Celebrating Birthdays in Islam
- nasir rashid
- Aug 31, 2021
- 9 min read
Background
I recently posted a short video on Instagram explaining the reasons why I considered the celebration of birthdays to be permissible in Islam. This was a follow-on from a Q/A I did, which resulted in so many people taking offense to my suggestion that I felt it warranted a little more attention in the form of a video response. I thought it would serve as a useful case study not only to delineate my reasoning in more detail but to make a more abstract yet more essential point.
My video tried to make the point that scholars need to be more transparent when answering questions about Islam. If the question pertains to a topic that was directly encountered in the prophetic lifetime and to which Allah or the Prophet directly passed judgment, then there is little more to be said. Yet the majority of most divisive questions are not of this nature. Therefore to arrive at an answer about the permissibility (or not) of birthdays requires a scholarly effort to bridge the gap between the circumstance and the divine will.
When someone says that 'Birthdays are haram' they are in effect saying 'I know that God has forbidden this act', but how do they know? They make such pronouncements based on certain indications (dalàt) that they 'assume' means that Allah has forbidden this act. Scholars too often forget to disclose these 'presuppositions' when forwarding their conclusions, which results in people interpreting their 'opinion' as the actual direct will of Allah.
It should be said, however, that often the indications and presuppositions themselves are of a very intricate and specialist nature, which will inevitably exclude the majority of laymen from being able to appreciate or critique their conclusions. While this is true, however, it is still important that scholars are willing to and able to disclose their thinking processes so that anyone capable and willing can raise legitimate questions if they do arise.
It should be clear from the aforementioned that once we start to appreciate these processes, questions that start with 'What does Islam say about...' are inherently naive and over-simplistic. The questioner can be excused however for these errors, but the scholar who answers in such a way that he collapses the will of the lawgiver into his own is not. With that being said, I wish not to go any further at this point in discussing this abstract point about the scholarly enterprise as this deserves a much more thorough treatment, but lets instead use what has been said thus far to serve as a backdrop to the following
Arguments used to prove celebrating birthdays is haram
In my video, I have responded to what I consider to be the common arguments put forth for why people might assume celebrating birthdays are haram. I would advise that people watch this before continuing, but these include the following presuppositions:
1. Celebrating birthdays involves 'imitating the disbelievers' (تشبه بالكفار). I feel the application of this principle is often brandished recklessly. One can quite quickly appreciate how difficult our lives would be in the modern world if this principle was not qualified reasonably, to exclude everyday activities and lifestyle choices like whether to drive a car or wear a suit. Otherwise, much of our lives would be condemned. It seems only reasonable to me, that if this principle is to apply at all, it must only be prohibitive of things that have a direct religious significance. This would mean that wearing the 'cross' and celebrating Christmas would be prohibited because these acts would contradict the very purpose of what Islam represents. On the other hand, cultural innovations, styles, or lifestyle choices should remain neutral in the eye of the law.
The only question that remains then, is if birthdays have any religious significance such that one could apply this principle. It would seem to me that the answer is no. Birthdays are now celebrated across the world, across many cultures and peoples, and to my knowledge, nobody affords the act any religious significance or sacred sentiment.
2. The second argument against the celebration of birthdays is sadly (in my opinion) much more commonly employed in religious discourse in the modern world. That is to say that birthdays are forbidden because it is an innovation (Bida). Due to the ubiquitous nature of this type of reasoning, I won't spend too much time reiterating its premises. This view essentially suggests that anything 'new' that arises, is forbidden, and because celebrating birthdays was not known (in the fashion done today) in the Prophetic era, it is, therefore, impermissible to do.
I object more generally to the thrust of this type of reasoning, but I will leave aside my general issues and concentrate on why it shouldn't apply to birthdays (even if we accept its general logic). Similar to the first objection, we might wonder what it would mean if everything 'new' after the prophetic era was by default prohibited. This would make our lives utterly untenable and would mean that for Islam to work as a way of life, the world would have to be held ransom to 7th Century Arabia.
Most reasonable proponents of this view recognise this problem and therefore provide the qualification that not all new things per se, but rather those things which are innovated in religion are forbidden. Again I am only entertaining this reasoning for now, and even then, being quite generous in my accommodation of it, for I don't wish to get sidetracked from the argument at hand, otherwise even this qualification suffers under scrutiny. So under this new proviso, we should ask if celebrating birthdays is an innovation in religion? I can confidently answer no! People that celebrate birthdays don't do so because they hope for reward in the hereafter or because of any religious significance whatsoever. Rather, they wish to do so simply because it makes them happy, and along with so many other things that we do in line with mainstream culture, are bereft of any religious sentiment completely. Like the decision to drink coke or eat biryani, birthdays should be viewed from a cultural and not a religious lens.
There were the responses I included in my original video. Not wishing to provide an exhaustive list, I wished to simply use some examples to demonstrate the wider point of scholarly presuppositions discussed above. Following its publication, however, several other arguments were presented to me which I will take this opportunity to shed some light on.
3. This viewpoint has it that birthday celebrations contain elements of extravagance and wastefulness, as well as arrogance, which contradict the Islamic principle of 'simplicity. I don't wish to spend too long responding to this viewpoint, but it is worth pointing out some provisional responses.
Firstly, while is true indeed that many a birthday party is very extravagant, and indeed wasteful, I would suggest it is better to take as your target of criticisms these individual elements rather than denouncing the generic practice itself. Do people not celebrate with the wholesome intention of showing gratitude to Allah for the extension and bounty of life or gathering the family together?
More troubling for me is the misconception and misapplication of the idea that 'Islam is simple'. Based on this assumption, people will often look disapprovingly at a whole array of life choices which for them do not meet their subjective standards of simplicity. It would be too much to unpack here, but I hope it suffices to say that in its current iteration, the idea of 'simplicity is just too broad and abstract for it to be helpful. One man's lavishness is another's simplicity While there are companions of the Prophet who lived very frugal lives, others lived luxuriously.
4. One of the arguments I hadn't anticipated stated that birthdays are impermissible because some/many of the practices, like blowing out candles originate in pagan festivals and customs. This logic, therefore, has it that something that originates in a culture/religion other than Islam is forever prohibited in the eyes of Islamic law. Under a little deliberation, I would suggest this conclusion is unwarranted.
The fact that I hadn't expected this argument is telling. Without scrutinising the veracity of the historical claim, even if we assume it to be factual, we would non less be forced to admit this is not a reality that exists in the living memory of people today. Without being informed about this, no one would be aware that birthdays have any connection to pagan festivals of old. Let me explain why this distinction is crucially relevant.
Behaviors and practices are in themselves neutral and morally arbitrary. It is culture, religion, and human structures that impose meaning on them. We see this phenomenon in cross-cultural differences that means they view the same behavior as drastically different. Crossing one's legs while sitting in company in the UK might be viewed as entirely acceptable, whereas to the same in front of someone in the Arab world may be seen as a significant insult to that person's dignity. Similarly, context can change significantly how practices are perceived; wearing a colourful outfit may be perceived as contemptible if one was attending a funeral service.
It is also important to realise that these impositions of meaning are not stagnant but rather evolve and are even forgotten over time. A behavior that was viewed as offensive at one time may eventually win favour in a future society. It would make little sense in such cases to hold present society hostage to the concerns of a forgotten time. This is exactly the type of thing I feel is happening when it comes to prohibiting birthdays.
My counter-response to this argument, therefore, is to point out that (even if) it is true that practices and behaviors associated with celebrating birthdays do originate in pagan festivals, so what! This would only be relevant if the group/religion that started the practice were still living amongst us and were contributing to our shared universe of meaning. In such a case, it would make sense to differentiate our religion from others and therefore to prohibited shared practices. Let us clarify through examples.
I consider celebrating Christmas to be particularly relevant in this case. Each year there is often a big debate that erupts in the Muslim community after certain Muslim celebrities are seen partaking in the festive spirit. Many Muslims articulate their offense by stating that is not permissible to share practices that are associated with other religions. Others may respond that Christmas is 'no longer viewed as a Christian (only) festivity but is now a cultural celebration which is partaken in by all segments of wider society including atheists. I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. While it is true that Christmas has expanded beyond being a solely Christian festivity, it is still practiced as a religious festival by a massive amount of people across the world, and therefore, for me, It would still be impermissible to celebrate Christmas today. Saying this, however, it would be an interesting question to consider if that would still be the case if we fast forward to some time in the future where (hypothetically) all religious sentiment became a memory of the past. Unlike birthdays, however, there are still Christians who take an active part in our shared world of meaning, who act as a barrier to us sharing the Christmas roast.
Another interesting example is certain prohibitions that existed in the past due to associations with other faiths which we may not feel are relevant today. The books of fiqh mention certain days in which it is disliked to keep a fast, because those days were chosen for the same practice by other religions, like the day of Nayruz in Persia. I am fairly confident that if someone were to live in a different geographical or temporal context (like for us living in the UK today), whereby Nayruz is not relevant in any way to their lives, the prohibition would no longer hold.
Therefore, coming back to birthdays, the question we must ask ourselves is, what does it matter that the practice of blowing out candles finds its inception in pagan sensibilities. Birthdays are not celebrated with any regard whatsoever to this history, and therefore I would argue that over time, the practice has become neutralised and purified from this historical contaminant. While running the risk of one diversion too many, it is also worth noting that the same argument is employed against people the celebrate the mawlid, as it is suggested that the Fatimid Shia were the first to initiate the practice. I would encourage those who defend the legitimacy of celebrating the mawlid, to say, so what. The philosopher would more succinctly accuse my opponent of committing the genetic fallacy which is to condemn something for being false, simply because of whom said it first.
Who cares about birthdays anyway?
I wanted to finish by bringing attention to my initial intention when discussing the topic, as otherwise, birthdays can seem like a fairly insignificant topic to spend so much time commenting on. What instigated my initial response was the fact that so many people were offended by my suggestion that it wasn't haram. I also know from personal experience that among circles of Muslims who have more affinity with classical scholarship, this belief is even more common. What was surprising to me, therefore, and in most need of addressing, was the idea that my position was in some way in contradiction to 'Islam', as though there was a direct source text that I was falling foul of.
Whether or not I have convinced you of my view is therefore besides the point. As long as I have shown that this type of question relies and hinges on certain assumptions that scholars make and that these assumptions should be made visible for people to scrutinise, then I have been successful. I think it is a natural desire for people to want clarity in religion, as they often hope to escape the confusion and contradiction of life in search of universal truths. It is a disservice to these people, however, for scholars who are in a privileged position of trust in the eyes of their followers to willingly or not, elevate and equate their opinion with the will of Allah.
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