Bernama (the Malaysian National News Agency) reports:

Muslims Advised Not To Celebrate Valentine’s Day

KUALA TERENGGANU, Feb 13 (Bernama) — Muslims in the country, especially lovers, have been advised not to celebrate Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

State Islam Hadhari Development Committee Deputy Chairman, Muhammad Ramli Nuh said celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognising the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall.

He was speaking to reporters after opening the seminar on Understanding of Tasawwuf Nusantara at Universiti Darul Iman, Malaysia, here, today.

Muhammad Ramli said although not many couples celebrate Valentine’s Day in the state, the state government wished to remind that the celebration should not be held including in hotels.

He reminded hotel managements to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of the people.

Muhammad Ramli is ill informed.

February 14th, prior to 1969, was the feast day of two, or possibly three, saints and martyrs named Valentine, all reputedly of the Third Century. The first Valentine, legend holds, was a physician and priest in Rome, arrested for giving aid to martyrs in prison, who while there converted his jailer by restoring sight to the jailer’s daughter. He was executed by being beaten with clubs, and afterwards beheaded, February 14, 270. He is traditionally the patron of affianced couples, bee keepers, lovers, travellers, young people, and greeting card manufacturers, and his special assistance may be sought in conection with epilepsy, fainting, and plague.

A second St. Valentine, reportedly bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) was also allegedly martyred under Claudius II, and also allegedly buried along the Flaminian Way. A third St. Valentine is said to have also been martyred in Roman times, along with companions, in Africa.  Because of a lack of historical evidence, the Roman Catholic Church dropped the February 14th feast of St. Valentine from its calendar in 1969.

Hat tip to Stop the ACLU.

One of the correspondents quoted a medieval verse today concerning St. Roch:

Exempt de blame
rendit son ame
en bon chretien
dans les bras de son chien

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I had to look him up.

St. Roch was reportedly born 1295 in Montpellier to a rich merchant family. He became a hermit, and spent most of his life on pilgrimage. In Piacenza, he caught the plague while tending the sick, and survived miraculously, having been fed in the woods by a dog. He is consequently a patron of the plague-stricken. Often represented attended by a dog bearing a loaf of bread in his mouth. Feast: 16 August.