Why Don’t Muslims Celebrate Birthdays?

Accord­ing to the require­ments of Islam, sec­u­lar hol­i­days are not cel­e­brat­ed by Mus­lims who clear­ly adhere to dog­mas. Why Mus­lims do not cel­e­brate a birth­day is under­stand­able — this is a com­mon event with­in the fam­i­ly. Mus­lims do not think about whether they can cel­e­brate it in Islam or not. There is only one ansr — no, the Koran for­bids.

Peo­ple who have adopt­ed the Mus­lim reli­gion must nec­es­sar­i­ly adhere to the canons of Islam. If acquain­tances unknow­ing­ly con­grat­u­late a Mus­lim on his birth­day, he is not at all hap­py with the pleas­ant words of greet­ing, he may even be offend­ed, offend­ed. The Prophet Mohammed for­bids fol­lors from cel­e­brat­ing sec­u­lar hol­i­days, includ­ing birth­days, as he con­sid­ers this to be an imi­ta­tion of oth­er reli­gious teach­ings.

The birth num­ber of a per­son deserves spe­cial atten­tion among many peo­ples. The Holy Quran says that the date of birth is a remark­able event in a per­son­’s life. Hov­er, in Islam they do not arrange fes­tive feasts on these days. The Prophet Muham­mad points out that birth­days should not be cel­e­brat­ed, as this is a new tra­di­tion, and Islam rejects every­thing new.

The Qur’an is the best guide for Mus­lims, and it for­bids fam­i­ly hol­i­days. There­fore, Mus­lims do not cel­e­brate birth­days, they con­sid­er such a tra­di­tion to be a delu­sion, “infil­trat­ed” into oth­er reli­gious teach­ings.

The Prophet Muham­mad warns in his ser­mons against fol­low­ing the tra­di­tions of oth­er faiths. Mus­lims do not make hol­i­days on oth­er sec­u­lar dates. This would be con­sid­ered a vio­la­tion of the instruc­tions of the Koran. Hov­er, the opin­ions of mod­ern reli­gious schol­ars are divid­ed on this issue. Today there are two groups of schol­ars who have dif­fer­ent opin­ions on the oppor­tu­ni­ty for Mus­lims to cel­e­brate fam­i­ly hol­i­days.

1. Schol­ars who firm­ly rec­og­nize the birth­day cel­e­bra­tion as sin­ful.
2. Sci­en­tists who believe it is pos­si­ble to cel­e­brate birth­days.

Accord­ing to the first group of reli­gious schol­ars, a sin­ful vio­la­tion of the canons of the Koran is any kind of hol­i­day, includ­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of gifts. The sec­ond group of mod­ern sci­en­tists con­sid­ers it pos­si­ble in the cir­cle of a Mus­lim fam­i­ly, with­out the tra­di­tion­al pres­ence of women, with­out invit­ing guests to cel­e­brate the birth of the head of the fam­i­ly, old­er boys. For such a hol­i­day, Mus­lims must observe strict reli­gious rules:

• read prayers due to a par­tic­u­lar day;
• in con­ver­sa­tions, think over the results of the past year, ana­lyz­ing mis­takes, mak­ing plans for the com­ing year;
• do not refuse gifts that are giv­en by a non-Mus­lim who has only good inten­tions.

Islam­ic schol­ars are of the same opin­ion regard­ing gifts. This is not char­ac­ter­is­tic of Mus­lim dog­mas, there­fore, in the fam­i­ly, gifts are refrained from gifts on a spe­cif­ic date. But sci­en­tists advise Mus­lims work­ing in pub­lic insti­tu­tions with spe­cial edu­ca­tion not to offend employ­ees by refus­ing a gift or mak­ing unflat­ter­ing com­ments about it.

A unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for Mus­lims, giv­en to them by Allah, to gath­er with the whole fam­i­ly to cel­e­brate the anniver­sary of the head. At a fam­i­ly din­ner, the pres­ence of strangers, women, small chil­dren is not lcome. They orga­nize a feast for them­selves in anoth­er room. But every­one has the same goal — to all rel­a­tives to thank the Cre­ator for the life bestod on the hero of the day, for the long years giv­en to him, when he was able to thank Allah for the past years, as a spe­cial mer­cy.

When cel­e­brat­ing the anniver­sary, it is impor­tant for all those present to think about the pur­pose in the world, the mean­ing of life. Serv­ing the Almighty gives har­mo­ny, hap­pi­ness, keeps faith, love for the Lord. Qui­et con­ver­sa­tions about the mean­ing of life, about the achieve­ments of the hero of the day make it pos­si­ble to com­pre­hend many wis­doms, to pre­pare for sub­se­quent years, just as rich and pros­per­ous. Reflec­tions on the frailty of life give a sense of the val­ue of the great mer­cy of Allah Almighty.

As already men­tioned, the dog­mas of the Koran cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly deny the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cel­e­brat­ing. They are based on quo­ta­tions from the lead­ing books of the prophets, who con­sid­er it wrong to assim­i­late to non-Mus­lim tra­di­tions. There­fore, the cel­e­bra­tion is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly reject­ed as alien to Islam.

Reli­gious schol­ars who allow a birth­day hol­i­day base their con­clu­sions on quo­ta­tions from the Qur’an.

1. The Prophet Isa in infan­cy, thanks to Allah, spoke and said: “… God bless me … the day I was born …”.
2. One of the prophets ansrs the ques­tion about fast­ing on Mon­days: “It is … the day of my birth … sent down the mis­sion of the prophet.”
3. The birth of every per­son in Islam is rec­og­nized as a great bless­ing of Allah, who should be thanked for his appear­ance in the world, thank him for his mer­cy. This is not con­sid­ered a sin: “… the mer­cy of Allah … they will rejoice …”.

On the basis of these quotes, sci­en­tists do not con­sid­er it a sin to cel­e­brate, giv­ing gifts. Gath­er­ing for a birth­day in Islam is anoth­er rea­son to remem­ber, to rejoice in the life giv­en by Allah, it is bet­ter to real­ize the approach of death. In order to see the grad­ual, but inex­orable grow­ing up, to appre­ci­ate life lessons, to strength­en fam­i­ly ties, you can get togeth­er with the whole fam­i­ly — this is what the lines of the Koran say.