Answer
In The Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
- Halloween is an annual Western celebration based on Celtic and European pagan doctrines and traditionally applied to the evening of October 31st.
- It is derived from rituals involving dead spirits and devil worship and symbolizes the beginning of the ancient Druid’s New Year, who holds that the dead revisit their homes at that time.
- Halloween represents the devil worshipper’s New Year. Muslim celebration of such a day is therefore sinful and haram, as it involves the most evil elements of polytheism and disbelief.
Responding to your question about Halloween in Islam, Dr. Muzzammil Siddiqi, Former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), states:
What is Halloween?
Halloween is an old pagan holiday of the witches and the dead. Later some Christians tried to Christianize it by calling it “All Saints Day”.
However, there are still many Christians who resent it and consider it a bad holiday. Some of them even call it a “helliday.”
Is it permissible for Muslims to celebrate Halloween?
Whether Christians accept it or not, we Muslims should not accept this holiday. It is meaningless.
Wearing costumes, going tricking and treating and decorating houses with witches, spider nets and wasting so much pumpkins, etc., are all repugnant things.
It is strange to see reasonable people acting as weirdo and doing foolish things. It is also becoming quite dangerous nowadays.
Some people really act like monsters and witches. Muslims should not participate in this holiday.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.