason I know they are important. I remember at the time when I was diagnosed with Cancer (leukaemia). When it would come close to breaking up for the two week holidays for Christmas, a tall decorated tree would stand in the hall with glimmering lights. And even at the hospital the nurses would be dressed all ‘Christmassy’ with their Santa hats or with elve ears and a day before Christmas Santa Clause would actually come to your bedside to give you a present.

I’m not quite sure who I am, so I will just say that I am a ‘Muslim British Female’, even though my background is Pakistani (there will be another blog topic post soon on ‘who I am?’ and it could be on something that you can relate to for your 'identity'). Anyway I didn’t really know what Christmas was all about, even whilst being a child I didn’t have a clue, to me it just seemed like a time where people would have fun and give presents to each other. I have no idea where the whole ‘Santa Clause’ theory is from or what exactly does a ‘tree’ have to do with Christmas or from the time Jesus was in this world. From attending a primary school that is known to be a Church of England School, therefore it’s a Catholic and Reformed school I eventually learnt that Christmas is celebrated for the birth of Jesus.

I knew that Muslims also believe in Jesus, but they do not celebrate Christmas and they believe that Jesus will one day return to Earth. The more I have been learning about Islam the more I have I learnt to be respectful and tolerant towards other religions, especially Christians as Christianity is the most common religion in England and the area I live in. Plus from having known many non Muslims and being brought up with a mixture of ethnic groups. I’m not quite sure if this has been a good thing for me as being a Muslim girl or a not so good thing for my present and future.

When I look at the way Christmas is celebrated nowadays and who celebrates Christmas exactly, it is hardly or nothing to do with religion, well for the majority at least. Sitting at the back corner of my religious studies class and the ‘non-believer’ girls talking about how they have to do Christmas shopping and how they have put up their Christmas tree made me question them. Yet they aren’t Christians, in fact they don’t believe in Jesus or have any faith in God, but yet they and their families celebrate Christmas like it’s just a normal fun thing. These were the words that a non-believer said to me when I asked ‘why do you celebrate Christmas when you are not a Christian?’ The reply was, ‘I celebrate it because it’s normal and its fun…even though I’m not a Christian it doesn’t mean that I can’t celebrate Christmas’– fair enough!

Maybe the media was to do with this publicity building up towards Christmas and putting it into everyone’s minds that anyone can celebrate Christmas if they wanted to, with the whole Christmassy movies, adverts, game shows, programmes, soaps, songs/music etc. There is very little focus on the great characteristics of Jesus and what we can all learn from his life.

Maybe those who don’t celebrate Christmas make their own fun out of it like my sister for example. She likes Christmas and she likes it only for a couple of reasons. Not for the whole Santa Clause or the tree or the presents and that. Instead she likes Christmas for the things they put on sale or offer at shops. She also likes it for the amount of movies they put on TV that she can record and watch and of course the holiday she gets off school.

The reality is that Christians and Muslim have lived in peaceful co-existence for centuries throughout the world. Even though Muslims and Christians share similar roots of history, there are still those perspectives that separate us. Like Muslims believe in the last and final prophet Mohammad (pbuh), Muslims believe that Jesus will return, that Jesus was a great prophet, they believe in the holy book Quran etc. Whereas Christianity believes that Jesus was God, he was God’s son; he died for all of our sins, they believe in the holy book Bible (there are many versions of the bible, e.g. The New Testament).

Even though I and my family do not celebrate Christmas, we do actually celebrate and cherish Jesus' birht and his life on Earth by truly loving him and trying to demonstrate his characteristics in my own life.