Can Muslims Celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it Halal?
Many Muslims, especially those living in America and Canada, are still confused about whether, as Muslims, they can celebrate Thanksgiving. Luckily this article will explain this so that we as Muslims do not violate the rules of our religion in doing an act.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated in several countries, especially the United States and Canada. There are differences in the date of Thanksgiving in these two countries, where Thanksgiving is usually celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada, while in the United States,
Thanksgiving is made a national holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. This celebration was originally intended to give thanks for the harvest’s blessings and the preceding year, which were associated with religious and cultural traditions. However, it is now primarily celebrated as a secular holiday.
Celebrating or imitating the believers in any of their religious festivals (holidays) is impermissible, and we as Muslims are prohibited from doing it. In this case, Thanksgiving as a day provided to give thanks is a foreign matter in Islamic teachings. Prophet Muhammad SAW also warned us from adopting the ways of non-Muslims.
Ibn Umar narrates: The Messenger of Allah, peace, and blessings be upon him, said, “Whoever imitates a people, he is among them.”
But not all practices that were initially foreign remain impermissible. Mirqāt al-Mafātīḥ, Mulla `Alī al-Qārī further explains the hadith as applying to those aspects of a people that are particular to them.
He said that distinguishing traits are what is intended by imitation and not other than it. It means that when a trait or celebration is no longer specific to a group of people but has been adopted by an entire nation such that people of all religions practice them, then it no longer falls under the purview of this hadith.
Likewise, most Americans currently celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday that does not have any religious significance. It is more likely to be seen as a way to bring people from different cultural and religious backgrounds together.
Because Thanksgiving is considered a national holiday in the United States, most businesses, shops are closed, and people are neither working nor going to school. It is celebrated by spending time with family by eating together. Thus Muslims residing in the United States can also enjoy the holiday in the same way.
To be concluded, Thanksgiving is permissible (mubāḥ) if we as Muslims enjoy it just as a holiday and free from any impermissible elements such as practices originating and specifically from other religions, consuming haram food, fights between relatives, and the like.
Introducing any such practices would alter an otherwise permissible act to an impermissible one. Therefore, we as Muslims are also expected to be careful in this matter. And keep in mind that if a Muslim celebrates Thanksgiving intending to imitate other groups, it is not permissible.
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From my student zayden, he said that the article is really good and informative. 🙂
Enjoyed the article and learning your point of view.
As a grateful american born in the beautiful land of America, your understanding as expressed is a bit bent in perception of the actual American tradition; not sure where your information comes from but its also a skewed view of truth according to a greater majority of Americans who truly value the opportunity to gather and give special alms and thanksgiving to God our Creator and heavenly Father for the bountiful blessings He’s given.
To posture oneself stating, “most Americans currently celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday that does not have any religious significance”, is a boldly arrogant judgement and boastful assumption that holds little merit of truth outside ones own perspective.
My family is a rainbow of color and religious practice … Christians and other faiths including Muslims; and we embrace each family member, respecting each others god-given right (not man-given right) as a created being to believe, and worship according to ones faith. We do not put down anothers faith or speak to or about them as if one holds a superior truth and authority over another … for that is the highest form of pride, arrogance, and deception.
When we learn to free people to be accountable to their Creator according to their freewill, we become free ourself to believe as we will; otherwise, we live in a bubble of rules created by man, unable to love another unless they look like us think like us, believe like us and talk like us. That is in fact a non-human, called a ‘robot’, a created thing – not a created being. This perspective has no part in the Creator Himself.
Should you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving or not, I sincerely hope this season you will find a new freedom by freeing others… even if they choose to celebrate with a family food fight.
Thank you for reading, and for taking the time to write.
The line you quoted was about how Thanksgiving functions in public life in the US and Canada today: a federal holiday, schools and businesses closed, and a family meal, with no required church service or creed. That is the sense in which we called it a national holiday without a single religious rite. It was not a claim that no American gives thanks to God on that day. Many do, as your family does, and the older harvest-thanksgiving history is real. Both things can be true at once: a civil day off for the country, and a religious act of thanks inside particular homes and churches.
Our piece was written for Muslim readers asking about a fiqh boundary, not as a verdict on American belief. In that frame, joining another community’s act of worship is not allowed, while a day off and a family meal, kept free of prohibited food and of any rite taken from another religion, is treated as permissible. That is a ruling about Muslim practice. It is not a statement that your thanksgiving to God is false, or that your family may not observe the day as you do.
We are glad your family makes room for one another across faiths. A Muslim at that table can share the meal and keep their own worship; that is the distinction the article was trying to draw.