What is the ruling on what the owners of bakeries and bookstores do at the beginning of the Gregorian year by selling sweets and cards specific to the Christians' festival

The questioner : He says: Your Eminence, the Shaykh, at this time of every Gregorian year, varieties of sweets and cakes and the like increase, and some of them are decorated each year with "Happy New Year," and perhaps the cross is drawn on them. Is it permissible for the owners of bakeries to do this, knowing that it is a season of profits for them? I hope that if the ruling is prohibition, you would direct advice to these people, as well as to the owners of bookstores, because they bring in cards on which such phrases are written?

The Shaykh : By Allah, this is forbidden, and it may lead its owner to disbelief, because spreading congratulations for the disbelievers' festival is approval of their laws and their religion, and approval of disbelief is disbelief. Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) stated this in his book *Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimmah* (Rulings on the People of the Pact), that it is not permissible to display any of the symbols of disbelief with their occasions, and it is not lawful for bakers to do this, meaning: to draw a cross or "Happy New Year" or the like. Glory be to Allah! We congratulate people on the festival of disbelievers who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, and then we congratulate people on the festival of whom? The festival of Christians who violated the honor of Muslims, made their blood lawful, and occupied their homes, and if they had been given power, they would have destroyed all of Islam. How do we congratulate on the festival of these people? By Allah, if it were a national festival and not a religious one, they would not deserve to be congratulated with it, so how is it when it is a religious festival for them, one of the symbols of their religion? Approval of the symbols of the religion of disbelief is disbelief, approval of disbelief, and it is a danger to the hearts. The danger is that the heart may become deviant, and I seek refuge in Allah, and then a person does not distinguish between the enemy of Allah and the close friend of Allah. We testify to Allah by what Allah the Exalted said that every disbeliever is an enemy of Allah, and that every disbeliever is an enemy to us by the text of the Qur'an: What is it? How are these people whom Allah testified are enemies, and we testify that they are enemies, how do we rejoice in their festivals? How do we spread them among our boys, our children, our daughters, and our women? But Glory be to Allah the Great, the death of the hearts, the melting of personality, and the people's subservience to the stronger is what made such matters seem light in our souls. So I see that this is forbidden, and that it is obligatory for us to boycott these bakeries that do what the questioner mentioned, and likewise it is obligatory for the owners of bookstores to refrain from selling these cards that contain congratulations for a disbeliever's festival that does not please Allah and His Messenger or the believers. Yes