celebrate Milad al Nabi<\/a> (much to the disapproval of the same dour mullas who tsk about Valentine’s Day). The mohabbat we have for our spouses, parents, siblings and children forms the bedrock of our values, not to mention the sense of community that arises from our mohabbat for our friends and fellow citizens. Mohabbat is a virtue and it’s wonderful that there’s a whole day devoted to it.<\/p>\nThe truly pious would do well to embrace Valentine’s Day, as an opportunity to affirm our relationship with Allah. And to appreciate your own loved ones – friends and family. Only someone truly incapable of love would find fault with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy Valentine’s Day! I am biased towards appreciating Valentine’s Day not just for it’s Gujarati origins but also because it’s my birthday. However, not all Muslims share my appreciation. Here’s a typical example: In its official Friday sermon text distributed to mosques in the Muslim-majority country, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department blamed Valentine’s Day for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24,456,385],"class_list":["post-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expressions","tag-islam","tag-mohabbat","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"\n
Valentine's Day and Islam - the virtues of mohabbat (love) - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Valentine's Day and Islam - the virtues of mohabbat (love) - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy Valentine’s Day! I am biased towards appreciating Valentine’s Day not just for it’s Gujarati origins but also because it’s my birthday. However, not all Muslims share my appreciation. Here’s a typical example: In its official Friday sermon text distributed to mosques in the Muslim-majority country, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department blamed Valentine’s Day for…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-14T11:04:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/files\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Valentine's Day and Islam - the virtues of mohabbat (love) - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Valentine's Day and Islam - the virtues of mohabbat (love) - City of Brass","og_description":"Happy Valentine’s Day! I am biased towards appreciating Valentine’s Day not just for it’s Gujarati origins but also because it’s my birthday. However, not all Muslims share my appreciation. Here’s a typical example: In its official Friday sermon text distributed to mosques in the Muslim-majority country, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department blamed Valentine’s Day for…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2014-02-14T11:04:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/files\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg"}],"author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html","name":"Valentine's Day and Islam - the virtues of mohabbat (love) - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/files\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg","datePublished":"2014-02-14T11:04:27+00:00","dateModified":"2014-02-14T11:04:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/files\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/files\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2014\/02\/valentines-day-and-islam-the-virtues-of-mohabbat-love.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Valentine’s Day and Islam – the virtues of mohabbat (love)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions\/2193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/75\/2014\/02\/candy_heart_with_crescent_moon_and_star_sticker-rd77a2f0679d34c5aa61f4805d92c44c1_v9waf_8byvr_512-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n