By Séamus Martin
The short answer is No.
There are only two religiously sanctioned celebrations in Islam – Eid ul-Adha and Eid-al Fitr. These were the only ones celebrated by prophet Mohammed, his companions and the next two generations of Muslims who are referred to as the Pious Predecessors. Any supposedly Islamic or Muslim celebration not practiced by or unknown to the first three generations of Muslims is a bidah, an impermissible innovation. Therefore there is not even an Islamic celebration of the Islamic New Year let alone the Christian one.
Likewise, many Muslims refuse to celebrate Mawlid an-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, as this was an innovation in Egypt dating from the ninth century CE under the Fatimid dynasty and was not observed as an Islamic celebration by the prophet himself or in his lifetime.
The above observations about the two Eids notwithstanding, there also exists in Islam the concept of Urf – the acceptance of customs and traditions in non-Islamic societies which are not specifically at odds with Islamic Sharia. Likewise with the continuation of many pre-Islamic customs of societies which in the past converted en masse to Islam, e.g. the celebration of the new year of the Persian calendar.
A case could possibly be argued that the celebration of the Gregorian calendar new year is permissible under Urf, particularly in a non-Muslim country. However, such celebrations in the modern era:
usually involve copious amounts of alcohol and generally unIslamic activities, may lead to sinful acts, could be considered as imitating non-believers and are likely to contribute to a Muslim not being able to get up in time the following morning to perform their dawn prayer (salat) on time.
So, all things considered, for the reasons stated above it would most likely be inappropriate for any serious, conscientious Muslim to participate in New Year’s celebrations on the night of 31st December /1st January.
Source: quora.com/
