Shortly after prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Audah said on Saudi television that it was OK to celebrate birthdays for Moslems, the country’s grand mufti and top religious authority, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheik, responded saying that celebrating birthdays is a foreign innovation - a Christian one - and, as such, forbidden.”Christians have Mother’s Day, an eid for trees, and an eid for every occasion,” the enlightened and highly intelligent Al Sheik said. The previous mufti, Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Baz, also considered it haram, forbidden, to celebrate birthdays. “It’s not permissible to take part in them,” he said. “Birthday parties are an innovation … and people are in no need of innovations,” this great Saudi Arabian thinker said several years ago.
What is most interesting about this recent debate is that al-Audah broke with his fellow leading clerics publicly. Birthdays are considered ‘forbidden’ by most Saudis, especially by the religious leaders. They do not even support celebrating the birthday of the prophet Mohammed.
Al-Audah obviously disagrees with that, believing it to be fine if people want to celebrate their own or someone else’s birthday. He did, however, point out that one should not call birthday’s eid. The reason for this is that an eid should be strictly religious, according to al-Audah that is. Eid is an Arabic word meaning “feast.” For more on this see HERE
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