April Fool’s day and fable myths
Sahil Wani
April fool’s Day has its roots from multiple historical events, stories and many fable myths. Indubitably, this very day folks celebrated it by playing deceiving jokes, hoodwink pranks and spreading hoaxes with the unfortunate victims called as “April Fool”.
History of April fool’s Day
April fool’s Day spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. Although, the true origins of April fool’s Day remains unknown and probably lost to history, but hypothetical supposition abound, of course.
In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which the people were sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for Cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.
It should be noted that some historians believed that this day has originated in 1582 when France switched over the Gregorian calendar, which changed New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1.
People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the New Year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.”
These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.
Well all these was traditional fable or myth, but after many decades passed-by, these fool around pranks would became big blunders. The main purposive of this article is simply, addressing the worst consequences of deceitful pranks and illicit hoaxes.
Sometimes we probably take these in the funny zones and never look forward or take a serious consideration of others innocence sentiments. Fair enough, that healthy jokes and unanimous amusements aren’t such bad as commonly thought. But there are some bitterest or worst fool pranks that went horribly wrong.
Some of them are; (The Great blue hill eruption, Poisoned by DMHO etc). Even some pranks nearly lead to war and becoming source emitter for many catastrophe situations. Unfortunately, amid epidemic some fake hearsay announcements became a responsible factor for vulnerable calamity hazardous. Now you can decide, whether we enjoy this menace fool day or we use the wisdom of Truthfulness.
Islamic Point of View
Lying is an evil characteristic, and a worse misconduct. Not only Islam all other Religious and system of ethics warn against this wrongdoing. Even Almighty Aallah says in holy Qur’an ‘The curse of Allah upon those who lie’. (Al-Imran: 61)
Ordinarily, all human beings are to be born with the state of purity and innocence. Obviously, we human beings have original disposition, hold the natural constitution and born with innate nature. Even this man’s innate common sense (fit’rah) agrees that Lying is wrong.
Expectedly, no one shows any dissented taste from this reasonable quote that ‘A Liar’s biggest punishment in this world is that even his truth is rejected’.
The Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) said, “The signs of a hypocrite are three:
1. Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie.
2. Whenever he promises, he always breaks it (his promise).
3. If you trust him, he proves to be dishonest. (If you keep something as a trust with him, he will not return it).
(Sahih Bukhari33 & Sahih Muslim 211)
Next one, the Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) said, “Truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise. And a man keeps on telling the truth until he becomes a truthful person. Falsehood leads to Al-Fajur (i.e. wickedness and evil-doing), and Al-Fajur (wickedness) leads to the (hell) fire, and a man may keep on telling lies till he is written before Allah, a liar.”
(Sahih Bukhari 6094 & Mishkaat ul Masabih 4824)
(The author is a student and a regular contributor to Kashmir Vision)
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