Is it permissible to celebrate Valentine's Day and to exchange presents on that day?

Is it permissible to celebrate Valentine's Day and to exchange presents on that day?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve, history, calendar, entertainment and festivals, and customs about them are the culture of a nation.

Culture is the product of religion and ideology. It is not possible to separate them. If some people try to separate religion and culture and break off the connection between them - it is difficult but if they do it -, they will change the religion along with culture. The religion that loses its body bit by bit goes away (leaves the life of a nation) and is replaced by the religion or the irreligiousness of the new culture.

Since there is such a connection between culture and religion, the change of the culture interests religion deeply.

One of the five main purposes of Islam is to protect the religion (Islam in the life of Muslims). A deed that affects the protection of Islam negatively, a change of culture and imitating a culture is haram; they may even cause a person to exit his religion.

When our beloved Prophet (pbuh) migrated to Madinah, he found out that there were two important feast days there and that the people celebrated them. Since feast days are important cultural elements in terms of affecting the religion, he replaced them by two different feast days: eid al-adha and eid al-fitr.

In many other hadiths, the Prophet prohibited the Muslims from applying the customs and practices that were connected with other religions and that had symbolic values/functions.

However, it is permissible for a person to buy a present for his wife on Valentine's Day, birthday, wedding anniversary, etc without having the purpose of resembling non-Muslims.

Author
Hayrettin Karaman (Prof. Dr.)

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Is it permissible for a man to buy a present for his wife on Valentine’s Day?

Questions on Islam