Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
The Default Ruling on Celebrations — 14:02
Ibn Taymiyyah was very clear that in his opinion, there are only two festivals in Islam. Any other festival automatically becomes a religious innovation, a bid'ah, because in his analysis, the Sharia dictates festivals. This goes back to a basic premise: when it comes to culture, the Sharia is silent and everything is permissible unless the Sharia prohibits it. When it comes to rituals, the opposite is true — everything is haram unless the Sharia allows it. This rule is universally agreed upon.
When it comes to dealings, eating, drinking, mu'amalat, human interactions — the default is everything is permissible unless the Sharia forbids it. So if you wear a certain color and somebody says, "Oh, that's haram," you don't need to prove it's halal — he needs to prove it's haram. Rituals, on the other hand, you cannot invent. You cannot invent a new way to worship Allah. Rituals must be narrated in the Sharia. This rule is agreed upon; there are actually no two opinions about this.
Ibn Taymiyyah's Argument and Its Limits — 15:27
Now, Ibn Taymiyyah argued that celebrations are rituals. Based on that, you then extrapolate that every celebration the Sharia doesn't come with becomes a religious innovation. That is a valid opinion and I respect it. But I politely have my views on this, and by the way, so do pretty much all the other madhhabs.
When the scholars of the madhhabs generally prohibit Halloween, they generally don't use this issue of celebrations. That's because many modern scholars don't have a problem with celebrations per se unless certain conditions are met — they don't view celebrations as being a part of the religion.
Three Categories of Celebrations — 16:35
My opinion is that celebrations are divided into three categories.
Number one: personal, private celebrations of a non-religious nature. It's not a communal celebration. You are doing it. You're inviting family and friends. Society is not doing it. Any personal celebration that you do — Ibn Taymiyyah never talked about this, by the way. So to bring Ibn Taymiyyah here is incorrect. He never talked about personal celebrations. It's a quiet thing in his books. He never mentions it.
Without a doubt in my mind, the Sharia is silent about personal, private, non-religious celebrations. There's no religion involved. Why would the Sharia get involved as long as what you do is halal? If you graduate, you throw a party, you celebrate. If you buy a new house, you celebrate. You get a promotion, you celebrate. You throw a party, invite family and friends, rent out a hall, have some halal festivities, get a nasheed band to come — whatever. Why would that be haram? What are you doing here?
So personal, private celebrations — the Sharia is silent. If what happens is halal, the celebration is halal.
Do Annual Celebrations Become Bid'ah? — 17:39
Now the other group would argue, "Ah, but maybe that's okay, but if you make it annually then it becomes a bid'ah." So birthdays would become a bid'ah. And the response is: says who? Where did you get this from? Once it becomes annual, it becomes bid'ah? You can say that birthdays shouldn't be done because of tertiary issues — it's a waste of time, a waste of money — but that doesn't make something haram. Going to a fancy restaurant is a type of "waste" if you want to argue that point. You can say it's childish — your personal opinion about being childish doesn't make it haram in the Sharia. We have to be very precise here.
So personal celebrations — the Sharia is silent about them.