Thoughts on Christmas and Muslims

We have seen yet another Christmas. And some senseless reactions have, again, come from our Muslim world. Three Muslim-majority countries, Tajikistan, Somalia and Brunei, banned Christmas celebrations, declaring them "un-Islamic." (As if one should ban everything that is "un-Islamic," as if people should not have a freedom of choice.) And in several Muslim-majority countries, including Turkey, certain Islamic groups protested the celebrations of "Christmas and New Year," which was for them somehow the same thing: Elements of a foreign culture that erodes and even replaces our own values. 

Yet all of this was based on a lot of ignorance and confusion, not to even mention authoritarianism. 

First of all, Christmas and New Year's Eve are separate things. While the former is specifically Christian, the latter is secular and somewhat universal - at least if you do not have an objection to the Gregorian calendar that most of us use. So, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, or anybody else can well skip Christmas and celebrate New Year's Eve as the beginning of a new round of our lives. 

But what about Christmas? Isn't it a tradition of a different religion that all Muslims should find totally alien and objectionable? 

Well, not really. Christmas is the celebration of the birthday of Jesus Christ. (We, of course, don't know the real date, but Christians have established two traditions about it, in late December or early January, and there is no reason to oppose them, claiming to know better.) And the celebration of the birthday of Jesus Christ must be respected by Muslims for a very simply reason: Jesus Christ, or Isa al-Masih, is a very holy figure for Muslims as well. 

The "Son of Mary," as he is sometimes called in the Qur'an, indeed has...