Significance of Christmas - Dr. Bilal Philips

[Music] brothers and sisters we are within range of a classical example of innovation in religion leading to misguidance in six days time [Music] much of the world will celebrate christmas a classical example of innovation leading to misguidance christmas which even in this land muslims are affected by in ignorance not knowing the significance of the rituals and the various components of christmas we even find muslims adopting some of the symbols greeting their workmates their friends their neighbors merry christmas feeling that since the workmates will tell us happy eid mubarak and they don't necessarily believe in our eid why not also tell them merry christmas even though we don't really believe in their christmas there are a number of issues that we need to understand concerning christmas whereby having understood them it is possible for us to help guide our colleagues our friends our neighbors our schoolmates whatever to the truth about christmas most christians don't really know the truth about christmas so as we muslims are enjoined to seek knowledge as the prophet sallam had said and we spoke about that in previous in fact all of our various are expressions of seeking the knowledge understanding the religion whereas other religions people are discouraged from seeking knowledge they are told that knowledge will confuse them satan will use this knowledge to weaken their faith so better they just listen to the priest or the monk or the whatever and follow blindly he will guide you down the correct path but islam says no each individual is responsible to know his or her religion as thoroughly as is possible that is the responsibility of each and every individual but of course there are those who know more so where do we seek knowledge of the religion we don't seek it from our ignorant uh compatriots our ignorant colleagues were in the same state of ignorance as we are so it is the blind leading the bind no we do seek it from those who know as allah said fast ask those who know if you don't know don't ask those who don't know like yourself what do you think no we need to seek knowledge from the sources from those who have access to the sources so considering christmas christ mass christmas first and foremost we should understand was not a celebration taught by prophet jesus nor was it done by his disciples those who were around him the 12 and others they never celebrated it and he didn't teach it so in fact it is not from the teachings of jesus in fact even if you look in the books of the christians today in the gospels you will not find any mention of christmas there it was unknown not celebrated even in spite of the innovations of paul because christianity should more rightly be called paulianity not associated with christ but associated with paul because he is the one who molded christianity into what it is today a different interpretation of what jesus taught an innovation a series of innovations which he introduced but in spite of that christmas was not among them the paulie and innovations did not include christmas christmas was not celebrated in the christian world until more than 300 years after the time of christ why why didn't they celebrate it because fundamentally it was known that the celebration of birthdays was a pagan custom that's what we have to understand fundamentally why early christianity did not celebrate birthdays because of course this has its own implication on us celebrating our children's birthdays so okay we understand christmas but what about the kid's birthday all his friends at school are celebrating their birthdays he feels left out the teacher when he goes to school they get the the dates of birth of all the children and they identify whose birthday it is and they celebrate and everybody but when it comes to my son or my daughter theirs are not celebrated they feel left out well we have to say first and foremost brother you shouldn't have put your child in that school so don't compound your error by now celebrating your child's birthday so that he will be happy you have put him in that situation take him out if you want to correct it you take him out don't celebrate the birthday you made a mistake it's not too late recognize it for what it is and correct it so early christians didn't celebrate the birthday of anybody because the celebration of birthdays was known to be a pagan practice if you look at the old testament in the new testament the only place that you find celebration of birthdays was the celebration of the birthdays of the pharaohs the pagan rulers herod of palestine this is only associated with the pagans it was known it was based on the belief that the day on which one is born one is weakest this is the day when one is weakest and most easily affected by evil spirits so they used to burn candles to drive away the evil spirits light in the darkness the evil coming in the darkness the light drives away the darkness and that's why you see all of the celebrations has this principle of candles well now it's christmas tree lights those christmas tree lights were originally candles which were placed on this christmas tree they became lights modern technology and sometimes the lights are even in the form of a little flame some of them will flicker like a flame and all these other kinds because that was the origin of the belief so early christians didn't celebrate it 300 years after the time of christ a monk it said as haithian monk suggested that the date of birth of jesus was the 25th of december how did he come to the 25th of december no evidence in fact historians looking at the historical record according to the gospels concluded that it couldn't have been in winter december was winter because of other issues that they talked about in the gospels concerning the time and what was happening at that time it wasn't winter time at any rate 25th of december was chosen chosen when christianity now became strongest where in rome it had left the middle east it had left jerusalem the teachings of jesus were overwhelmed in jerusalem paul in southern turkey had become the leader of christianity he is the one who called the followers of jesus christians he was the first one to use that name it was never used before that jesus never used the term it was a paulian term christianity christians and from there it was taken to rome through greece and onto rome and as it traveled through greece and into rome it absorbed a variety of practices which were pagan in order to win over the hearts of the pagan greeks and the pagan romans they adopted a variety of teachings in greece they adopted the idea of the son of god the son of god the logos and in rome it was developed to the point where the day of worship shifted from the sabbath from saturday to sunday why because the most popular god of the romans at that time was apollo apollo according to roman mythology was the sun god s-u-n god who would drive his or ride his chariot across the sky carrying the sun behind him furthermore he was also the son of zeus the son of the main god so he was also the son of god s-o-n as well as being the sun god s-u-n and that's why the day for his popular worship was called sunday so when you say to somebody i'll meet you on sunday you're saying i'll meet you on the day that the god the sun god is worshipped so this change had taken place and in this context where so many pagan ideas were now being introduced the 25th of december was pulled out of the hat why the 25th of december why not some other day well if one goes back into the history of christianity into christmas you will find another term associated with christmas is called the saturnalia the saturnalia what is the saturnalia saturnalia was the day of worship dedicated to saturn saturn is not a planet yes it's a planet called saturn named after the roman god of the harvest saturn he was the god of the harvest so when the fields were harvested then rites of worship were dedicated to saturn that series of worship rites were called the saturnalia and it involved giving of gifts it involved carrying wreaths the holly the little red uh berries with a wreath of green leaves which is commonly associated you'll see with images of christmas you'll see this and they even sing about it deck the halls with bows of holly etc the song they sing in those it has to do this holly this wreath this was directly associated with the saturnalia and as time as christianity spread into europe it absorbed other symbols in scandinavia the scandinavians believed in tree gods that the gods inhabited the trees they were inside trees so if you wanted to talk to your god you would go to the tree and knock on it and then you would talk to god right and this is where the practice we now call knock on wood comes from when people says things are going well knock on wood find me some wood to knock on that's what it goes back to the scandinavian practice of knocking on the trees before talking to their gods this is all pagan at any rate the scandinavians where they looked at the various trees all the trees when winter came the fall came they call it the fall why because that's when the leaves of the trees would fall fall off as it started to get cold the leaves turned in color and then they fell off except for one tree the tree we now call the christmas tree this is the evergreen it stays green all year long so they felt it was the symbol of everlasting life because a god has got to be everlasting he can't be dying so they didn't choose the other trees they chose this one the one we now called the christmas tree and they brought small versions of it into their homes to worship and this is where the christmas tree came from so from a basic understanding of what is involved in the rights of christmas it is enough to say as a muslim it is not permissible for us to celebrate this celebration in any way shape or form with any of its symbols not acceptable furthermore from a religious perspective purely tawheed akida monophysi monotheism our fundamental belief concerning god being one and unique one of his attributes is what having no beginning as well as having no end is without beginning lam yalid is not born he doesn't give birth okay you lad nor is he born neither does he give birth nor is he himself born so on one hand he doesn't give birth he can't have a son because once you say son you're talking about a father and a son and the father and the son are not the same and if the father was a god then the son has to be a god so now you have two gods all kinds of problems come up with that furthermore nor was he born god is not born because for one to be born one had to first not exist and if god didn't exist how would he then come into existence it's confusion so one of the most essential characteristics of god is that he is without beginning meaning he was never born cannot be born somebody says to you can't god do everything and anything in allah we say yes allah is able to do all things which are befitting with him being god not included in that are things which make him no longer god we don't include that that's understood those are absurdities we don't include that in the general concept of allah being able to do all things so we don't go there couldn't god make himself bored no so the idea that god was born on the 25th of december because according to christian theology jesus is god he is the son of god and at the same time he is god that is blasphemy allah speaks about it in the quran saying that the the the heavens and the earth was about to be torn apart because of this statement of human beings that god bore a son that god was born so when we celebrate christmas we're celebrating the day on which according to christians god was born can a muslim celebrate the day on which god was born absolutely not absolutely not so we have to be very clear on this matter that for a muslim celebration of christmas is absolutely forbidden however as a muslim it is our duty to understand what christmas is about why muslims don't celebrate it and convey this information to our friends our colleagues our neighbors etc who are in ignorance they don't know we try to do so in the best way that we can we convey that information to them after that it is on them whether they accept and believe and or not this is up to them but it is our duty to do so and part of the celebration of christmas is to say merry christmas that is part of the rituals the customs of christmas so don't say i'm not celebrating meaning i didn't buy a tree i don't subscribe to the lie of santa claus because santa claus is a national lie something which the whole nation agrees on we're going to lie to our children and tell them this fat man in the red suit comes climbing down your chimney and putting gifts in your shoe your sock on christmas it's a national lie and then people wonder why they have a nation of liars where the president lies he gets caught in lies from time to time and it's not a big deal you shouldn't have lied but they accept it why because you're taught to lie from the very beginning you start by lying to the children and eventually the child finds out you hear people talking about it that traumatic morning when the child woke up early and came downstairs and saw mom and dad stuffing the presents inside of the socks shocking bringing kids to tears traumatic it's a big lie so besides that because the fact that we don't actually engage in that practice saying merry christmas in itself is a part of the rights of christmas so we're not even allowed to do that to say merry christmas of course we might find it difficult because our work makes the countries that say merry christmas what do i say now i'm not supposed to say merry christmas back to them what did i say you know have a happy holiday you can tell them that it's a holiday have a happy holiday find some other phrases to use which you feel comfortable with which don't include merry christmas and those who say well they say eid mubarak they just finished telling us eid mubarak for idul adha we say it's there's a difference there's a huge difference is celebrating something that christians believe in christians believe that prophet abraham was instructed to sacrifice his son and god replaced that sacrifice with a ram and he sacrificed it so they're saying idul adha in no way affects their belief system in fact they should feel proud to say edulladha whereas our saying merry christmas that strikes at the very core of our belief system two different things altogether furthermore if we actually get into the root of it the celebration of christmas is like the celebration of satan's day there are people who are called satan worshipers there's a church of satan in america recognized by the government there's a satan's bible the whole system is there you can go on the internet google satan's bible satan worshipers wikipedia will give you their history they are recognized now if one of those satan worshipers said to you happy satan's birthday do you have any problems in not saying happy satan's birthday to you also cool you don't have any problem with that that's obvious reality is that christmas is a celebration of satan's birthday because if it's not from god then it is from satan that's a general principle whatever is worshipped besides god is satan it's satanic of course when we're explaining to our christian colleagues we don't need to go there right because that's going to close ears nobody's going to hear you after that hey you're celebrating satan's birthday they're not going to be able to understand that it's a bit deep right and this is just for your ears for you to understand the roots of it why you shouldn't feel shy about not celebrating or saying merry christmas any more than you would feel not feel shy about saying mary satan's birthday to a satan worshiper so putting all this in context i ask allah to give us the strength of faith to handle this period which is coming before us to renew our faith in allah and in his oneness and to guide our colleagues and our friends and our neighbors to the truth about allah to remind them of allah's oneness and about the fact that he had no son he has no equal and he wasn't born and to affirm that faith ourselves in allah and to fulfill whatever that requires of us in our lives muslim i say that asking allah to forgive myself and yourselves and call on you to turn to him seeking his forgiveness as none can forgive sins except him having understood christmas it is also important for us to understand the islamic or we should say islamic let us call it the muslim substitute muslims seeing this fervor with which christians celebrated the day of birth of jesus christ the supposed day felt that since muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam in our belief system he was a greater prophet than jesus then shouldn't we celebrate his birthday if the christians are making such a big show shouldn't we do more do better so 400 years after the death of prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam muslims began to celebrate the birthday of prophet muhammad sallallahu it began in egypt as a national practice under the fatimids the shiite rulers of egypt they started it and the day they chose was actually the day historically on which prophet muhammad sallallahu salaam died the day on which he was born is actually not known though people say no but we know it is no historians are not agreed on the day we have no concrete evidence regarding the day on which prophet muhammad sallam was born the only concrete evidence we have is the practice of prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam to fast on mondays and when he was asked about fasting on mondays one of the answers that he gave was it was the day on which i was born he fasted on mondays so the only thing that we can say with certainty is that he was born on a monday which monday allah alone knows as allah hid the day on which prophet isa was born he hid the day on which prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam was born this was to prevent what has happened to make it difficult to leave evidence to people that people have gone astray in this matter but the celebration of the prophet saw sallam's birthday has no basis in islamic teachings beyond fasting on monday so as muslims this innovation which has become widespread beginning from fatimid uh rulers in egypt spreading over the umma today till now you have huge celebrations people going down the streets lights song dance you know the whole nine yards as they say going on in the muslim world today huge celebration the mauling people writing poetry pasira singing and music and everything all the forbidden things have now been lumped together in the mawlid all innovation is misguidance that's what prophet muhammad said regardless of people's intention but that's not my intention i don't intend to innovate i'm just remembering prophet muhammad salla is it a bad thing in the way that you're doing it is a bad thing it's not a bad thing to remember prophet muhammad tells us in the qur'an calls on the believers remember prophet muhammed by doing what by celebrating his birthday some people say yeah that's what the verse is really saying celebrate his birthday that is not what was understood by the early generation the early generation that heard this verse that recorded this verse they didn't celebrate his birthday so obviously that was not what was to be understood from this verse they understood as the verse clearly states that we ask allah's peace and blessings to be on prophet muhammad in our recognition for what he has done for us guided us to the straight path we ask allah to bless him not to celebrate his birthday with the fanfare that we do today it being innovation it is not surprising that it caused deviation so some of the poetry that is recited attributes to prophet muhammad saw assalam the knowledge of allah they give the attributes of allah to muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam in this poetry which they recite regularly religiously on his birthday and and on other occasions innovation misguidance calling people to the worship of muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and so we have muslims today who call on muhammad we see it in the masjids where they will put a plaque on one side of the mihrab saying ya allah and on the other side it will say ya muhammad what does that mean ya allah muhammad we understand ya o allah answer my prayers muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam yes but ya muhammad o muhammad what you're calling on him to do something for us people believe that today and that is misguidance that is shirk muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam can do nothing for us in this life he did what he did each and every one of us was accepted islam he is rewarded for because we are a product of his work so he benefits but he cannot benefit us directly in that we can call on him and he will answer our prayers and do things for us that is allah allah said call on me and i will answer your prayers only allah can answer our prayers this is the true islamic belief and this is what we need to renew put these practices back in their correct context no renew our relationship with allah a relationship of ibadah of worship in the purest way possible this is islam worshiping allah as he deserves to be worshiped i ask allah to give us the blessing of worshiping him as he deserves to be worshiped ask allah to remove from our hearts the innovations and the love of misguidance that has entered upon us ask allah to guide our families our children our ummah to the true worship of allah alone and to bring everything else in submission to it to return to this ummah its strength based on faith to return to this ummah its ascendancy and guidance to the world based on faith i ask allah to forgive us to forgive us our misguidings our misguidance our deviation and to bring us 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Channel: Bilal Philips

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Keywords: Significance of Christmas - Dr. Bilal Philips, x-mas, jesus christ, merry christmas, santa claus, december 25, Dr. Bilal philips official youtube channel, bilal philips, abu ameenah bilal philips, bilal philips khutbah, bilal philips sermon, islamiconline university, iou, bilal philips islam lecture

Id: qyXaR4XFE4M

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2018