Lots of religious people in our country are more interested in the do(s) and don't(s) of the narrow kind. And because Islam is politicized in Malaysia, it becomes a tool to sow seeds of distrust and suspicion. Many years ago, I was at the back of a class (there was a partition and sometimes the teacher would not know that another teacher was behind) when I heard an Ustazah teaching the students not to accept anything if they go to a non-Muslim's house.... the haram and halal thing. In Malaysia today, I think majority knows the food taboos of the Muslims... and also one more thing I'd like to note. I thought the Quran teaches its believers that what is given in good faith, the onus is not on the one who receives, it's on the one who gives. I'm sure they know their God is a compassionate God... yet they do not teach such things. They teach them only the do(s) and don't(s). And so, suspicion creeps in!
Sometimes I think they carry this too far... the air we breathe, pigs breathe them too. The water we drink, it's also recycled, water is a limited resource, remember? It goes in, gets filtered but these days with the environment so badly polluted, be my guess whether the filtration process is really clean... the water that comes out from our taps is yellow with lots of heavy sediments... LOL! Unless you kill all the pigs and boars into oblivion. But I could think of dozen other things which do us more harm than just pork. Makes me wonder whether God made a mistake creating the pigs.....
Anyway, back to Valentine's Day... Take a walk back into history.... in the old days, marriages were pretty much arranged by their elders. When a boy or a girl came of age, they'd be arranged into marriage.... I guess it was probably to kurangkan the maksiat since human beings are sexual creatures too...
Valentine's Day is just a day for people to 'commemorate' their love (and it's not necessarily the sexual kind) or infatuation .... over the centuries it has become something like an avenue for young people to let the one they admire that they've a secret admirer or for couples to affirm their love, etc, etc... It's just another one of those 'celebrations' for a reason, and very commercial too cos there are mega bucks involved. All the flowers and teddy bears (this year for the Chinese, it'll be the rabbits) that fly out from the nurseries and off the shelves... it's good for the economy. LOL!
We can never stop the young (or the old for that matter) to want to feel loved or to love. It's what makes us different from the other creatures. Anyway, I believe if the people want to commit maksiat, they'd still do it with or without Valentine's Day. Blaming Valentine's Day as a celebration that brings about maksiat goes to show how out of modal (capital) some people can be... many years ago, when I was in the university, there used to be a joke that we can never tell whether those girls who pakai jubah were pregnant or not... now will this same ustazah say that the jubah is a reason for maksiat too since it also can hide the consequences of maksiat??? That's me thinking narrowly now....
And go read up some of the tales about the origins of Valentine's Day... sacrifice and love were the themes... not the maksiat. The maksiat thing is our own doing, don't blame it on one day like the Valentine's Day.
BTW... I'm not such a big fan of Valentine's Day myself these days. It's way too commercialized. Everyday should be a Valentine's Day, if I have my way. He! He! Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day!
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