ملخص الجهاز:
That such impor tant Muslim celebrations closely followed Hannukah and Christmas was a wonderful reminder of the benefits and importance of interfaith harmony and mutual understanding.
But as most people are not involved in interfaith groups, the positive potential of good interfaith relations was cancelled by dissension over seemingly triv ial matters: whether to wish people “Merry Christmas,” to call the school vacation the “Christmas” or the “winter” holidays, and to call the pine trees erected in public squares “Christmas trees.
Witness 2006’s televison program dedicated to this issue: Fox News host Bill O’Reilly mercilessly attacked Philip Nulman, an advertising and marketing executive who suggested that not saying “Merry Christmas” made good business sense due to its more inclusive message to non-Christian shoppers.
The logic is something like this: “We must celebrate at this time of year, since it’s a public holiday.
I remember in the early 1990s that the city of Toronto considered a proposal that Jewish and Muslim employees be allowed to work on December 25 in exchange for time off for their religious celebrations.
Liberals may decry this as a 4 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 throwback to the Ottoman milletsystem: a presumed ghettoization of minor ities, about separateness impeding a sense of common civic duty, a lack of commitment to the nation, and the like.
Our last article, “More Than the Ummah: A Study of Religious and National Identity in the Islamic World,” asks if empirical data supports the notion that Muslims are exceptional in their transnational identities.