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#Post#: 2270--------------------------------------------------
Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: Aliph
Date: June 15, 2018, 1:50 am
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The majority of the contributors of this site seam to be
Christian (some boast about it and some stay more discrete).
Maybe there are some rare atheists but I will post my question
here and not on Italki .
Do you think that it is appropriate that an atheist wishes a
Christian a Merry Christmas?
How about a non Muslim that wishes a Muslim a blessed Ayd el
Fitr ?
Any differences among Shi’a and Sunni?
I am always disappointed when Muslim friends do not wish me a
merry Christmas. Jews usually use a political correct
formulation that I find not bad, they say “happy feasts of the
end of the year”.
How about your country? Would it be offensive in India to wish
happy Divali? And in Japan, how do you do with expats from
Europe or the States?
#Post#: 2272--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: Aliph
Date: June 15, 2018, 2:00 am
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Actually, I posted a similar question on italki last year (I
didn’t mention however the word atheist since it’s considered
worse than a N***** Word in some countries). Egyptians told me
that they are happy in their coexistence with the Coptic
minority and that they exchange greetings with people of other
faiths.
So I dared yesterday to wish a happy Ayd el Fitr in the
discussion board. Funnily an Iranian guy wrote that now he
thinks I am Iranian since I changed my profile and country of
origin from Italy to “other”. Amusing.
#Post#: 2273--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: KingSlayer
Date: June 15, 2018, 2:16 am
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Considering that Iran is the only country where Shi'a Islam is
the official religion, the answer is that our biggest holiday is
the Persian new year (Nowruz) which is celebrated on March 21st
generally and it marks the vernal equinox in the Northern
hemisphere. Iran, unlike most other Islamic countries, uses a
solar calendar which has 365 days in normal years and 366 days
in leap years while Islamic countries use a lunar calendar where
a normal year is 354 days and therefore, the beginning of a
lunar year always changes with respect to the Iranian calendar
or the Gregorian calendar.
Eid-e Fetr is a public holiday in Iran. Since a few years ago (4
years ago, if I'm not mistaken), we get two days off for Eid-e
Fetr. Before that, we only had one day off for Eid-e Fetr.
Iran traditionally sends its regards and best wishes to other
Muslim nations. Banks and large corporations generally send
congratulatory SMS's to their customers. People may congratulate
each other if they're religious, but generally we don't send
messages to each other on Eid-e Fetr. Iranians in social media
joke about how we didn't fast in Ramadhan but we're still
willing to accept God's invitation to the dinning party at the
end.
#Post#: 2274--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: Aliph
Date: June 15, 2018, 2:23 am
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Thank you KS for the response. Nowruz isn’t a religious feast,
right?
If you had a Christian co-worker would you wish him Happy
Christmas? Maybe there aren’t many in Teheran but there is an
Armenian minority in your country.
#Post#: 2277--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: KingSlayer
Date: June 15, 2018, 2:39 am
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--- Quote from: Aliph link ---
>
> Thank you KS for the response. Nowruz isn’t a religious feast,
right?
> If you had a Christian co-worker would you wish him Happy
Christmas? Maybe there aren’t many in Teheran but there is an
Armenian minority in your country.
>
--- End Quote ---
Christians in Iran are mainly Armenians or Assyrians. I have
seen a few Russian born residents that immigrated to Iran before
the 1979 revolution when Iran was still worth immigrating to.
So, the majority of Christians in Iran belong to the Eastern
Orthodox Church. No, honestly I have never sent them a Happy
Christmas message. They also do not throw parties and invite us
over for Christmas. So, maybe that's why they don't get a Happy
Christmas message from me. :P But then again, celebrating
religious festivals in Iran isn't a thing. The government and
the municipalities of Iranian cities decorate the buildings or
hold public celebrations for people but that's it. It's also not
very common to congratulate people on Eid-e Fetr either as I
said. So, if you're planning to send Happy Eid messages to your
Iranian friends, you may need to know that some of us might get
slightly offended by it even if we don't show a reaction to it.
:P
Nowruz used to be a religious festival like thousands of years
ago when Iran was a Zoroastrian country. However, Zoroastrian
origins of the festival have been nearly forgotten as the
festival itself has been through a lot of modifications during
the thousands of years it has been celebrated for. Nowadays it's
only a national holiday for Iranians.
#Post#: 2280--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: Aliph
Date: June 15, 2018, 3:45 am
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Good to know KS, since I got cards from Iranians
studying/working here wishing me happy holidays at Christmas
times. They choosed to send me a postcard of their/your country
and wrote a small text on it. I thought it was nice.
#Post#: 2282--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: KingSlayer
Date: June 15, 2018, 4:00 am
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--- Quote from: Aliph link ---
>
> Good to know KS, since I got cards from Iranians
studying/working here wishing me happy holidays at Christmas
times. They choosed to send me a postcard of their/your country
and wrote a small text on it. I thought it was nice.
>
--- End Quote ---
Yup. So, if you're looking for an opportunity to return their
kindness or friendliness or whatever you can send them a
postcard for Nowruz or Shab-e Chelleh. The later one is
celebrated on the night of winter solstice on December 21st
which is the longest night of the year in the Northern
hemisphere. There have been speculations that Christmas and
Shab-e Chelleh, also known as Yalda Eve, are related due to the
widespread practice of Mithraism in the Roman empire from the
1st to the 4th century (CE).
Do you live in Italy or Switzerland by the way? I'm asking
because it was brought up again.
#Post#: 2295--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: Aliph
Date: June 15, 2018, 6:16 am
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That's great to know! I will think about the 21 of December. I
love this kind of tradition and the knowledge about it. Where I
come from or where I live has no importance to me. Bertrand
Russell used to say something like "my home is where I have
friends". The ansrchists used to sing "la mia patria è il mondo
intero, la mia legge è la libertà "
#Post#: 2296--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: NealC
Date: June 15, 2018, 6:54 am
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I didn't grow up with any Moslems but NY has plenty of Jews and
my father was careful to teach us to always wish people of other
faiths good cheer on their religious holidays.
I think we can relate to each other on a level of what religion
means to us personally, and the joy of holidays that are wrapped
around family and children. Our common humanity.
#Post#: 2297--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wishes for religious feasts.
DIR By: nataliestpete
Date: June 15, 2018, 7:02 am
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--- Quote from: Aliph link ---
>
> Jews usually use a political correct formulation that I find
not bad, they say “happy feasts of the end of the
year”.
>
>
--- End Quote ---
The same in Russia.
Interestingly ( and thankfully), though Orthodox Jews can't
share their meal with not Jews ( except restaurants), they do
not ignore our religious holidays and just find a tricky way to
say " Congrats".
We had a family travel business and I had some plans with St
Petersburg's synagogue. It was challenging but I have learned a
lot as well.
I still have a friend there who called me periodically with some
ideas on how to make money which is often a kind of fraud. When
I ask him: why? how about Torah, the answer is always: "God
wants Jews to be happy and wealthy." No wonder his is keen on
NLP and psychology.
Cool, isn't it? and doesn't work for Christians:)
PS. Unfortunately, I cannot insert a link to his Facebook's
profile. His profile's pic from his past life when he used to be
a biker and now with all his religious attributes.
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