Giving out their colleague Filipinos the character of sharing, Muslim physicians from different regions have helped to take over employment swings throughout Christmas celebration voluntarily, presenting their Christian fellow citizens a chance to commemorate the special event.

“They supposed Muslims never commemorate Christmas in any case, thus Muslims preferred those days so that physicians and health workers in these districts will be able to have a rest and expend Christmas with their relatives”, hospital worker Mary Divene Hilario told to the media on December 17.

Distressed through the tropical storm that knock Mindanao prior to this week, health examinations have been place on soaring awareness, that makes it complicated for Christian physicians to acquire holidays to observe Christmas with their folks. However, the circumstances twisted subsequent to Muslim physicians from Provincial Health Office in Mindanao who take over.

In the region of Davao, a group of physicians and nurses from Maguindanao, a region that also developed into the target for health operations throughout the wars of 2000’s. The missions were traveled by as far as 200 miles in eleven hours of travel by bus just to conduct health duties to the victims of the typhoon Pablo. Headed by Dr. Tahir Sulaik, a provincial health officer, he brought a squad of almost 100 and 6 of them undergone a car misfortune in Baganga in the noon of December 18 and had to be treated in the hospital. The six members, five doctors and a driver were treated first in Cateel regional hospital and transferred to Davao City during that night, travelling almost 7 hours.

A number of health squads from the administration divisions outside the district have arrive to offer medical services, as well, to the tropical storm victims for example squads from Iligan City, Pagadian City, Metro Manila, and Sorsogon Province. Squads from not-public clusters have as well been performing their individual health tasks.

In spite of the Muslim venture, general practitioners’ deficiency continues to be a crisis in the areas of tropical storm victims. Tablets and medications aren’t a dilemma, “We have more than enough, but we still need doctors.” Hilario added.

Tropical storm Bopha, or named Pablo in Philippine territory of responsibility, has knock Philippines from December 3-10, exterminating more than a thousand inhabitants. It was the toughest typhoon to ever strike the Southern Philippines, formulating landfall in 5th category tremendous tropical storm with speed of 259 kilometer per hour.
Nurses made clear that there are zero occurrences of sicknesses, however recognized there were 3 alleged cases of measles in a small town of Compostela Valley region. They uttered immunization squads from the local headquarters and positioned to the district on December 15 and to the small towns of New Bataan on December 16.

About the author

Michael Jansen

I am a 26 years old single, graduate of Metallurgical Engineering at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology. I am thin, 5'4" in height, and light brown complexion. I play basketball as my sports and i read Bible and books during leisure time.

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Every year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publishes a Christmas message for Christians in Israel and abroad. One of the message's objectives is hasbara, or public diplomacy, to the Christians of the world. But this year's greeting was especially political. Netanyahu chose to radicalize his traditional greeting into an attack on Muslims in Arab countries.

In his December 2011 greeting, Netanyahu made do with pointing out the fact that in the Middle East "Christians are persecuted in a routine manner, and there is little tolerance toward them."

In his 2012 greeting, Netanyahu, who continuously cautions the world that Israel is under existential threat from Iran, asserted that the Christians in the Middle East are in danger of extermination. No less.

"Today Christian communities throughout the Middle East are shrinking and many of them are in danger," said Netanyahu, according to the announcement published by his bureau in Hebrew and English. "...this is of course not true in Israel. Here there is a strong and growing Christian community that participates fully in the life of our country."

Netanyahu did not specify in his greeting exactly who is threatening to annihilate the Christians, but it's clear from the wording that he means the Muslims. As he did last year, he emphasized that the Christian community in Israel is large and that it enjoys freedom of religion and freedom to worship, but this year he added a hinted reference to the "Judeo-Christian heritage."

The reference is to a sensitive term taken from the conceptual world of the rightist-evangelical anti-Muslim wing of the Republican Party. After the 9/11 attacks, U.S. conservative politicians and intellectuals used this term in criticizing American multi-culturalism and claimed that the Muslims were engaged in a culture war against Judaism and Christianity.

Haaretz, 24 December 2012

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Billions of people from all over the world celebrate the Christmas holiday on December 25. This day is widely observed as a holiday in various countries. It is primarily celebrated by the Christians. Christians from all over the world illuminate their homes with different colors of lights, put up a beautiful Christmas tree and exchange gifts with one another. Christians believe that the 25th of December is the birth date of Jesus Christ. We, as Muslims, believe that Jesus PBUH is a messenger of Allah almighty, but it is not clear that December 25 is his date of birth. Various scholars give different opinions regarding the birthday of Jesus.

Muslims Celebrate Christmas

Some Muslim families also celebrate Christmas day with their Christian friends and neighbors. They also illuminate their houses with candles and put up Christmas trees as well as share various gifts with their Christians friends and relatives. As a Muslim, one must remember that Christians considered the Prophet Jesus as the son of God, which is considered shirk in our religion of Islam. They celebrate December 25 as a date of birth of God’s son, which is a totally wrong statement according to the teachings of Islam. It is clear from the various verses of the Quran that Allah Almighty is one, he is nor the father nor the son of anyone.

Do Muslims Celebrate Christmas – Islamic Point Of View

Due to these beliefs, Muslims are not allowed to celebrate this occasion. Christmas day is not only an occasion of another religion, but it is also against the teachings of Islam as well as against the Hades of our Holy Prophet Muhammad PBUH. According to the Islamic point of view, it is a great sin to have a belief in God having a son. As Muslims, we must be careful regarding this matter. We  must only believe that the Prophet Jesus is a messenger and servant of Allah Almighty.

Various people argue that Christmas day is the day of Prophet Jesus’s birthday, so there will be no harm in celebrating this day. This statement is not logical according to the Islamic point of view. If this is true, then Muslims should celebrate the birthday of various other Prophets who are mentioned in verses of the Holy Quran. Remember that our Holy Prophet Muhammad PBUH is the last messenger of Allah Almighty, which is clear from the various verses as well as from the Hades of Prophet Muhammad. Christians believe that the Prophet Jesus was the last messenger of Allah Almighty, which is against the teachings of Islam.

As true believers, we must avoid all the things and occasions that are against the teachings of Islam. Muslims do not need to participate in the celebrations of Christmas.

About the author

I am running a freelance company to provide development, designing, seo and writing services.

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The English Defence League has posted the latest message from its imprisoned leader Stephen Lennon, wishing his organisation's now severely depleted troops a happy Christmas.

As you might expect, the letter consists mostly of an extended whinge about his personal predicament. However, "Tommy" does take the opportunity to offer us the benefit of his latest thinking on the origins and aims of Islam.

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America is not a Christian nation. It never was. It is a country founded on principles. Not least of these is religious freedom. This is a country where people are free to worship as they please. Or to not worship anything. In this context, the holiday of Christmas deserves further explanation, because, in the U.S., it’s not just a Christian holiday. It’s an American holiday, for all.

Christmas is celebrated on December 25. For some Christians, this date is treated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. This date actually has religious ties to Zoroastrianism that pre-date the existence of the Abrahamic faiths, but the birthday correlation is the reason behind the Christian connection.

And Santa Claus? The history is extensive. But, basically the name is a bastardization of Saint Nicholas of Myra, a Christian figure who lived in Turkey and gave gifts to the poor. The conceptualization of Santa Claus stems from several sources. None of them Christian. The gift giving aspects of Santa Claus, in addition to St. Nicholas’ altruism, come from Germanic pagan traditions. (Paganism is a catch-all phrase that denotes people with an animalistic, naturalistic, or polytheistic spiritual orientation.) Further, the modern imagery of Santa Claus emerged with the American Civil War in the mid-19th century. It wasn’t until Coca-Cola picked up similar images in the 1930s for an advertising campaign, though, that Santa Claus hit it big as an American icon.

What is the purpose of a holiday? Well, it’s a holy day. But, it’s also not. Holidays have a purpose in human civilization. They began soon after we started practicing agriculture 10,000 years ago. They were connected with the lunar cycle, like the Islamic calendar, and used to celebrate harvests or rainy seasons or any significant episode in an important crop’s growing season. Only later did these really have “religious” significance as we define it.

But, America is a capitalist society. Most of the world has many holidays. We have only a few, staggered evenly throughout the year, and always heavily marketed. St. Patrick’s Day. Valentine’s Day. Easter. Sure, these all have some basis in Christian tradition. But, Christian tradition has a basis in earlier pagan traditions tied to agriculture. As do Judaism and Islam. So, the religious heritage of these holidays isn’t why they are significant today. They are brief buying-and-selling seasons. Every holiday in the U.S. with a religious basis is now secularized and associated with a few select commodities.

Christmas is no exception. It is known here in the U.S. as the season for giving. Giving what? Gifts! Presents! Objects of every conceivable sort, from cars, to toys, to skateboards and guitars, right down to the least desirable . . . clothes. But, there’s little altruism here. These presents aren’t for the anonymous poor, like Saint Nicholas used to do in Turkey. They’re for us. To have and hold and enjoy. Sure, some people do charity for anonymous people. Sure, some people attend religious functions. But, that doesn’t preclude them from discovering an iPad under their own tree.

Yes, the traditionalists out there cut down a living tree, place it in their living room, bedeck it with lights and other ornaments, place gifts beneath it, open those gifts on Christmas morning, and then throw that tree away. My own parents did it every year when I was a kid, and they continue to do it now. My family is not Christian, yet Christmas still comes.

This year, I will be celebrating Christmas with my wife. She’s not from the U.S., and hasn’t celebrated Christmas before. So, we’re making our own version. Because traditions also evolve. In America today, Christmas is still a special time of the year. But, the reason why is entirely yours to decide.

About the author

Ethan Lazuk

Born in Montana in 1989, I attended high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and college at The University of Montana, from which I recently earned a Bachelor's degree in Central and Southwest Asian Studies. I currently live in Washington D.C.
Although American English is my first language, I also have an intermediate/advanced knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic, with some Lebanese and Gulf vocabulary, as well as a basic knowledge of Farsi-Persian. My academic areas of interest include Cultural Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and Environmental and Human Geography. In 2010, I was a summer intern with the Department of Defense, working on Ft. McNair Army Base in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Additionally, I have traveled in Istanbul, Turkey, and lived in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.


I am a third-generation American of Polish descent. My great-grandparents fled Eastern Europe during the Bolshevik Revolution and entered the United States through Ellis Island. Today, my parents and sister live in Colorado, where they are surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I am also happily married to the love of my life named Dania. Originally from al-Madinah, Saudi Arabia, she came to the United States two years ago as an exchange student. She is a practicing Muslim. But I am a searcher who finds beauty in all religions, and therefore I do not belong to any one religion in particular. But her and I having different religious beliefs has not negatively affected our marriage. In fact, it has brought us closer together. We respectfully embrace our differences, while cherishing our infinite similarities. If being in an inter-faith marriage has taught me one thing, it is that religious differences are not a cause for division, but for collaboration.

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Susi Meret shows how a housing association's decision not to buy a Christmas tree this year was exploited by the far-right Danish People's Party with the assistance of the mainstream media. Conservative and liberal figures helped to reinforce the narrative that Danish culture is under attack from Muslims.

"The most worrying aspect of this controversy was the total lack of response from the other side...", Meret writes. "Those who violently oppose non-western immigration could make their point – extensively. And the voices that should have contradicted them were nowhere to be heard."

Open Democracy, 3 November 2012

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Thousands of people have signed a petition against an abstract light installation replacing the traditional Christmas tree in Brussels city centre.

More than 11,000 signatures have been gathered in the online petition and a Facebook page attacking the new feature has been launched. Critics accuse officials of opting for the installation for fear of offending non-Christians, especially Muslims. But the mayor's office said it was part of a theme this year of "light".

Traditionally, a 20m (65ft) pine tree taken from the forests of the Ardennes has adorned the city's central square, the Grand Place. This year, it has been replaced with a 25m (82ft) construction, though smaller real Christmas trees still decorate the square, a spokesman at the mayor's office said.

The city's website said the new "tree" was one of five "light" installations around the Grand Place this year, offering visitors the chance to climb to the top and enjoy "beautiful views" of the city.

Tourism councillor Philippe Close at the mayor's office said the aim was to show off the "avant-garde character" of Brussels by blending the modern and the traditional, to produce something new and different.

Erik Maxwell, from Brussels, told BBC News: "We think the tree has been put up for cultural reasons. A tree is for Christmas and Christians but now there are a lot of Muslims here in Brussels. So to avoid discussions they have just replaced a tree with a couple of cubes! I am more traditional, I prefer the usual tree. That's better for the Belgian people."

Parts of the Belgian press have been keen to suggest that the tree is an example of "political correctness", designed to be more appealing to non-Christian religious groups than a traditional fir tree, our correspondent says. However it seems likely that the media storm is influencing public opinion rather than reflecting it.

"What we want is just to modernise the pleasure of winter, of this Christmas market and all the image of Brussels," said Councillor Philippe Close. "The Christmas tree is not a religious symbol and actually lots of Muslims have a Christmas tree at home. For people who want a traditional religious symbol, we have the nativity scene here in the square. For people who want modernity, we have this new tree."

Semsettin Ugurlu, chairman of the Belgian Muslim Executive, representing the Muslim community in Belgium, said his organisation did not mind any kind of Christmas tree. "We know we are living in a country with a Christian culture, we take no offence over a traditional Christmas tree," he said.

BBC News, 1 December 2012

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