No fun allowed.
Some Muslim groups in Daghestan and Azerbaijan have called for a ban on the public celebration of the New Year. Their rationale for doing so differs, however.
For the second consecutive year, some Daghestani Muslims — both Sufis and Salafis — have called on fellow believers not to participate in what they consider the pagan tradition of celebrating the New Year.
Akhmad Anchikhsky, imam of the controversial Kotrov Salafi mosque in Makhachkala, told the Caucasus Knot website that adherents of all strains of Islam in Daghestan were unanimous in affirming that Muslims should not celebrate the New Year. It was, Anchikhsky pointed out, neither an Islamic nor a Daghestani holiday, but not a Christian one either.
Siradjudin-hadji Akhmedov, deputy imam of a Sufi mosque in Makhachkala, similarly stressed that the New Year is not a Muslim holiday. He expressed disapproval both of the ecological damage caused by the large-scale felling of New Year trees, and the risk posed by New Year’s Eve fireworks, and of the fact that some Muslims nonetheless mark the New Year by drinking toasts to Allah.
Theologian Abdulla Rinat Mukhametov, for his part, noted strong opposition in Daghestan to celebrating the New Year, with prominent sportsmen and religious figures posting video clips on the Internet urging believers not to do so.