Halloween Fun or Scare
Trick or treating, Should be done or not,
For Muslims in N. America
by: Abida Rahmani
The month of October arrives and the whole country is taken by the storm of
Halloween festival. Halloween generally is considered a festival for fall
harvesting since its Pagan days. We can see pumpkins in all shapes and sizes all
around in the stores for sale, in the pumpkin patches, around the houses carved
to place a candle in making them jack o lantern or a smiley , or just kept at
the entrance with hay stock , corn , scare crow and more but that is not all. )
There are many traditions in different cultures about the harvesting seasons all
around the world.
America has adopted new trends for fun and activity and the whole world just
follow them blindly. They just celebrate it for fun, activity, happiness and do
not care what the myth and superstitions are behind this tradition. What is the
fun in showing death, horror, ghosts and witches, grave yards, Jack-o-lantern,
spider webs, bats and so on? You can imagine about all the scary things to be
shown and displayed in Halloween. One can see a lot of Halloween décor around.
Then there are plenty of candies, chocolate, colorful costumes, some of them so
scary and people throwing big Halloween parties. Some of the people decorate the
whole house in Halloween theme. Every year new scary skeletons, ghosts and
dreadful images are invented to attract the consumers and kids. In fact it is a
great marketing strategy to keep the consumers involved in spending and buying.
With all the down turn in economy and recession one do not see any change for
these celebrations.
On the night of October 31st the fun of trick and treat starts right after
sunset. Kids and teens look forward of collecting a lot of candies and
chocolate. They are dressed up in different costumes, cartoon characters,
imaginary super heroes, some of them quite dreadful and innovative. For this
occasion mainly, the people buy a lot of candies and distribute them to the
visiting kids and teens roaming around in costumes. Generally as I see in my
neighbor hood, this is a supervised move with parents and elders. Normally this
act of collecting candies starts after sunset and last up to 9: pm.
We Muslims living in here in this society are an absolute part of it. Our kids
have the same temptations as rest of the kids. They wish to hang around with
their friends, collect candies, wear costumes and have fun. The Muslims who
arrived here 20, 30 years earlier were quite a bit relaxed and they would let
their kids to have fun of trick n treating with their friends. Now a day Our
Muslims scholars here in North America have done a deep study of this tradition
and they go to the roots and causes of this festival. In their opinion this is
not just a fall harvesting festival, ripe up pumpkins, corn, and hay stock.
There are a lot of un Islamic traditions in this festival. Some of them even
give it a status of shirk. (Making someone parallel to Allah swt)Islam denies
those traditions of superstitions, believing in ghosts and witches. Mostly the
Muslim kids are discouraged by their parents not to take part in this festival,
not to wear costumes and avoid doing trick and treating.
To avoid this unpleasant situation, the Masajids contribute a lot to the idea.
They do some interesting programs for kids, trying to bring them closer to deen
and distribute candies among them. Some of the kids gladly accept this situation
but others get frustrated that why they are not allowed to have that fun, which
rest of the kids are doing.
It is just my opinion that in such a situation, the parents can take kids in
their supervision for trick and treating , just to make them a bit happy and
feel them a part of the society.
Even some churches are against the culture of Halloween and many states call it
Fall Festival as in Arizona. There are no Halloween Parties in schools there. A
Christian friend told me that they dress up kids in prince, princess, fairies
and such costumes but avoid dressing them up in horror or ghostly attire.
When we think about the other countries of the world where death , destruction
and hunger is so much in abundance. Dozens of people are killed innocently every
day all over the countries by so much violence politically, internally and
internationally. We look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Pakistan,
Somalia, Syria and now Egypt for the death toll and wonder if showing death,
skulls, horror and skeletons could be a fun?
But it could be fun for the rich and safer societies and countries where death
and violence is safe guarded and a lot of protections are taken to save human
lives. There it could be a fun for a change.
We should discuss with our kids about the miseries and hardships faced by the
children and masses in those countries. They should be encouraged to pay that
money spent on candies, costume and Halloween décor to charitable funds for
those countries. This would enhance their spirit of Muslim brotherhood and they
would feel satisfied and take pleasure in contributing for noble tasks.