25th December is an important day for all the Christians of the world when they celebrate with all the joy and preparation the 'Christmas Day'. On this day, Christians around the world buy new clothes, decorate their houses, cook special meals, arrange gatherings with friends and relatives and especially children eagerly wait and long for the wonderful gifts of Santa Clause. In short, this day brings a message of celebrations and joy for Christians living all around the world.
Due to the increased global interaction among the members of different religions, countries, nationalities, races and colors, the festivals of different religions have become a source of sharing each others' joyful moments and knowing each other very well and then adopting the positive aspects of each other's festivals.
Christmas brings a message of exchanging gifts with each other and having some days of relaxation in which we mostly think of sharing our joys with our friends and relatives. In the same way, Eid-ul-Azha brings the message of including the poor and less-privileged in our festivities and joys. Similarly, almost all the different festivals and celebrations of different religions and regions have their own beauty and joy.
Due to the increased global interaction and the migration and settlement of large number of people of Asia and Africa has resulted in kind of societies in America and Europe that no society is homogenous. Modern day societies are rich heterogeneous societies in which we can find members of different colors, races, nationalities, languages and religions. Similarly, different people travel and live in different areas of the world for the reasons of business, education and others.
For the mutual existence and prosperity of these varying members of society, it was very necessary to find a ground which should be common to them and in this regard, these celebrations were very effective and suitable. It is also logical that if differences can result in clash and destruction, common grounds and similarities can also result in the betterment of these relations. It should not be forgotten that in today's global arena, it would be impossible to grow and prosper if we are not ready to live peacefully with others. A nation or an individual remaining restricted to its own nutshell will soon face the danger of extinction.
With all these positive aspects, there have also been some elements that are not ready to tolerate the existence of others. There are those who hate those who belong to poor nations or have the different religion or are having the skin color different from their own. There are also present those who think that their dogma or viewpoint is better than that of others and thus they are the preferred ones, reserving the right to invite others into their circle and if they refuse to accept their thought, they should be eliminated and in this regard, whatever heinous or barbarous act is carried out, it is justified on the name of betterment of their lives.
On the occasion of this Christmas, I witnessed a bitter conversation on the social network of Facebook. A person had left a message on this website, congratulating this happy occasion to all his Christian brothers. This had annoyed some of the people who were of the view that a Muslim should never congratulate a Christian and in this regard they presented an order of Islam that said, 'Don't resemble yourself to the others, and if you did so, you will be dealt with like them'. It means that, if we resemble to the people of other religions, our fate will be like that and it will not be that of a common Muslim.
The above saying may be true but it must not be observed from a narrow viewpoint. The better explanation of the above order can be seen on the occasion of 'Valentines' Day'. This is the day, when all the boundaries of humanity and soberness are crossed and people rise to the peaks of vulgarity. This is the occasion when adult girls and boys meet each other and get into such interactions which are not only hazardous to them but also to their family and the society. This single day gives birth to so many problems that later on keep tormenting its victims for a long period of time.
In the same way, whenever we leave our culture and adopt the ways and style of others, we fell in danger of losing our own identity and a nation or an individual without its culture, language, identity and heritage is just like a train that has been left without any direction and it is going to crash to somewhere, inflicting harm and injuries to all its passengers.
Contrary to this, when we look at the life of our Holy Prophet (SAWS), we see a number of examples in which showed his best attitude towards the humans, be it a Muslim, or a Christian or a Jew. Once a group of Christians came from a city to meet him and inquire about his teachings. The Christians were made seated in mosque and when they expressed their wish to carry out their worship, they were assigned almost half of the mosque where they could worship according to their own religion (Reference: Seerat-un-Nabi, Allama Shibli Naumani & Syed Suleman Nadwi).
In the same way, you might have read it many a times that a Jew became the guest of our Holy Prophet (SAWS) and our Holy Prophet (SAWS) tried his best to serve his guest. Similarly, an infidel woman used to throw thorns and waste material on him whenever he passed from the street and once she stopped throwing anything at him (SAWS) for a couple of days and our Holy Prophet (SAWS) went to ask about her. This good behavior of our Holy Prophet (SAWS) impressed her so much that she converted into Islam.
Along with these stories, the exemplary behavior and best attitude of our Holy Prophet (SAWS) always emphasized to behave with others in the best possible manner without the discrimination of religion, race, color and other differences. This perfect behavior of our Holy Prophet (SAWS) left for us a benchmark to follow that we need to be kind and polite to others, whoever the person maybe.
All these give us a message that we need to make our conduct and behavior reasonable and sound and on the occasions discussed above, we need to show the best of our attitude. But in this regard, we need to be careful that we must not cross the limits that have been prescribed to us by the teachings of our religion.
We need to give pleasant messages to others but we must not risk our identity and religious orders for this.
Saying someone, 'Happy Christmas', sending a message of congratulation on any such occasion, exchanging flowers or gifts on any such day, participating in the happy moments or feasts of others, and in the same way, doing any small or big act that should give a positive message of our sound and pleasant behavior to others are things that need not to be made a big issue. This is a very easy work to be carried out and quite logical to be understood as well!