Celebrating Valentine's Day

14/02/2019| IslamWeb

Question:

Celebrating Valentine's Day has become widespread amongst young ladies lately. This is a Christian festival, during which rod clothes shoes are wore and red roses are exchanged. Kindly clarify the ruling on celebrating such festivals.

 

Fatwa:

 

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His Slave and Messenger.

 

Celebrating Valentine's Day is prohibited for the following reasons:

 

1.    It is an innovated festival that has no grounds in Islam, which makes it go under the ruling of the following narration. `Aa'ishah reported that the Prophet said: "He who resembles a group of people will be with them (in the Hereafter)" . [Ahmad and others].

 

2.    It invites to lust and encourages immorality, listening to music and intermixing between men and women, all of which is prohibited.

 

3.    It includes imitating non Muslims, and the  Prophet said: "Anyone who introduces in our matter (Islam) something which does not belong to it, will be rejected". [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

 

4.    It reflects glorification and acceptance of their religion, which contradicts the command of Allah not to accept other than Islam as a religion.

 

5.    It busies the heart with useless and attaches it to harmful matters, all of which opposes the practice of our Salaf (righteous predecessors) .

 

Therefore, it is not permissible to practice anything on that this festival day that reflects imitating those who practice it, whether it is regarding to ones food, drinks, clothes, gift exchange or anything else.

Finally, a Musim must have pride in his religion and should not be naïve and follow everything he sees around him.

Allah Knows best.

Fatwa answered by: The Fatwa Center at Islamweb