As many know I’m not a Christian. In fact, to put in a comedic way in reference to the Little Britain TV series; ‘I’m the only Jew in the village’. However the vast majority of the people around me celebrate Christmas and often wish me happy Christmas during Christmas time. I and the rest of my family are not offended by that, not one bit as I’m an absolute minority where we are. We have to accept that others think differently and believe differently from ourselves and also that most people where we live have very little knowledge of Judaism and how it differs from Christianity (why would they have such knowledge). In short, I have to be tolerant of others in order for them to be tolerant towards me and mine.
However no such tolerance was shown to the Muslim footballer Mo Salah by some Muslims when he published a picture online wishing those who follow him a Merry Christmas and showing him sitting around a Christmas tree with his family whilst dressed in Christmas attire. The image, which is copied below from Mr Salah’s Twitter feed, garnered some support from Muslims who pointed out that in places like Dubai, Christmas markets are not uncommon, but he got a large amount of hassle from Muslims who were unhappy with the fact that he had wished those around him a ‘merry Christmas’.
Mr Salah received a number of vehement and intolerant criticisms by Muslims for his actions which included him being admonished for celebrating the festivals of the ‘infidel’ and how Allah would punish him for doing so. Commenters on Mr Salah’s posts also said that he was committing the Islamic sin of ‘shirk’ or admiring or worshipping something other than Allah.
Whilst the angry posters to Mr Salah’s tweets have a right to express their opinion, they do illustrate a high degree of intolerance by some Muslims towards Mr Salah and his obvious tolerance of British customs, which include Christmas celebrations. Mr Salah, from what I’ve read about him appears to be one of those tolerant and easy going Muslims that nobody would really have a problem with. However, the comments he has got from some less than tolerant and more extremist Muslims illustrates that although some people can be Muslim and be decent individuals, possibly in spite of Islam rather than because of it, there are many other Muslims who despise the sort of tolerance shown by Mr Salah and who are indeed a big problem for the world. I hope and pray that when Mr Salah goes and plays for his national team of Egypt, he will be protected from the Islamic nutters who might go kinetic towards him following his simple act of wishing Merry Christmas to his followers and fans. Sadly Islamic nutters also have a tendency to be violent Islamic nutters and that is something that needs to be guarded against.
PS
It is one of the world’s great ironies that some of the greatest and most well known Christmas tunes were written by Jews. This was because back in the day, the music business was one of the few that had no restrictions on Jews working within it and because Christmas music was both popular and needed, many Jews composed either music or lyrics for tunes like ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’. Am I offended that Jews wrote these tunes, do I rail against those who wrote them or accuse them of heresy? No I don’t. I see it as a matter of pride that tunes that are so loved by so many people were written by Jews.
I’m an atheist and still celebrate Christmas. Mid winter festivals started long before any of the currently believed religions and will probably be around long after they are gone. The reason that I still refer to it as Cristmas, despite not being a Christian, is because it’s called Christmas. After all, our days of the week are named after Norse gods and the months are named after Greek and Roman gods. Hardly anyone believes in those gods anymore but nobody thinks that the days or months need re naming.
Exactly. Sharing happiness with others is a sign of a good and altruistic man.
I always remember Cub motto: ‘Think of others before yourself; And do a good turn every day’
On Christmas, there is a good George Clarke ep where he helped a family who’d been in council bedsits for years buy & restore a £1 (?) house. Mother and Children’s greatest joy was celebrating Christmas for first time with tree, decorations etc – heart-warming. All had muslim names. I often wondered if they too experienced vitriolic attacks
Re: Beavers, Cubs, Scouts. I was in 1St Bangor Scout Group (1908) which is independent – ie not affiliated, linked to a Church, School etc. 1St Bangor has it’s own property, rented to others. We were CoI (CoE) church goers, but parents wanted us to be free too
@Stonyground
Spot on. Similar to using foreign words in English: bungalow, deja-vu etc – Accept it
Mo Salah? Would that be a muslim named after mohammed, the perfect muslim, who is to be imitated by all muslims? That is to say. mohammed the ***paedophile*** prophet of islam; islam, the “religion” followed by muslim Mo Salah that says that all non-believers will be condemned to suffer in hell for eternity, It would seem that the god of islam worshipped by our “Mo” shows no compassion, never mind tolerance, for non-muslims including those who believe the blasphemous (according to muslims) Christian doctrine, and indeed the Jewish doctrine, both of which muslims claim are a perversion of the message from _allah_ the creator of the Universe.
PS the koran contains the undeniable truth of the world revealed from _allah_, via Gabriel to mohammed. All the many differences that there are in Jewish / Christian texts in contrast to islamic texts must be wrong, lies at best, at worst a blasphemy against _allah_ (and an offence against muslims).
What do you expect?
islam is intolerant of all other doctrines. muslims have been specially chosen by _allah_ , and anyone else is inferior and must be condemned.
This doctrine of islam is also followed by ahmadi muslims. [more on this later].
These muslims “criticising” Salah are only doing what they believe their _allah_ expects them to do.