This guy says Muslims take April Fool's Day way too seriously:
The things that happen on April Fools' Day are many. Some people have been told that their child or spouse or someone who is dear to them has died, and unable to bear this shock, they have died. Some have been told that they are being laid off, or that there has been a fire or an accident in which their familyhas been killed, so they suffer paralysis or heart attacks, or similar afflictions.
Some people have been told about their wives, that they have been seen with other men, and this has led them to kill or divorce their wives.
I guess if a culture plays this kind of pranks for April Fools, instead of producing documentaries on the Swiss spaghetti harvest, it might be a good idea for someone to say, "We don't do April Fools well. Let's not celebrate it."
But no. The reason Muhammad Al-Munajjid says not to celebrate it is because April Fools Day doesn't fit any of the three acceptable reasons for lying: 1) to please one's wife; 2) war; 3) to reconcile between people.
Besides, as no one else in the world seems to know, April Fools Day celebrates the conquest of Andalusia from the Muslims in 1492. "Fools" because over the years preceding the conquest, foreigners made fools of the Muslim army by sending in wine and cigars to Spain for free. Grenada, the last stronghold, of the Muslims fell on April 1, 1492. (Since Christopher Columbus, who left Europe in 1492, was the first to bring back tobacco seeds from the New World, we have to wonder whether something else in those cigars or if this is more fun with history.)
But wait. If the stronghold fell on April 1, the free wine and cigars must have been coming in for years, right? So what's the point of celebrating for one day a tactic of years? Never mind. There's more.
From that year until the present, they celebrate this day and consider the Muslims to be fools. They do not regard only the army at Granada to be fools who are easily deceived; rather they apply that to the entire Muslim Ummah.
Funny. I don't think the makers of Swiss spaghetti farm documentary gave any thought to Grenada, Andalusia or the Muslim Ummah. Now suddenly when kids send a newcomer out snipe hunting, they're commemorating a battle they never heard of and could hardly care less about.
Although Snopes recognizes that "how the custom of pranking on April 1 came about remains shrouded in mystery," it gives a number of possibilities, none of which has anything to do with the conquest of Grenada.
To be fair, Annie's Exceedingly Smiley April Fool's Day Page also starts with a couple of screens of everything the Bible says about "fools." (The Bible also doesn't say anything about Swiss spaghetti farmers.) Annie does offer some positive suggestions, including the slightly sneaky secret pal trick, and she omits the loopy history.
I became interested in this topic because of a Google search that brought someone to this page by accident. The more I looked at it, the curiouser it became, until it's well past midnight as I'm finishing up this post. So maybe the joke's on me.
UPDATE: Islam: The Modern Religion calls the idea a hoax and says this about it:
So regarding the email claiming that April Fools Day is a celebration of the take over of Muslim Spain, it is clear the whole thing is a made up lie. This is totally unacceptable and should be brought to the attention of the one who sent you this lie in the first place. A good Muslim would never accept to repeat lies and fabrications especially in presenting facts about the history of Islam.
If you have received such a letter it is your duty in front of Allah to write back to those who also received it and ask them to contact all of those on their lists and email the truth about this issue. And we should all fear a Day when we will stand in front of Allah and be asked about these matters.
If we don't do something about correcting the education of our beloved brothers and sisters in Islam, then everyday on the internet is MUSLIM FOOLS DAY.
By the way, there's another another humdinger of a hoax listed there, but since the point of the site is to debunk it and not to promote it, I won't tell what it is.
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