Algeria: Religious leaders and preachers excoriate Saint Valentine’s celebration

With the expected celebration of the much-controversial Valentine’s Day coinciding this year with Friday February 14th by some ill-advised young people in Algeria, religious leaders and preachers or Imams stepped into the breach and firmly denounced such a practice as totally in contradiction with the noble precepts of the religion of Islam.

As this year’s pseudo-celebration comes on a Friday, several Imams warned against its celebration by some mindless Algerian youngsters especially on this saint day of worship for all Muslims (that is Friday), stressing that the so-called Saint Valentine feast was improperly imported from abroad by unbelievers and had nothing to do with the lofty guidelines left as a legacy to humankind by Islam’s noble Prophet Mohamed, Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon Him.

 These religious leaders including Hadjimi Djelloul and Abdelfatah Hamadache firmly lambasted against such a creeping and insidious celebration practice witnessed over the past years in Algeria as sheer “Bidaâ” or nefarious and disruptive innovation which could unleash a lot of harm to the strict morals and ancestral social mores of Muslim societies, they warned in their awareness-raising message.