Today, February 14, is Valentine’s Day, the sacred day that intimate companions mark to celebrate their love and affection for one another. If you’re thinking about making a study of how couples celebrate this day, the Muslim world and the milieus of the radical Left are not the places you should be spending your time. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to outdo Islamists and “progressives” when it comes to the hatred of Valentine’s Day. And this hatred is precisely the territory on which the contemporary romance between the Left and Islamic Supremacism is formed.
The train is never late: every year that Valentine’s comes around, the Muslim world erupts with ferocious rage, with its leaders doing everything in their power to suffocate the festivity that comes with the celebration of private romance. Imams around the world thunder against Valentine’s every year — and the celebration of the day itself is literally outlawed in Islamist states.
This year, for example, the Islamabad High Court in Pakistan banned the celebration of Valentine’s Day in public places, and at an official level, and prohibited all electronic and print media from covering any festivities or mentioning of the occasion. Several cities across Muslim-majority Indonesia, meanwhile, banned people from celebrating the day. In the city of Surabaya, a group of school students, which included many girls wearing the hijab, denounced Valentine’s Day. In Muslim-dominant Malaysia, the group The National Muslim Youth Association directed females not to use emoticons and perfume in a pre-Valentine’s Day message.
Last year, Pakistan also banned Valentine’s Day, calling it an “insult” to Islam and warning that “strict” action against anyone daring to celebrate the day in any part of Islamabad. In the past, Valentine’s Day activities were disrupted by Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s main religious party, but in the last two years the state and court now get involved to ban celebration of the day. Back on Valentine’s Day in Pakistan in 2013, supporters of Jamat-e-Islami took to the streets in Peshawar to vehemently denounce the Day of Love. Demonizing it as “un-Islamic,” the Muslim protestors shouted that the day had “spread immodesty in the world.” Shahzad Ahmed, the local leader of the student wing of Jamat-e-Islami, declared that the organization will not “allow” any Valentine’s Day functions, warning that if Pakistani law enforcement did not prevent Pakistanis from holding such functions, that the Jamat-e-Islami would stop them “in our own way.” Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader in Jamat-e-Islami, calls Valentine’s a “shameful day.”
These Islamist forces in Pakistan cannot, of course, completely succeed in preventing couples from showing love to each other on this special day, and so many Pakistanis still cryptically celebrate Valentine’s Day and exchange presents in secret.
In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia last year, and as always, Valentine’s Day was outlawed. Under the Islamic regime in Iran, for instance, any sale or promotion of Valentine’s Day related items, including the exchange of gifts, flowers and cards, is illegal. The Iranian police consistently warn retailers against the promotion of Valentine’s Day celebrations.
Over the years, Islamic religious leaders and officials in Malaysia have warned Muslims against celebrating Valentine’s Day. In Saudi Arabia, the morality police outlaw the sale of all Valentine’s Day items, forcing shopkeepers to remove any red items, because the day is considered a Christian holiday.
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are carrying the torch for the Indonesian Ulema Council in Dumai, Riau, and for the Education, Youth and Sport Agency in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, both of which issue a dire warning each year to people against celebrating Valentine’s Day, stating that the Day of Love “is against Islam.” This is because, as the Indonesian Ulema Council 2011 judgment explained, Valentine’s Day takes young people into a “dark world.”
Malaysia’s State mufti chief assistant Mat Jais Kamos always keeps his mind focused on that dark world and so, in 2014, a few days before Valentine’s Day, he ordered young people to stay clear of celebrating the Day of Love: “The celebration emphasizes the relationship between two individuals rather than the love between family members or married couples,” he affirmed, and department officials backed up his command by distributing leaflets to remind Muslims of the 2006 ban on Valentine’s Day issued by the state fatwa council. In Islamic Uzbekistan, meanwhile, several universities habitually make sure that students actually sign contracts promising not to celebrate Valentine’s.
All these Islamic outcries against Valentine’s Day reflect myriad other efforts to suffocate the day of love throughout the Muslim War. For instance, in Aceh province in Indonesia every year, Muslim clerics issue stern warnings to Muslims against observing Valentine’s Day. Tgk Feisal, general secretary of the Aceh Ulema Association (HUDA), has stated that “It is haram for Muslims to observe Valentine’s Day because it does not accord with Islamic Sharia.” He has stressed that the government must watch out for youths participating in Valentine’s Day activities in Aceh. One can only imagine what happens to the guilty parties.
As mentioned, the Saudis consistently punish the slightest hint of celebrating Valentine’s Day. The Kingdom and its religious police always officially issue a stern warning that anyone caught even thinking about Valentine’s Day will suffer some of the most painful penalties of Sharia Law. Daniel Pipes has documented how the Saudi regime takes a firm stand against Valentine’s every year and how the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts.
Christian overseas workers living in Saudi Arabia from the Philippines and other countries always take extra precautions, heeding the Saudis’ warning to them specifically to avoid greeting anyone with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” or exchanging any gift that reeks of romance. A spokesman for a Philippine workers group has commented:
We are urging fellow Filipinos in the Middle East, especially lovers, just to celebrate their Valentine’s Day secretly and with utmost care.
The Iranian despots, meanwhile, as mentioned above, consistently try to make sure that the Saudis don’t outdo them in annihilating Valentine’s Day. Iran’s “morality” police sternly order shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations and images of couples embracing on this day — and anytime around this day.
Typical of this whole pathology in the Islamic world was a development witnessed back on February 10, 2006, when activists of the radical Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Community) went on a rampage in Srinagar, the main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir. Some two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters showing couples together.
In the West, meanwhile, leftist feminists are not to be outdone by their Islamist allies in reviling — and trying to exterminate — Valentine’s Day. Throughout many Women’s Studies Programs on American campuses, for instance, you will find the demonization of this day, since, as the disciples of Andrea Dworkin angrily explain, the day is a manifestation of how capitalist and homophobic patriarchs brainwash and oppress women — and push them into spheres of powerlessness.
As an individual who spent more than a decade in academia, I was privileged to witness this war against Valentine’s Day up close and personal. Feminist icons like Jane Fonda, meanwhile, help lead the assault on Valentine’s Day in society at large. As David Horowitz has documented, Fonda has led the campaign to transform this special day into “V-Day” (“Violence against Women Day”) — which is, when it all comes down to it, a day of hate, featuring a mass indictment of men.
So what exactly is transpiring here? What explains this hatred of Valentine’s Day by leftist feminists and Islamists? And how and why does it serve as the sacred bond that brings the Left and Islam together into its feast of hate?
The core issue at the foundation of this phenomenon is that Islam and the radical Left both revile the notion of private love, a non-tangible and divine entity that draws individuals to each other and, therefore, distracts them from submitting themselves to a secular deity.
The highest objective of both Islam and the radical Left is clear: to shatter the sacred intimacy that a man and a woman can share with one another, for such a bond is inaccessible to the order. History, therefore, demonstrates how Islam, like Communism, wages a ferocious war on any kind of private and unregulated love. In the case of Islam, the reality is epitomized in its monstrous structures of gender apartheid and the terror that keeps it in place. Indeed, female sexuality and freedom are demonized and, therefore, forced veiling, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, honor killings and other misogynist monstrosities become mandatory parts of the sadistic paradigm.
The puritanical nature of totalist systems (whether Fascist, Communist, or Islamist) is another manifestation of this phenomenon. In Stalinist Russia, sexual pleasure was portrayed as unsocialist and counter-revolutionary. More recent Communist societies have also waged war on sexuality — a war that Islam, as we know, wages with similar ferocity. These totalist structures cannot survive in environments filled with self-interested, pleasure-seeking individuals who prioritize devotion to other individual human beings over the collective and the state. Because the leftist believer viscerally hates the notion and reality of personal love and “the couple,” he champions the enforcement of totalitarian puritanism by the despotic regimes he worships.
The famous twentieth-century novels of dystopia, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, George Orwell’s 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, all powerfully depict totalitarian society’s assault on the realm of personal love in its violent attempt to dehumanize human beings and completely subject them to its rule. In Zamyatin’s We, the earliest of the three novels, the despotic regime keeps human beings in line by giving them license for regulated sexual promiscuity, while private love is illegal. The hero breaks the rules with a woman who seduces him — not only into forbidden love but also into a counterrevolutionary struggle. In the end, the totality forces the hero, like the rest of the world’s population, to undergo the Great Operation, which annihilates the part of the brain that gives life to passion and imagination, and therefore spawns the potential for love. In Orwell’s 1984, the main character ends up being tortured and broken at the Ministry of Truth for having engaged in the outlawed behavior of unregulated love. In Huxley’s Brave New World, promiscuity is encouraged — everyone has sex with everyone else under regime rules, but no one is allowed to make a deep and independent private connection.
Yet as these novels demonstrate, no tyranny’s attempt to turn human beings into obedient robots can fully succeed. There is always someone who has doubts, who is uncomfortable, and who questions the secular deity — even though it would be safer for him to conform like everyone else. The desire that therefore overcomes the instinct for self-preservation is erotic passion. And that is why love presents such a threat to the totalitarian order: it dares to serve itself. It is a force more powerful than the all-pervading fear that a totalitarian order needs to impose in order to survive. Leftist and Muslim social engineers, therefore, in their twisted and human-hating imaginations, believe that the road toward earthly redemption (under a classless society or Sharia) stands a chance only if private love and affection is purged from the human condition.
This is exactly why, forty years ago, as Peter Collier and David Horowitz demonstrate in Destructive Generation, the Weather Underground not only waged war against American society through violence and mayhem, but also waged war on private love within its own ranks. Bill Ayers, one of the leading terrorists in the group, argued in a speech defending the campaign:
Any notion that people can have responsibility for one person, that they can have that ‘out’ — we have to destroy that notion in order to build a collective; we have to destroy all ‘outs,’ to destroy the notion that people can lean on one person and not be responsible to the entire collective.
Thus, the Weather Underground destroyed any signs of monogamy within its ranks and forced couples, some of whom had been together for years, to admit their “political error” and split apart. Like their icon Margaret Mead, they fought the notions of romantic love, jealousy, and other “oppressive” manifestations of one-on-one intimacy and commitment. This was followed by forced group sex and “national orgies,” whose main objective was to crush the spirit of individualism. This constituted an eerie replay of the sexual promiscuity that was encouraged (while private love was forbidden) in We, 1984, and Brave New World.
It becomes completely understandable, therefore, why leftist believers were so inspired by the tyrannies in the Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist North Vietnam and many other countries. As sociologist Paul Hollander has documented in his classic Political Pilgrims, fellow travelers were especially enthralled with the desexualized dress that the Maoist regime imposed on its citizens. This at once satisfied the leftist’s desire for enforced sameness and the imperative of erasing attractions between private citizens. As I have demonstrated in United in Hate, the Maoists’ unisex clothing finds its parallel in fundamentalist Islam’s mandate for shapeless coverings to be worn by both males and females. The collective “uniform” symbolizes submission to a higher entity and frustrates individual expression, mutual physical attraction, and private connection and affection. And so, once again, the Western leftist remains not only uncritical, but completely supportive of — and enthralled in — this form of totalitarian puritanism.
This is precisely why leftist feminists today do not condemn the forced veiling of women in the Islamic world; because they support everything that forced veiling engenders. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Naomi Wolf finds the hijab “sexy”. And it should be no surprise that Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Unni Wikan, found a solution for the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women: the rapists must not be punished, but Norwegian women must veil themselves.
Valentine’s Day is a “shameful day” for the Muslim world and for the radical Left. It is shameful because private love is considered obscene, since it threatens the highest of values: the need for a totalitarian order to attract the complete and undivided attention, allegiance and veneration of every citizen. Love serves as the most lethal threat to the tyrants seeking to build Sharia and a classless utopia on earth, and so these tyrants yearn for the annihilation of every ingredient in man that smacks of anything that it means to be human.
And so perhaps it is precisely on reflecting yesterday’s Valentine’s Day that we are reminded of the hope that we can realistically have in our battle with the ugly and pernicious Unholy Alliance that seeks to destroy our civilization.
This day reminds us that we have a weapon, the most powerful arsenal on the face of the earth, in front of which despots and terrorists quiver and shake, and sprint from in horror into the shadows of darkness, desperately avoiding its piercing light.
That arsenal is love.
And no Maoist Red Guard or Saudi Islamo-Fascist cop ever stamped it out — no matter how much they beat and tortured their victims. And no al-Qaeda jihadist in Pakistan or Feminazi on any American campus will ever succeed in suffocating it, no matter how ferociously they lust to disinfect man of who and what he is.
Love will prevail.
Long Live Valentine’s Day.
*
To get the whole story on Islam’s and the Left’s war on private love, see Jamie Glazov’s book United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror.
Jamie Glazov is the editor of Frontpagemag.com. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of United in Hate, the host of the web-TV show, The Glazov Gang, and can be reached at jamieglazov11@gmail.com.

David Scoltock says
Spencer, it’s not “valentines day”
it’s SAINT Valentine’s day. Poor martyrs, they never get recognised anymore.
Cecilia Ellis says
Scoltock, it’s not “Spencer” who wrote this article. So much for your sarcasm …
Westman says
Right on, Jamie and Cecillia.
I couldn’t care less that a special day of remembering my dear spouse, children, and relatives is historically related to a religion. I’m going to make certain that they know how precious they are. My “freedom” without them would be rather hollow.
In the creation of America, the founding fathers put men and women on the road less traveled – freedom of choice for both men and women – and it has made all the difference. It has permitted the transition from existing inequities to a more just society over the past 200+ years. It is no accident that the many talented people come to the US for opportunity.
In societies that make the marriage choices for their women you’ll find little progress and large pockets of poverty.
The difference between Islam and other ideologies is the crushing of personal love for women as equal partners. It is a factor behind which all divisions can be bonded during a resistance to Islam’s cancerous enchroachment.
Wellington says
An excellent article by Jamie Glazov and a fine comment by you, Westman.
David Scoltock says
Freedom of choice? 60 years ago it was a crime for a black person to marry a white person in some American states.
It’s been a very rocky road for freedom in America.
gravenimage says
Fine post, Westman.
gravenimage says
More sneering from David Scoltock.
Here’s the trailer for the 2016 film “Loving”:
Wellington says
David Scotlock: Has America erred in race relations and elsewhere? You bet it has. But what polity has not erred in one way or another? And America, more than virtually any other polity, has tried its best to make good on its mistakes. Those who are viscerally anti-American or who do not see America as an exceptional country always miss things like this.
gravenimage says
+1, Wellington.
Gail griffin says
Valentine’s day was celebrated in Pakistan this year with the murder of a young couple who had run away together. Too bad Pakistan keep your hate. No love for you.
gravenimage says
Horrifying, Gail–but I am not surprised. These poor lovers.
epistemology says
Couldn’t agree more dear Westman, muzzies loathe Valentine’s day because they hate the idea of romantic love, the relationship of man and women is limited to procreation and sexual satisfaction, no room for deeper emotions. Man is supposed to love his moon idol and and admire his self-appointed prophet. End of story.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, epistemology. If there is ever love among Muslims, it is despite Islam, not because of it.
no_one says
I think that a saint with the name Valentine, celebrated on Feb. 14 does not exist in the Church calendar. It looks like a myth. There is a St. Valentine from Rome who is celebrated in the summer. To me it is just Valentine’s day.
A Harris USA says
Dave, you are right.. St. Valentine went against the Emperor of Rome and wed the legions to their sweethearts, and was jailed, and executed but not before falling in love with his jailers daughter.
A Christian holiday, another reason to raise hell for the Islamic filth.
My partner of over 20 years, is not a fan of all the fan fair. He and I joke about it endlessly from Xmas till Feb. 14, but he always comes threw with great flair. Dinner, card, and so on.. Now I have a new line, when he grips about the BEST day of the year, I’ll tell him, go be a stinking Muslim, then you won’t have to buy me anything for St. Valentine’s day… HAHA He’d die first… Literally !!
Cornelius says
Folks. Jamie has never been more poignant and spot-on. Sociologist Unni Wikan did indeed insist that, because Norway was now a multicultural society, Norwegian women need to adjust to this new reality by donning the veil. As much as any example available, this epitomizes the left’s cultural capitulation.
gravenimage says
Very true, Cornelius. And good to see you posting again.
Irene Brekelmans says
The muslim world is trying to dehumanise the rest of the world and that will not happen as love will prevail,
like the writer ended his article with, and for a lot of muslimwomen, if you believe in Islam the way it is presented now, I feel sorry for you, but what you want, you get.
THINK ABOUT THIS:YOU CREATE WHILE YOU SPEAK !, just make sure that what you want to create, if it is not good,….. it comes back to you, so do the good things.
And this is the last thing I am saying about all this, because honestly, I am fed up with all this and I really don’t care any more if you want to accept anything or think about it. I have tried to help you, not myself.
May your God be with you.
mortimer says
YEAH!!! Down with LOVE!!! YEAH!!! Up with HATE!!!!
Muslim motto: “WE LOVE DEATH… 270 million kafirs served.”
ermom says
Great article, Jamie. Thanks for all you and the Glazov Gang do.
HAPPY ST. VALENTINE’S DAY!
gravenimage says
🙂
Paul N Silas says
Marxism see’s the Islamic people unlike most of us do. We see a mostly backward bunch of loonies set upon forcing this World to sacrum to the rantings of a 1500 year old pedophile.
They see the Islamic people as another “suppressed class” by Capitalism/Judeo-Christian culture and thus they have been allied to Islam for a very long time.
Look at the huge numbers of Muslims that lived in the Soviet Union, yet few ever revolted or did terrorist acts against Moscow.
Gen Flynn was let go because as a long time Intelligence Officer, he knew that Moscow/Iran is stirring the pot of Islamic Terror.
*note FSB bloggers will attack this post
no_one says
Islam is religion of hate and religion of the devil. Devil hates God, who is love. No wonder devil hates love. Leftist feminist are usually fat and ugly and hate anyone who is not like them. Yet if we follow the Christian love we would love anyone even the jihadist and the leftist. He said “Love your enemy” and it is hard to follow God. It is hard to love haters, illegals that commit crimes and cause much pain to legal citizens, islamist that are so selfish that they would kill for their 72 virgins in paradize. Yet I disagree with statements about communism. Love was not forbidden by it. They simply celebrated another day, March 8th. It was international women’s day. Women would get a lot of flowers. People may thing Russia and the Slavs forbid love, but that was not the case. They had the Christian God, Who is love, for centuries and communist could not erase this. They may have tried, but were not successful at all. I know how they propagated the teachings of the Gospel during the communism. People did it and they thought their children to love. Love every human being as themselves and every living breathing creature. This is a culture that was developed over many centuries and could not be easily erased. Most westerners, arabs, asians, don’t know the slavic soul, which holds love as the highest value.
Paul N Silas says
Slavic love as practiced by Stalin murdered 40+ million in the gulags. Communist love killed countless millions more world wide during the Cold War, including Americas, and continues to in Iran, Syria, Cuba, etc.
Most of the leaders of Islamic terror movements were/are schooled in the FSB university in Moscow.
no_one says
Stalin is not from a Slavic decent. He is from Georgia. Wasn’t alive then. After Stalin things got better. I have lived during communism and it wasn’t all bad, though it was towards the end of it and I was a child. Regular Russians and other Slavs are nice people. Much nicer than all westerners, arabs, asians. It is love that makes them different.
gravenimage says
Wait–so Communists are all about love, and are much nicer than free Westerners? Tell the victims of the Gulag that…
And, really, ethnicity has nothing to do with this. “Arabs” are not a problem–Muslims are, though.
Carolyne says
I just finished a book about Svetlana Stalina, Stalin’s daughter. I guess living under Communism wasn’t so bad for you because because you weren’t sent to the Gulag nor were you or your parents tortured and murdered in the infamous Lubyanka. Stalin killed or caused the death of 20 million of his people, some shot and most starved to death. Men who had surrendered to the Germans and interned in a POW camp were shot in Russia when they returned, just for the act of surrender. One of Stalin’s sons surrendered himself, but arranged to be shot by a German guard so that he would not face his end in Russia as a traitor. Even Stalin’s close relatives were arrested, tortured and shot on his orders. His daughter defected when Kosygin was Premier because she could stand it no more.
Yes, those were the good old days.
gravenimage says
Communism was indeed anti-romantic love.
“Women’s Day” did not celebrate romantic love–it was originally called “International Working Women’s Day”, and was about getting as much labor as possible out of every member of society.
It just shows how people yearn for love that in some regions later in the Communist era, the day lost some of its political flavor and became simply an occasion for people to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day.
Angemon says
B-b-b-ut, shias and sunnis are different sects! It’s almost as if they share a common set of core values and differ only in details that a non-muslim would deem insignificant, such as whether gays are to be beheaded or hanged…
gravenimage says
Ha ha
Nigel GFF says
‘Feminazi’.
Golly!
Shmooviyet says
Sour, cynical “who needs it?” types like Fonda fit right in with the others. If the imams allowed it she’d preach against the West at local mosques. But she understands why they wouldn’t allow it, being the ultra-tolerant she is– ha ha.
Women’s rights my Aunt Fanny.
Jerry says
Yes, Jamie was so insightful here. It’s true, islam must control everything, even the love people have for one another. By banning personal expressions of love and affection the chief despots within islam are demanding the utmost fealty from their subjects, or more accurately, SLAVES. And I do agree with his conclusion that our arsenal is love:
It is love of country that compels men and women to sacrifice their safety and lives fighting islamic jihad.
It is our love for the rights of women that we speak against the misogyny that islam teaches.
It is love for our children that compels our outrage over the muslim perversities in Rotherham.
It is out of love for human rights that compels us to fight the inhumanities of islamic doctrine and traditions.
It is out of love for a moral and compassionate god that compels us to fight the barbarities of allah.
It is out of love for ourselves that we defend our better natures against the violent and immoral maxims of the muslim religion.
Love is the foundation for our best intentions and deeds. Jamie Glazov, you are one of the gifted ones. You have the virtue of human compassion and understanding that makes the world a better place. You make me proud to be a human being. Don’t ever change.
gravenimage says
Fine post, Jerry–thank you.
Jerry says
Oh, my pleasure. :)) Sometimes I just feel compelled to hate islam out loud.
gravenimage says
🙂
Lynne says
Wow!
davej says
Of course the Religion of Hate is against love and individual freedom, both are antithetical to totalitarianism. Under Islam women are consigned to their husbands or slave owners, primarily by other men. This includes child marriage and first cousin marriage. The only real love in Islam is for Allah and even that is a mixture of fealty, terror and fatalism.
Guest says
I think this is actually the most relevant point: in strict islamic societies, people don’t get to choose each other – they don’t even meet people of the other sex outside of the clan. They just jolly well marry whoever they are told to marry, and that’s it.
gravenimage says
Those trying to escape forced marriage are often “Honor Killed”. And Afghan and Pakistani prisons are full of women who tried to escape forced and abusive marriages.
Carolyne says
A Turkish woman told me that her mother was the victim of an arranged marriage. Rather than being raped that night, her husband stood behind a door and read poetry to her. She thought it was romantic. But nothing could negate the fact that this woman’s mother was sold to some smelly old man.
She had two servants in her house, young girls, sisters, from some village. Each week their father would come and collect their wages. The girls expected that and didn’t object, although I tried to start a revolution when I heard that the father was taking a second wife. I told them they should be in school. For some reason, this woman of the house didn’t really care for me after that.
gravenimage says
Forced marriages and the abuse of children is rife in Dar-al-Islam.
And this happened in “moderate” Turkey.
Guest says
A Turkish friend of mine in *Germany* had to run away to a girls’ home for state protection because her family was trying to send her to Turkey to be married off to some cousin she barely knew. My friend had grown up in Germany and wanted nothing to do with all that stuff.
gravenimage says
Yes, Guest–Muslim girls, including underaged girls, are often sent by their parents back to Dar-al-Islam to marry some cousin. This not only marries off the poor child; it also brings more Muslims into the West.
Gen Jones says
Wonderful article, thank you Jamie.
Another one of the reasons Islam bans Valentines Day is it’s a woman-centric holiday that puts men in a vulnerable spot. Of course couples celebrate it but it’s women who receive the consideration and the gifts. Thinking about how to please a wife is beyond the skills of most Muslim men – they don’t have to be nice, women must obey. Men in civilized countries try their best to please the woman in their life on Valentines Day with traditional flowers, or candy, or jewelry, or dinner, or even a simple card. Certainly to some it’s an obligation and yes it’s over commercialized but most men enjoy being thoughtful and creative in recognizing their “other half”. They hope she’ll be pleased. They’re fools in love. Muslim men can’t afford to be fools, or vulnerable to a woman, their egos can’t take it. Muslim men don’t think of women as their other half either. It’s a lonely place.
Of course all this romantic recognition on Valentines Day pays off in other types of reciprocation ? an enjoyable aspect of the game of love. But there is no fun in Islam, true as ever.
Jerry says
So true. You said that well. Islam has a slave mentality toward women. The last thing muslim men need is a holiday that celebrates the romance & love they bring into men’s lives. That might give their enslaved women the wrong idea they are worthy of respect as humans. But this is the nature of islam, it has the intellect of a child and the heart of a demon.
Cretius says
How much proof do our leaders need to see that Islam is incompatible with Western democratic values? Is blood in the streets necessary. Look at the chaos in Europe.
Islam is the gold standard for bigotry, intolerance, inequality, and persecution and hatred for all things non-Muslim. Demand answers from your politicians!
John A. Marre says
There is no love in the Muslim world. Reproduction is equivalent to animals mating in the farmyard. Women are treated worse than animals. Sex is nothing more than the gratification of lower order instincts. Romance is not in their vocabulary.
Violence and mating are first and foremost in their protozoan nervous systems which are incapable of love and appreciation of esthetics.
gravenimage says
*Excellent* and important article by Jaime Glazov.
This is–no pun intended–the heart of the matter.
While there are certainly public aspects to Valentine’s Day–dances, card exchanges at schools, concerts featuring love songs, dinners in romantic restaurants–Valentine’s Day is at its heart about *private* love between two people. Note: private is *not* the same as secret. In a free society, once does not have to hide such love, but can celebrate it.
As Mr. Glazov notes, this love between individuals threatens Islam, as it threatens any totalitarian creed, including the Communism of hard Leftism.
One of the greatest freedoms is being able to decide whom to love.
Here’s “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles, which is my husband’s and my “unofficial” (private joke) ballad:
Gen Jones says
I love it Graven! We all need an over the top pop song to call our own.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Gen. The truth is that I love serious love songs and popular love songs; opera, traditional, jazz, R&B, country, rock–even silly bubble gum love songs are often a lot of fun.
Of course, there are a few that are too cheesy even for me–but I can live with that. Consider the alternative!
There is nothing like this in Islam–and it part of our great heritage.
Guest says
Love is a thing of beauty and Islam is a thing of ugly. What other reason is there?
gravenimage says
🙂
Kepha says
I didn’t realize Jane Fonda was still alive, so I looked up her bio. I guess I understand why she’s so soured on Valentine’s day, after being thrown over by Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden, Ted Turner, and then Richard Perry.
Carolyne says
But you have to admit, that plastic surgery on her face was a really great job.
Kepha says
Dunno. My wife looks much better than without any plastic surgery at all–34 years now, and we’re grandparents..
gravenimage says
Kudos to you and your wife, Kepha!
My wonderful husband and I will be celebrating our 29th anniversary later this year.
bernie says
There is a parody vid called “The Bible versus the Quran: Mohahappy speaks.” He says, Who needs a lae to tell you to love your parents…the Quran allows you to hate everyone equally.”
LR says
Valentine’s day will always be alive and well in the west. Too much money is made on any holiday, and a lot of people love chocolate.
Valentine’s day can be about all types of love…
So, a few women get a bit bent out of shape…and no-one really notices much.
I am more concerned about the nuts in Utah trying to push decriminalization of polygamy, and we know who else can jump on that bandwagon.
Denying ‘religious freedom’ ya’ know.
Lynne says
I’m an older divorced female who loves Valentine’s Day. It’s about all kinds of love. I rejoice in my children, grandchild and daughter’s love for her partner.
Carolyne says
I think Valentine’s day is about all kinds of love. When my mother was living, I sent her a valentine.
gravenimage says
Yes, Lynne and Carolyne–Valentine’s Day is about loving friendship between classmates, love of a child for his mother, love of parents for their kids, and of every sort of romantic love, from school crushes to young love to long-term married love. Islam hates all of these things.
By the way, LR, the idea that all spurned women vindictively hate Valentine’s Day is not the case. I was heartbroken when my long-term boyfriend broke up with me, and I was alone and dating for several years before I met the man who would become my husband.
During this time, I regarded Valentine’s Day wistfully and looked forward to having a real reason to celebrate it again–but I never hated Valentine’s Day, and I never hated lovers who celebrated it. Far from it.
Lydia says
I have read mixed backgrounds on the origins of the day but today it is mostly celebrated as a day of love and in particular romantic love. I did not know the muslims were so hateful of it. But I’m not surprised. Their main goal in life seems to be to kill others, oppress women, beat their wives, and hate their neighbors. Then they flash a big shiny sword as if all of this makes them so big, bad, and brave. Shame on them! And I did notice some of this among feminists and liberals and did not understand it either. What on earth is wrong with love and romance and happy couples?! That gay issue I never thought of, I guess now every time they see a heterosexual couple they feel a personal assault? I thought feminists were complaining because they didn’t feel loved and appreciated enough by the men in their lives? Odd. Anyway, God made love between a man and a woman and other natural orders such as families (with a male and a female parent), so long live love! The love for God is best but His love for us is even better!
<3
Love,
Lydia
gravenimage says
Actually, I know several gay couples who happily celebrate Valentine’s Day themselves.
Lydia says
It figures that they would hate love…!
gravenimage says
Yes–Valentine’s Day has been banned in many Muslim countries, including Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. People have been arrested for just wearing red or pink or selling roses.
Here’s another recent story:
“Saudi Arabia: Religious police ban Valentine’s Day”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/02/saudi-arabia-religious-police-ban-valentines-day
Dry Academy says
Excellent article. I personally witnessed the leftist hatred of St. Valentine’ Day when I was in college. These type of people are hateful killjoys who would destroy all beauty on Earth if they could.
gravenimage says
Grimly true. What ugly insanity.
dumbledoresarmy says
Islam adores Thanatos and therefore opposes Eros.
If one reads Ayaan Hirsi Alis’ “Infidel”, one discovers that, as a teenager at high school in Kenya, she (like all the other girls there, of all faiths – Christian, Hindu, Muslim, animist) avidly devoured Mills & Boon and Harlequin romances.
And for her, brought up in a family blighted by the grim bleakness of Islam, these novels – which many in the west might deride as cheap trash – were *revolutionary literature*.
Because, trashy and popular though they are, they still reflect some very deep assumptions derived from the foundations of ‘the West’.
They taught that a woman can *choose* her mate (free consent), that she can expect her man to love *only* her (NO polygyny), that she can be a free and conscious agent, and that love, sexual desire/ passion can be a *good* thing.
She says that these romances kept her soul alive at a time when she was being brainwashed by a very, very slick and charming Muslim Brotherhoood revivalist (female) who was busy indoctrinating Kenyan Muslims into *real*, full-on Islam.
They laid the deep foundation for her ultimate freedom.
gravenimage says
Yes, DDA–reading this by Ayaan Hirsi Ali was revelatory.
Even low-budget popular art–paperback novels, movies, comic books, songs–can open one’s eyes to the value of true love.
That’s one reason why pious Muslims so hate Bollywood–often one of the main themes is finding love.