BY:🖋Hadhrat Mufti Siraj Desai Saheb (دامت بركاته)
At this time of the year, we will witness much merry-making and fanfare as the kuffar celebrate the entry of the new year. What is most disheartening is the participation of Muslim youth, both male and female, in these haraam indulgences. How many of our young girls will be sacrificing their honour and dignity for the sake of New Year celebrations? Some of our youth, even from good Muslim homes, end up getting drunk, drugged, and stripped of their honour. It is as if this occasion is one of total freedom from all morality in inhibition. There is total abandonment of self-dignity, honour, and Islam. In fact, there is absolutely no difference between Muslim and kuffar.
No Muslim needs to be told that these activities are haraam; they all know it, but are unable to control their lowly, nafsaani desires, and thus, refrain from joining haraam activities. Rasoolullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said: “He who adds to the number of a group is considered as one of them.” (Al-Maqaasidul-Hasana) Another hadeeth narrated by Allama Jalaalud-Deen Suyooti (ra) states that one who is happy with the activities of a people is like one who has joined them in the same.” Should anyone die in gatherings of this nature, such a person will be resurrected among the same group of kuffar, Allah forbid!
Almighty Allah praises his servants in the following words: “They are such people who do not take part in falsehood, and when they pass by futile activities, they do so with dignity” (that is, they do so with the gaze lowered, not even looking at the partying and marry-making) (Surah Furqan, verse 72)
These festivities are part of the fitnah that Rasoolullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) forecast for this Ummat close to Qiyaamat. In Muslim Shareef the following hadeeth appears: “Make haste with good deeds before the occurrence of evils that will be like portions of a dark night; (in such times) a person will wake up as a Muslim and will become a kaafir by the night, or he will enter the night as a Muslim and will wake up as a kaafir. (The result of this being that) he shall barter away his Deen for meagre gain of this world.”
Hazrat Shah Muhaddith Dehlwi (rahmatullahi alayh) said that the reason for people losing iemaan, literally overnight, is joining the company and activities of evil doers. May Allah Ta’ala save us and our youth from the fitan of the times.
آمين يارب العالمين
Jazakallah khair.