Seems incongruous, doesn\u2019t it? The Muslims wouldn\u2019t celebrate Christ\u001fmas. Or would they? It is so much a part and parcel of Western culture that it would be totally bizarre to try and imagine Arabs sitting around Christmas trees or spending flustered weeks choosing ties and socks for obscure uncles and aunts. Or unwrapping their gifts \u2014 Kalashnikov rifles and fabulous diamond necklaces.<\/p>\n
\nThey on their part are a bit befuddled by Western Christianity. That\u2019s be\u001fcause they have a rather naive idea that Christianity has some\u001fthing to do with Christ. It may be a compliment but they assume that Westerners are as serious about religion as they are about theirs. So when they see an entire society going on a binge of gluttony and present-swapping they are slightly disillusioned.<\/p>\n
I try to explain it to them, \u201cLook. It was this old pagan festival, Yule,\u201d I know it\u2019s probably too much to explain to them that \u2018pagan\u2019 is Latin for a village dweller, \u201cAnd it\u2019s all to do with living in a dark northerly climate where winter is quite a serious proposition.\u201d I can see them wrinkling their brows trying to under\u001fstand and be sympathetic. Paganism in our view is the unwholesome, primitive, idol\u001fatrous culture before monotheistic teachings arrived (Monotheism being merely a prelude to modern scientific Agnosticism). That simplification is built into the Christian teaching but, surprisingly, not into Islam. The Muslims be\u001flieve that every people in every age got the message, \u2018monotheism\u2019, and later degraded it into \u2018idolatry\u2019. That is why it wasn\u2019t enough for God to send one Prophet right at the beginning of history and leave it at that. Religions devolve rather than evolve. They have to be revived and revised.<\/p>\n
Back to my Arabs though. \u201cWinter was so tough,\u201d I explain to them, \u201cAnd they got so tired being economical on their carefully stored food that they instituted a major binge to restock on nutrients for the last long haul into spring.\u201d They look winningly sceptical. \u201cAnd remember that food has a different function this far north. An Arab can afford to be as\u001fcetical, contenting himself with a bite now and again but here we live with a different situation. My body temperature is thirty-seven centi\u001fgrade and during the winter months it often has to deal with an environ\u001fment which is zero. So my food has to generate almost forty degrees. Particularly diffi\u001fcult in the ages before central heating.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the presents?\u201d they challenge. \u201cPsychological!\u201d I aver. They re\u001fgard me with looks of mute incomprehension. \u201cEver seen any of those Ingmar Bergman films?\u201d Looks of disapproving incomprehension from the more \u2018proper\u2019 of them. \u201cThese Nordics get quite depressed in the depths of winter,\u201d somehow people whose worst climatic low points are a bit like our milder sum\u001fmer days don\u2019t under\u001fstand the gloom that Northerners experience, \u201cso they give each other presents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what\u2019s it got to do with Christianity?\u201d they ask, having got them\u001fselves hopelessly entangled with thousands of years of Northern European cul\u001fture. \u201cI imag\u001fine,\u201d say I, \u201cthat those early missionaries found this Yule festival well en\u001ftrenched, saw that it made a certain amount of sense and that no-one was about to give it up for the new religion. So they merely removed the more ob\u001fjectionable el\u001fements and tried to persuade people that it was Jesus\u2019 birthday in\u001fstead.\u201d \u201cYes, but was it his birthday?\u201d ask my interlocutors. \u201cNo way,\u201d I reply, \u201cShepherds didn\u2019t watch their sheep by night in December in Palestine \u2014 it is a bit nippy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muslims don\u2019t celebrate Christmas because we regard it as a religious oc\u001fcasion with overtones which we can\u2019t quite accept i.e. that it is a celebration of the birth of the son of God. Sorry, that\u2019s right out. God alone is God, no son, no three in one. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I can almost hear some of the Arabs thinking, \u201cStill, if it\u2019s only a matter of seeing oneself through the harsh winter, I don\u2019t mind if I do, hmm.\u201d A shudder of horror passes down my spine when I realise that I might have put some poor gullibles on the great, commercial roller-coaster that is Christmas. Visions pass before my eyes of their weeks of anxious shopping, borrowings from the banks or the execrable money-lenders, a few days of over-eat\u001fing and forced hilarity and then more weeks of counting the cost. They are rising to leave, satisfied with my explanations. \u201cI lied,\u201d I lie, \u201cIt really is the celebra\u001ftion of the birth of the son of God. That is what the eating and drinking are all about.\u201d The Arabs eye me coldly not really knowing what to believe anymore. But I can see that they think it will be much easier if they keep well away from this mixed-up Western culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy Chrisbus,\u201d I call after them, as they go out the door, marrying the season of nasal congestion with the season of good cheer, \u201cAnd a Very New Year.\u201d<\/p>\n
(The Irish Times<\/em>, Thursday, December 29, 1988)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seems incongruous, doesn\u2019t it? The Muslims wouldn\u2019t celebrate Christ\u001fmas. Or would they? It is so much a part and parcel of Western culture that it would be totally bizarre to try and imagine Arabs sitting around Christmas trees or spending flustered weeks choosing ties and socks for obscure uncles and aunts. Or unwrapping their gifts … <\/p>\n