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As-Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu alhamdulillah wa salatu wa sallamu ala Rasulillah.

Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi waman wa l-ahmatullahi.

Today we have a very special Q&A and we're going to start off by asking Sister Kanwald's

question, I think from Canada, I believe, where she asks the Islamic ruling on celebrating

Thanksgiving. She asked this last month because Canada has Thanksgiving different than America.

And brother Imad also has emailed a few months ago and I'm combining both of these and he is saying

that can you please explain the ruling on various celebrations that we do here in America.

He's running from America and he begins with Thanksgiving, New Year's, birthdays,

marriage, anniversaries, holaweens, independence day, memorial day, etc.

And so today's question is going to briefly discuss the issue regarding celebrations

and participating in such celebrations. Now this topic is actually far more difficult and

convoluted than comes to first light. And before I even begin, I do understand because I have

so many diverse people who follow that automatically people are tending to be skeptical of the

entire topic. On the one hand, you have one group that basically says that isn't it a little

bit petty that people are asking you about celebrating Thanksgiving. And to that group,

obviously we're talking about Muslims here, I say well then where does one draw the line? Does one

open the door for celebrating other religious festivals? Should Muslims be celebrating Christmas

by having Christmas ornaments or whatnot? So before you trivialize the question, actually

realize it's a very interesting question that deals with a number of topics. You can call it

an intersectional topic. It deals with culture, it deals with theology, it deals with rituals,

...