{"id":294211,"date":"2018-12-26T07:52:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T12:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=294211"},"modified":"2018-12-26T07:52:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T12:52:59","slug":"historic-muslim-iraq-makes-christmas-day-a-national-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2018\/12\/historic-muslim-iraq-makes-christmas-day-a-national-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic: Muslim Iraq makes Christmas Day a national holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><figure id=\"attachment_294214\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-294214\" style=\"width: 422px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/56\/2018\/12\/Screen-Shot-2018-12-26-at-7.48.12-AM.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-294214\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/56\/2018\/12\/Screen-Shot-2018-12-26-at-7.48.12-AM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"422\" height=\"310\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-294214\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>For a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, with only a small minority of Christians, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-6528453\/Iraq-makes-Christmas-Day-official-nationwide-holiday-mark-birth-Jesus-Christ.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">this is huge:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"alpha\">\n<div id=\"js-article-text\" class=\"article-text wide  heading-tag-switch\">\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\"><a id=\"mol-916cdf60-082e-11e9-a9ad-91808f645a60\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/iraq\/index.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Iraq<\/a>\u00a0has made\u00a0<a id=\"mol-916d5490-082e-11e9-a9ad-91808f645a60\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/christmas\/index.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Christmas<\/a>\u00a0Day a national holiday, its government confirmed this morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The Iraqi Cabinet approved an amendment to its national holidays law which creates a new official one \u2018on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Previously, Christmas Day had been designated as a religious break only for the Iraqi Christian community, but the amendment extends the holiday to everyone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap fff-pic\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-e61878d8a5059ffd\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2018\/12\/25\/10\/7810374-6528453-image-a-1_1545733070111.jpg\" alt=\"Iraq - a 95 per cent Muslim country - has made Christmas Day a nationwide holiday for all\u00a0\" width=\"634\" height=\"426\">\n<div class=\"overlay-icon mobile-gallery\">\n<div class=\"mobile-gallery-icon\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Iraq is a 95 per cent Muslim country \u2013 66 per cent are Shia and 29 per cent Sunni.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">There are thought to be only around 300,000 Christians remaining in the country, the vast majority of whom are Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-6528453\/Iraq-makes-Christmas-Day-official-nationwide-holiday-mark-birth-Jesus-Christ.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>Read more.\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, with only a small minority of Christians, this is huge:\u00a0 Iraq\u00a0has made\u00a0Christmas\u00a0Day a national holiday, its government confirmed this morning. The Iraqi Cabinet approved an amendment to its national holidays law which creates a new official one \u2018on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ\u2019. Previously, Christmas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":294214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[237,449],"class_list":["post-294211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","tag-christmas","tag-iraq"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Historic: Muslim Iraq makes Christmas Day a national holiday<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, with only a small minority of Christians, this is huge:\u00a0 Iraq\u00a0has made\u00a0Christmas\u00a0Day a national holiday, its\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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