Assalaamu alaykum,

We took a break this past week from our normal discussion on Quranic themes to address the topic of Halloween given that most of the wider public in the country just completed celebrating it. We discussed that it impermissible for a Muslim to celebrate Halloween for the following reasons:
1) Its history is connected to a pagan holiday/festival. For a Muslim this is enough to disassociate themselves from it. It is not just harmless fun. Anything that may adulterate your tawheed we should run away from.
2) Allah said that Muslims that follow the example of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions are the best nation that has risen from mankind. The best nation doesn’t imitate that which is distinct to non-Muslims, especially anything that has a religious association.

We also derived proof of this position from the Sunnah and made it clear that even if your intention is just to have fun and acquire candy, it doesn’t make it permissible to celebrate Halloween. The hadeeth we discussed as reported by Abu Dawood and is saheeh is as follows:

Narrated Thabit ibn ad-Dahhak:

In the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) a man took a vow to slaughter a camel at Buwanah. So he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: I have taken a vow to sacrifice a camel at Buwanah.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: Did the place contain any idol worshiped in pre-Islamic times?
They (the people) said: No.
He asked: Was any pre-Islamic festival observed there?
They replied: No.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Fulfill your vow, for a vow to do an act of disobedience to Allah must not be fulfilled, neither must one do something over which a human being has no control.

Lesson: Note that this individual wanted to perform a noble action, fulfilling his vow to slaughter a camel to Allah at a particular location, but he would have been prevented from doing so (based on the questions asked by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him) at this location simply because it was associated IN THE PAST, we a pre-Islamic festival or was a pre-Islamic location where idols were worshipped. This shows that even though we may claim that we don’t celebrate Halloween for any pagan reasons, the fact that it had a past association with a pagan festival is enough for us to stay away from it. See here for more information:

https://www.islamweb.net/en/article/92751/advice-regarding-halloween

HOMEWORK: A question came up about whether it is OK to celebrate birthdays. Rather than answer the question, we agreed that the homework would be for each of us to do research on the origin of birthdays and share it with the class the following week.