Valentine’s Day and Maldivians

Most of the youth of the “100% Islamic” Maldives is about to celebrate yet another non-Islamic occasion: the Valentine’s Day.

But I wonder if we know what we are doing! I wonder if we know that celebrating such a day is simply imitating a pagan (thus non-Islamic) custom just like zombies or automatons!

Anyone with a little bit of historical knowledge will acknowledge that Valentine's Day began when the early Roman Catholic Church tried to Christianize an ancient pagan Roman holiday called Lupercalia. That celebration was a licentious festival that honored Lupercus, the hero-hunter of wolves.

This festival was extremely popular among the Roman people then, that the Church included it in their calendar and made it part of Christianity, hoping to retain their new parishioners and turn them from sexual licentiousness to morality

The name of this day was given after a saint who is believed to have been a Roman priest who was martyred on February 14th around 270 AD. The story behind how he became the patron saint of lovers remains a mystery:

"Part of the ancient ceremony entailed putting girls' names in a box and letting the boys draw them out. Couples would thus be paired off until the following year. The Church substituted saints' names for girls' names, in the hope that the participant would model his life after the saint whose name he drew.
"But by the 16th century, it was once again girls' names that ended up in the box. Eventually the custom of sending anonymous cards or messages to those one admired became the accepted way of celebrating St. Valentine's Day" (Helene Henderson and Sue Ellen Thompson, editors, Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary, "Valentine's Day," 2005, p. 576).
"However, the early Christian saint Valentine probably had nothing to do with the traditions later celebrated on his feast day; it is simply by his placement in the Christian calendar that his name became associated with it. Later, the word valentine may have been confused with the Norman French word galantine, meaning lover of women, as the g and v were often interchangeable in common pronunciation.
"In any case, February 14 gradually became a traditional date for exchanging love messages, and Saint Valentine became the patron saint of lovers" (Macmillan Profiles: Festivals and Holidays, 1999, p. 363).



As it has been the habit of Christians, mainly since St. Paul, to modify the Christianity by adding/deleting/changing various aspects of their religion, this addition of an extra day to celebrate, as opposed to what was given in the Bible, was brought about. This is still evident from what is still left of the original Bible.

Furthermore, this celebration has recently taken a new dimension, with the event being ‘taken over’ by the capitalist forces and heavily commercialised, just like the other occasions of Christianity (such as Christmas Day, Easter; both of which have direct pagan routes as well!!).



(Yes, the “true” Christianity, and Islam, which are two “beacons of light from the same source” as was famously proclaimed by Emperor Negas of Ethiopia (Emperor ‘Najashee’ of ‘Habash’ as we know him), is clear from such pagan routes. Thus sincere Christians find no difficulty in accepting such truth, with many of them accepting the truth of Muhammad(s.a.w) and accepting Islam, just like Emperor Negas did later on)

Any Muslim who is sincere to his/her faith (and thus remain ‘moderate’ and in the ‘main stream’) will acknowledge that Islam is not just a set of repeatable physical rituals, but rather a complete way of life, thus requiring its adherents to obey and submit to Almighty God’s terms in sincerity and peace.

This naturally implies the importance of ‘keeping our acts’ coherent with our faith in all aspects of our lives, at all times!