Transcript Slide 1

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the
night of October 31st. On this night, children
dress up in different costumes and go door
to door asking for candies (also known as
trick or treating). Other activities that also
take part in this custom are bonfires,
costume parties, visiting haunting houses,
playing pranks on one another, watching
horror films and other Halloween related
festivals. Pumpkins are carved out for
Halloween with faces and homes are
decorated with ghostly and other evil
images.
•The first Halloween event dates back to pre-Christian Ireland and
Scotland to a celebration of the Druids or Celtic priests.
•The Celtic year began on November 1st with a festival called
Samhain. The ancient priests believed that on the evening,
Samhain, the lord of the dead, called forth host of evil spirits.
•On the eve of Samhain, October 31st, laughing bands of young
people disguised themselves in monstrous masks and carved
lanterns and carried them through the villages. This festival came
to be known as the festival of the dead
•The druids believes that it was this on this night when earth
came into the closest contact with the spirit world and
consequently ghosts, goblins, witches and all created havoc and
destruction (killing farm animals and destroying crops)
•According to the belief, while spirits of the dead roamed around,
villagers lighted bonfires to either drive them away or to guide
the spirits of the dead back to their homes
•The second event to Halloween dates back to the Dark ages in
Europe
•The Christian Church destroyed many of the temples of various
Greek deities
•However, this pagan worship was never completely eradicated
and later took on the form of witchcraft.
•One of the most important aspects of witchcraft is a number of
celebrations called “Witches’ Sabbaths”. The highest celebration
of this is called Black Sabbath of Witches or the High Sabbath on
October 31st
•Things such as cauldrons, broomsticks and black cats came
from this event
•The third event dates backs to early
Roman Catholic Church
•The church had appointed days to
honour each of the saints and
basically ran out of days in the year.
So they decided to remember all the
saints on All Saints Day
•This took place on November 1st
and was called All-hallowmas or Allhallows
•The night before this, October 31st
came to be known as All-hallows Eve
or Holly Eve, and eventually
Halloween
•This was a legend associated with an Irish man, Jack who
supposedly enjoyed playing pranks on the Devil
•The legend states that after his death, Jack did not go to Heaven or
Hell and therefore, had to wonder the earth carrying a lantern, providing
him with some light to see where he was going
•Pumpkins that were hollowed out and had candles lit inside were
symbolic of this legend
•On top of that, these pumpkins were also used to scare evil spirits
away (that is why odd looking faces are carved in the pumpkins)
•In Ireland, it was believed spirits thronged about the houses of the
living, they were thus greeted with a banquet
•At the end of the feast, villagers disguised themselves as souls of
the dead and paraded to the outskirts of their villages in order to
lead the spirits away.
•This believed to avoid any calamities the dead might bring.
Another way the villagers tried to appease the dead was set out
bowls of fruit and other treats so the spirits would partake of them
and leave them in peace
•Later when the belief in ghosts and goblins declined, youths
dressed themselves as ghosts and such as threatened to play
tricks on those who failed to be generous with treats
•These animals were believed to
communicated with the dead
•It is also believed black cats
were able to house the souls of
witches
•Survey conducted by BIGresearch found that an estimated $3.29 billion
was spent on this holiday in 2005
•Candy sales for Halloween in the year 2005 made a profit of $2.1 billion
($1 million immunizes more than 58,000 children for life against the top
6 child-killer diseases)
•Average consumer planned on spending $48.48 on merchandise. A total
of $18.07 was spent on sweets ($40.00 can provide blankets for ten
children to protect them from the cold and $15 provides two long-lasting
insecticidal mosquito nets, protecting families from malaria which kills
an African child every 30 second)
•“We have sent them the truth, but they indeed practice falsehood”
(Quran 23:10)
•“You must keep to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided
Caliphs; cling to it firmly. Beware of newly invented matters, for every
new matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misleading”
(Bukhari)
•“The final hour will not come until my followers copy the deeds of the
previous nations and follow them very closely, span by span, and cubit
by cubit” (Bukhari)
•“Whoever imitates a nation one of them” (Abu Dawud)
It was the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw) to differ from the non-Muslims,
particularly in those matters that were specific to non-Muslims. In Sunan
Abi Dawud, Anas ibn Malik says that when the Prophet (saw) came to
Medinah, there used to be two festivals in which the people engaged in
playing sports. So the Prophet (saw) asked, "What are these two days?,"
they replied, "We used to play sports during these in the jahiliyah (time
period before Islam)." The Prophet (saw) then said, "Verily Allah has
given you two better days, the Day of Adha and the Day of Fitr."
This not only shows that the Prophet (saw) did not acknowledge the
non-Muslim's days, but also demonstrates that Allah has dignified the
Muslims with days which are pleasing to Him and superior in merit.
Indeed, the glorious Companions understood this principle and
applied its ruling with the fullest extent. For example, Abdullah ibn
'Umar said, "One who settles in the lands of the non-Muslims,
celebrates their New Year's Days, and behaves like them until he dies,
will be raised with them on the Day of Resurrection."
Islam propagates the idea of conscious living, and upon the
advent of Islam, it served to cleanse ignorant and
superstitious practices. Muslims have been ordered to work
for a purposeful, beneficial cause for mankind. Indulging in
prehistoric and ignorant practices can only lead to frittering
away ones life and thus making one an ultimate loser in the
Hereafter