A Day of Love or a Day of Lewdness?

Before you dress up all red, carry that little present with red hearts on it, along with a red rose (maybe some red balloons too) and celebrate with your “valentine”, how about going through its origin? Can’t hurt, right?

HOW IT STARTED:

Valentine’s Day is a Roman festival, which continued to be celebrated until after the Romans became Christians. This festival became connected with the saint known as Valentine who was sentenced to death on 14 February 270 CE.

If you look into its history, this day takes its roots from one of the most unprincipled and disreputable pagan festivals – Lupercalia. This festival was held by the Romans in the honor of their god of fertility. “Purification” rites were held  and goats and dogs sacrificed and women were flogged with their hides, in the hope of “purifying” them and making them fertile.

Another tradition suggests, February was also sacred to Juno Februata, the goddess of febris (“fever”) of love, and of women and marriage. On February 14, small pieces of paper, each of which had the name of a teenaged girl written on it, were put into a container. Teenaged boys would then choose one billet at random. The boy and the girl whose name was drawn would become a “couple,” joining in erotic games at feasts and parties celebrated throughout Rome. After the festival, they would remain sexual partners for the rest of the year. This custom was observed in the Roman Empire for centuries.

Not the kind of romantic origin you expected, eh? In fact, quite disgusting! Many traditions suggest Mr. Valentine was actually looked down upon, for having multiple extra marital affairs.
 
THE ISLAMIC VIEWPOINT:

“If you want to destroy any nation without war, create adultery or nudity common in the young generation.” – Salahuddin Ayyubi

Valentine’s Day is not an innocent day of celebrating love, rather it is promoting a culture which is resulting in increased divorce rates, broken homes and extra marital affairs.

Founder and CEO of Avvo, Mark Britton, said: “Over the past two years we’ve seen an average increase of 40 percent in the number of requests for divorce lawyers around Valentine’s Day, compared to the previous six months. Furthermore, the number of questions about divorce has soared 36 per cent during that same time. Indeed, there’s definitely a major Valentine’s spike when it comes to divorce.”

It is promoting loss of modesty among our youth at an alarming speed. People cheat on their spouses, all in the name of the day of “love”. Should real love result in divorces or heart breaks? In broken families? Is it worth being called love? Or should be it be called a day of uncontrolled lust or a day of breaking families, instead?

If “be my Valentine” is said to a relationship outside marriage, then it’s downright immoral and if your excuse is to use it on your spouse, then my advice is: use such expressions 24/7 around your spouse and not just for a day. 

All this pomp and show in the name of a man who is titled as a Saint! SAINT VALENTINE! Are saints supposed to be like this?

People might ask you to follow the fashion, even if it’s blatant disobedience to the Creator. They’ll ask you to do what the movies and the mags say: bid goodbye to morality. You are forced into thinking that you free.

Are you really free? Or are you actually enslaved? We don’t want this version of freedom.

Let’s be slaves not to the societal constructs, not to the mere ideas of men, not to the materialistic morality, but to Allah, our Creator, when you realize your position as a slave and His as the Master and when you stop taking orders from your nafs. It takes a real painful revolution within yourself. But once you go through it and overcome the evil within you, you are free. Because freedom is not in nudity or in chatting with cute girls – it is slavery. True freedom is only when you submit to your Creator.

So people! Celebrating Valentine’s Day is not permissible for a number of reasons.

Firstly: It is not permissible to celebrate these innovated festivals, because it is an innovation for which there is no basis in Islam. It comes under the heading of the hadeeth of ‘Aa’ishah , according to which the Prophet said: “Whoever introduces anything into this matter of ours that is not part of it will have it rejected.” [Bukhari and Muslim]

Secondly: It involves imitating the kuffaar and copying them by venerating that which they venerate and respecting their festivals and rituals. By the way, “Hey, it’s just for fun” does not validate it. In the hadeeth it says: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them.” Narrated by Abu Dawood, 3512; classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Irwa’ al-Ghaleel, 2691.

Thirdly: It results in evils and haraam things such as wasting time, singing, music, extravagance, unveiling, wanton display, men mixing with women, women appearing before men other than their mahrams, and promoting the “lust outside marriage” culture, which our religion looks down upon. Seek the many halal forms of love and halal forms of fun out there!

“And come not near to unlawful sex. Verily, it is a Faahishah (i.e. anything that transgresses its limits: a great sin), and an evil way” [al-Isra’ 17:22]

FINAL COMMENTS:

The media and the billboards are just pumping you up, as part of their “Let’s Attract-More-Customers” plan. More discount deals, more decorations and delicious cup cakes – it’s called consumerism. So don’t be swept away with the tide. Know your values and stand up for them!

Make sure you see the abhorrent nature of this day and save yourselves and your families from secretly becoming someone’s Valentine.

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