This is the beginning of one of the most difficult times of the year for Western Muslims: the dreaded “holiday season”. This upcoming week is the minor extravaganza known as Thanksgiving, which is really just the set-up for the next month of building momentum towards Christmas and New Year's. Of course there's still plenty of time to talk about those holidays later, if at all. What I want to write about right now is the American holiday of Thanksgiving.
What can Muslims do with this holiday? Is it relevant or meaningful at all for us? We could certainly take the route that it is not an Islamic holiday and we don't need anything that wasn't already given to us by Allah and our Beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). For many of us, avoiding the other standard holidays is much easier because of this very line of thinking. But for some of us Thanksgiving is a bit more difficult. Not only is it typically understood that it is not a religious holiday, i.e. we are not celebrating an actual faith tradition that is not our own, but what Muslim doesn't agree that a day of giving thanks to our Creator is a good thing? Perhaps some of us, as converts, have discovered it is a good compromise with our non-Muslim families to partake of Thanksgiving in order to make it more palatable when we beg off the Christmas (and Easter) gatherings. I certainly don't have a definitive answer to this quandary!
I have a mixed-up, painful but also nostalgic, relationship to Thanksgiving. As an indigenous Native American, I abhor the myth of how the holiday came about. There is no beauty, none of the glorious “friendship” claimed, in the truth of how this land was “settled” by the Pilgrims. Whatever cooperation may have existed at any point was quickly destroyed as entire tribes were mercilessly killed and the remaining displaced. There is no tribal history of any festivity that became the day we now commemorate as Thanksgiving, simply because the tribes that had that initial contact with the Pilgrims were almost completely wiped out. As an indigenous person, I would like to push off Thanksgiving as an insensitive and dishonest holiday that serves the colonizer and allows average Americans to avoid dealing with any feelings of guilt for how they ended up here. Instead of dealing honestly with the fact that Europeans who now push for strict immigration controls against people of color, including Muslims, are only here because of theft, rape, and murder by their ancestors, Thanksgiving allows them to perpetuate a quaint tale of friendship.
As a human, and perhaps even more as a Muslim, Thanksgiving is my favorite “secular” or non-Islamic holiday. It is a time for family and for expressing thanks. My family is small and we do not share the holidays with others. This year it will just be my parents, my son and myself. Since we were children, our family tradition has always been to go around the table and individually list some of the things we are grateful for and then collectively pray to thank God for those blessings. Yes, my parents may be Christian, but they also believe that all blessings come from Allah. Let's face it, there is no such thing as too much gratitude to Allah!
So, as usual, I will be spending this Thursday helping my mother make a traditional Thanksgiving meal. My part is the yams and cranberry sauce, though I'm sure she'll find other tasks for me to assist with as well. And the four of us will sit around the table and express our thankfulness to Allah for all the wonderful gifts He has given us.
If you are celebrating, may it be a means of blessing and dawah for you and your family.
