Mansoor’s Musings: Meaning of Christmas for a Muslim

By Mansoor Ladha on December 18, 2024.

Being a Muslim in a predominantly Christian country, especially during Christmas, can be quite an experience. In my neighbourhood, Christmas always starts early: every mid-November, neighbour Greg, dubbed “self-styled Santa,” sends a personal note, reminding everyone on our street that it was time to decorate for the festive season.

He couldn’t care about the mounting power bills, or that some seniors in the neighbourhood couldn’t afford to light up so soon or that some of us were Muslims and so Christmas had no religious significance to us.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” I told my family. So in the spirit of good neighbourliness and in the spirit of Xmas, I would religiously – no pun intended – decorate our home.

After all, we Muslims do not want more trouble than we already have. After 9/11, those terrorists have smeared our reputation and brought disrepute to our religion, so I didn’t want to aggravate the situation.

I recall our first Christmas in Canada in 1973. We were respectfully called New Canadians then instead of Pakis. It was a proud label. My son, who was two-year-old at the time, wanted a Christmas tree. We wanted to “Canadianize,” so I didn’t object, but some friends who heard that I, a Muslim believer, was going to put a Christmas tree in my house were outraged. “This is not in our religion or our belief?” they argued.

A Christmas tree has nothing to do with religion, was my response. We were now in Canada and we should live like Canadians, but acknowledging that we should not forget our religion and culture. My response didn’t satisfy some of them.

I believe the message of Christmas is universal, bringing peace, harmony and unity among all mankind. Today’s world, plagued with pandemic, wars, destruction, poverty and terrorism, such goodwill and unity in religion is necessary. Christmas is intended to create an atmosphere of kindness, brotherhood and benevolence, thus energizing our society which is indifferent to caring values.

I always enjoyed watching the Canadian TV show, Little Mosque on the Prairie, shot in a fictitious town called Mercy, portraying a classic example of religious brotherhood where a Christian church offers space to Muslims to hold their services. What a superb gesture of religious co-operation, camaraderie and non-denominational brotherhood.

This message of unity and harmony becomes more important against the backdrop of the killing of a Muslim family in London, Ontario, in 2021. Little Mosque on the Prairies may be a fictional sitcom but it’s message – all religions working for everyone’s betterment in harmony – is universal and applicable to present day Canada and the world.

Racialism raises its ugly head in different Canadian cities from time to time. The incident of 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting that killed six people and injured 19 others is still vivid in many Muslims’ minds. A place of worship should be the safest place anywhere in the world.

In a separate incident in Edmonton, two Somali Muslim women were victims of hate-motivated assault. The hijab-wearing women were sitting in the car in the parking lot outside a mall when a man approached the car yelling racial obscenities before he smashed the passenger side window. It’s unfortunate that Muslims are not safe even in public places in broad daylight.

What is the root of racialism? It’s ignorance and lack of contact between the races. Majority of people have no or little contact with Muslims at a personal level. The solution is to invite your Muslim neighbours or office colleagues for coffee and get to know them. Personal contact between different races is very important. Muslims may look distinct, may pray differently and may not eat the same food as the majority community, but underneath they are the same as anyone else.

They are the same people who are doctors and taxi drivers, computer specialists, lawyers and cleaners. They contribute like anyone else and are trying hard to adjust. They should be accepted and welcome because they are also Canadians. And it’s this diversity, which is Canada’s greatest strength. It is for its diversity and pluralism that Canada is widely respected and applauded; this Canadianism and the Canadian way of life should be cherished.

Muslims are hated because of the terrorist attacks undertaken by the so-called jihadists who have no legitimacy or right to unleash a reign of terror in the name of Islam. They do not represent the religion nor do they have any right speaking for all Muslims. They are a bunch of hooligans out to cause death and destruction, under the guise of religion, in accordance with their

As the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Shia Ismaili Muslims, said during the opening of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Muslim world, with its history and culture, is still unknown to the West. “Even today, the study of the Muslim world in our high schools and universities is a specialist subject. Very little of the Muslim world features in the study of humanities in the West, where courses are essentially centered around Judeo-Christian civilizations.

“This lack of knowledge is a dramatic reality which manifests itself in a particularly serious way in western democracies, since public opinion has difficulties judging national and international policy vis-à-vis the Muslim world,” he said. “The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, eastern and western, must as a matter of urgency make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides. Insofar as civilizations manifest and express themselves through their art, museums have an essential role to play in teaching the two worlds to understand, respect and appreciate each other,” he said.

It is, therefore, imperative that schools should be in the forefront of creating tolerant atmospheres and in educating kids about racial diversity. These racial incidents should provide a wake-up call for every citizen, every media outlet, every school board, principal, teacher and every elected representative who have a role to play and have the responsibility for initiating policies against racism. The initiative should also start from every one of us – the ordinary citizens – who should begin to know one’s Muslim neighbour, office workers or colleagues aimed at building bridges.

Local school boards should launch curriculums that teach different religions, their philosophies and culture. Canadian prime ministers and other leaders can preach the benefits of pluralism and diversity, but what good it is if younger generations have not been imbued with the basic knowledge and principles of various religions and cultures? The leadership should capitalize on the prevalent goodwill in the country sparked by Black Lives Matter movement in the hope of preventing another racial massacre.

Muslim leaders themselves should be the greatest contributors of this bridge-building inter-faith exercise. The onus is on the imams, rabbis, priests, gurus and other religious leaders to show the lead in having inter-faith dialogues, public debates about the issues facing the community and to hold inter-racial events. Muslim leaders should also take the initiative to hold periodic open houses in their mosques so as to encourage non-Muslims to attend their services, to enable them to learn about their rituals and philosophy of their religion. We all are in this together! Play your part!

Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based journalist, travel writer and author of Aga Khan: Bridge between East & West, Memoirs of a Muhindi: Fleeing East Africa for the West, Off the Cuff and A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

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