COMMENT To say that Valentine’s Day is celebrated by Christians around the world is like saying Muslims believe in using suicide bombers in its jihad.

Pardon me for using this illustration, but the truth is that both statements can only be made out of sheer ignorance.

Just as the word ‘suicide bombers’ does not appear in the Quran, Valentine’s Day was never once mentioned in the Holy Bible.

Just because Feb 14 has become part of the Western culture does not mean that Christians celebrate Valentine’s Day. Even growing up in a missions school, I never heard about Valentine’s Day until much later in life.

None of the Methodist pastors or La Sallean brothers spoke about Valentine’s Day the way they would talk about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus during chapel.

Therefore, if Muslims believe that the Bible is one of the five holy books, PAS Youth chief Nik Mohamad Abduh Nik Aziz should at least do a proper research into the Bible to see what it has to say about Valentine’s Day.

In my opinion, Nik Abduh is either ill-informed, or he is just another bigot, for saying that the “celebration is associated with Christianity and hence should be discouraged among Muslims”. Nik Abduh is in a world of his own, and totally out of touch with reality.

Given the modern meaning to Valentine’s Day, on the contrary, I think Muslim men should make it a point to spend more time to celebrate their wives in order to stay away from adultery. God created Eve for Adam, and she alone was enough to satisfy the desires of Adam; anything more than that is committing adultery in the eyes of God.

We should not treat women like one of our belongings, but the expression ‘taken out of man’s rib’ should give them an equal status with men.

Valentine’s Day never on church calendar

I was in church yesterday morning, and never once did the pastor mention anything about Valentine’s Day. Instead, we had the Watoto children from Africa who performed a few songs to help raise funds for the community work amongst the street kids in war-torn Uganda.

The only time that I was reminded of Valentine’s Day was when my wife asked how we wanted to celebrate our marriage as a couple.

Before we were married, of course, we took the opportunity to just spend an evening out together, but since we married and had children, we try to find other days in the year for our marriage time to re-kindle our love for each other. We, too, try to stay away from the Valentine’s Day madness, when restaurants are fully booked and charge extra (apart from the service charges and the Goods and Services Taxes) for the meal together.

Apart from that, on WhatsApp forums, especially amongst the old boys groups, there was a lot of messages about Valentine’s Day. Teasingly, I urged my bachelor friend, “Find yourself a Valentine to dine with you tonight.”

Within these two groups, I would say only five or six people are Christians, while the rest of the people do not even attend church, yet Valentine’s Day is such a big thing with the old boys and girls.

The background

The only two mentions of Valentine in church history were of a fifth century Christian martyr, and the other the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni in central Italy).

Modern-day Valentine is probably named after the Christian martyr Valentinus who, according to legend, healed the daughter of his jailer just before Valentinus himself faced execution. He wrote to the girl Asterius a letter signed, ‘Your Valentine’ as a farewell.

The origins of Valentine’s Day celebrated on Feb 14 can, however, be traced to the Roman holiday Lupercalia, which was observed from Feb 13-15 to protect their city from the invasion of evil spirits. It was believed that Lupercalia had its roots to another ancient Greek festival known as Arcadian Lykaia which was linked to the worship of an ancient Greek god, Lycaean Pan.

For the sake of those who are ignorant, Valentine’s Day cards have figures of the winged Cupid, another word that can never be found in the Bible as well.

Perhaps, Nik Abduh should do his homework next time before he starts issuing a press statement; instead, he should look at the real reasons why Paya Jeras state assemblyperson Khairuddin Othman was prepared to adorn himself in an alleged Chinese deity’s costume just to win votes instead of solving the real issues that I raised with him.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.