Halloween is celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France as the Pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain and now it has become a part of American pop culture.
The festival has recently become popular with children and young people in Pakistan and is especially celebrated in Lahore with delicious food and music. The Daily Times carries a report on Haloween preparations in Lahore:
Yaseen Salman, an event organizer, said that Pakistanis had localized Halloween. Children in the West went trick-or-treating door-to-door in fancy costumes, he said, but Pakistanis arranged get-togethers, dance parties, concerts and sometimes horror shows. Restaurants and cafes also arrange special events to celebrate the festival. Saleem Aslam from Cafe Nouvelle on MM Alam Road said the cafe had arranged a number of games to celebrate Halloween. Only couples would be allowed in the restaurant on the night, he said, “to prevent trouble”….
The dress code had been decided, Saleem said, and caramel mouse cakes, apples in sweet syrup and cocoa butter with icing sugar were the new arrivals at Halloween. Mehreen Syed, a model, said she had been invited by a number of friends which showed that the western festival was now becoming popular in Pakistan. “Black, orange, purple, green and red are the common colors on Halloween accompanied by scary masks,” she said. Popular model Neha said she celebrated the event in a casual way. “I hang out with friends, go out for dinner or arrange a Halloween party at my house.”
Like so many other western cultural the trend, Halloween is becoming popular in Pakistan. What is your take on this?
S A J Shirazi is a Lahore (Pakistan) based writer. His blog is called Light Within, where a version of this post first appeared.
I would still agree with MQ, Sajjad, you are correct about holidays not colliding with our faith, but such positive steps taken by our government which should be applauded are days such as “Mothers Day”, and “Fathers Day”, but I’m not too sure celebrating Halloween is anything positive. I think we should emphasize the positive things if we are to follow our colonialistic roots or more recently our imperial superpower USA. However, it is amazing living in the USA when you return to Pakistan, it seems the people there are more Americanized or eager to be following suit as much as possible without any pride in their own identity whether that be nationalistic or religious. If you were to ask a Pakistani youth today in Pakistan how they define their identity and what it means to be Pakistani, I’m sure they would be tongue tied and have to think long and hard prior to responding.
It is sad, but true, then again, I’m sure some would argue even on this blog that there is nothing wrong with this, if we have evolved to being a melting pot of hindu, christian culture and ensured to bury anything Islamic, or Paksitani. As we already have seen even on discussions on this blog, wearing a turban, having a long beard makes a backward mullah and certainly not cool.
:)
Considering that we Pakistanis have so little facilities to productively use our time, we don’t miss any chance to celebrate and entertain ourselves.
Since Eid and the other holidays aren’t enough for us, we have to borrow holidays from the West. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing (as long as it doesn’t collide with our faith), but maybe it would be better if we used more of this time in doing something worthwhile.
Anyway, Halloween has become more of a fun holiday and has hardly anything to do with pagan beliefs these days. So, Happy Halloween.
A good place to start is here … where we learn two things:
1. The ‘pagan’ custom was ‘customized’ for incorporation into Christian tradition, just as many pre-Islamic practices (e.g. Circumcision – a Sunnat, not a Farz; see here were incorporated into the practice of Muslims.
2. Some Christian müllaas are as perturbed by this bid’at as ours will be.
If Basant, Divaali, Holi, and Halloween seem exciting, it is because they are colourful and joyous and fun. Given that the traditional Muslim festivals are increasingly impossible to celebrate with dancing and music – both activities having been declared unIslamic by the müllaas (and their tüllaas) – the young will turn to something more than what ‘baa-jamaat’ prayers and ‘meelaads’ can offer.
MQ, I agree with you on this one.
First it was Basant, allegedly a “Hindu” festival, which is celebrated with increasing fervor and festivities in Pakistan. Then came the Valentine Day, decidedly a Western (read Christian) festival, which for strange reasons, is becoming popular among the Pakistani youth. And now Halloween, a pagan festival in Pakistan??? I think this is the proverbial straw that will break the mulla’s back — or, more likely, light his fuse!