Christmas means never having to say you are sorry. The Seven Emirates Hotel in Abu Dhabi says it does not either regret its display of an $11 million Christmas tree loaded down with gold and jewelry from a shop in the hotel lobby. An earlier statement had seemed to admit that the hotel had ‘overloaded the tradition’. NewsyVideos has more:
In all the reporting on this typical controversy in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, centered on the question of “is it over the top?” — no one seems to have noticed that the hotel is in a conservative Muslim sheikhdom and still wants a Christmas tree. Seems like the strictures put about by some conservatives and radicals against Muslims putting up Christmas trees are not taken seriously in Abu Dhabi. Many Muslims in the West decorate Christmas trees so that their children will not feel left out, on the grounds that Muslims believe in Jesus of Nazareth as a true prophet of God and so can celebrate his birth in this way.
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