The first time I saw it… circa 2019, I’ll admit… I was surprised. Not scandalized, just caught off guard.
Every December, like clockwork, a photograph appears. Shot in a Liverpool living room, featuring… two young girls, faces beaming with the kind of smile that only wrapping paper and ribbon can bring. And somewhere in the frame—or not, as is the case this year—the life of one of football’s most scrutinized figures, is briefly unguarded.
Here was a man who prayed openly on pitches across Europe, who spoke about his faith with the kind of ease that comes from never having to prove it, posting a Christmas scene as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And then I watched the comments roll in.
Some fans responded with pure warmth—”Beautiful family,” “Merry Christmas, King.” Others arrived tense, confused, even wounded—as if the image had betrayed an unspoken contract they believed he signed. “Why would a Muslim celebrate Christmas?” “This is disappointing.” “He’s setting a bad example.” Salah never replied to any of it. He posts the photo, logs off, and goes on with his life. And that silence, I realized, was the whole point.
The photo isn’t selling or claiming anything. It’s just a father at home during the holidays, his daughters wrapped in the soft chaos of childhood. But somehow, year after year, it becomes one of the most scrutinized images in football culture. Not because it provokes but because it refuses to.
Living Without Permission
Georginio Wijnaldum once described him as someone who “keeps his faith close but never uses it as a wall.” Another player, who asked not to be named, put it more bluntly: “Mo just lives his life. He doesn’t perform for anyone… I’ve spent enough time around and over the years to recognize a pattern with Salah. He arrives early, trains with quiet intensity, prays in whatever corner he can find and goes home to his family.” And that’s exactly what the Christmas photo represents—a life being lived, not performed.
There’s a weight placed on people like Salah that most of us will never carry. Muslim. Egyptian. African icon. Premier League legend. He’s expected to represent something larger than himself every single day, to exist… as a symbol, instead of a man. To be a walking thesis on identity, faith, and belonging.
Salah has been in England long enough now that it’s no longer accurate to call him an outsider. His daughters go to school here. and best bet… speak English as their first language. They’re growing up in a culture where December means advent calendars, nativity plays, and the low hum of excitement that fills every classroom as the holidays approach.
For them, Christmas isn’t a theological statement. It’s just the texture of the season.
I’ve spoken to other Muslim parents navigating this same balance in cities like London, Manchester, and Birmingham. They describe it as a quiet negotiation—letting their children participate in school celebrations, attending neighbors’ holiday parties, allowing joy without feeling like they’re abandoning their own faith. Hassouna, a doctor originally from Cairo, told me something that stuck: “My son comes home singing Christmas carols. Should I stop him? He’s not converting. He’s just being a kid in the place where he lives.”
Salah seems to have arrived at the same conclusion. His faith hasn’t weakened—he still prays after every goal, still fasts through Ramadan while playing twice a week. But he’s also decided that his daughters don’t need to be isolated from the culture they’re growing up in.
So the Christmas post isn’t contradiction. It’s coexistence.
Anyone who’s grown up in a layered city knows this rhythm. You celebrate Eid with your family, then show up to your friend’s Christmas dinner the next week… not because your beliefs are blurry, but because life is shared. Children get this immediately, that’s why they don’t see holidays as theological battlegrounds. All they see is… lights, laughter, cookies, warmth.
The Noise That Never Stops
I started tracking the reactions when it began to pour in, like some… strange sociological experiment. Every year, the same patterns emerge. Warm messages from Liverpool fans who’ve watched Salah become part of the city’s fabric. Defensive comments from Muslims who feel he’s betraying his faith. Confused responses from people who can’t reconcile the image of a devout Muslim with a decorated tree in his living room.
Last year, I watched the thread spiral into hundreds of replies, people arguing over whether Salah was still “Muslim enough,” whether this was assimilation or acculturation, whether his children were being raised properly. But Salah never joined the conversation to clarify… neither did he defend himself.
A podcast host I respect said something that felt true: “Salah doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for how he lives his life. The fact that people keep demanding one says more about them than him.”
The outrage as I’ve come to realize… comes mostly from people who’ve never had to navigate what Salah navigates every day or even raised children in a country that isn’t their own. Salah exists in a space that makes people uncomfortable because it refuses clear-cut categories. He’s too religious for those who want football to be purely secular and too culturally flexible for those who want Islam to be monolithic… what’s worse? He’s completely unbothered by any of it.
Fans who’ve followed him closely often say this is why his influence stretches beyond football. Not because he’s the loudest voice in the room, but because he stays whole even when people keep trying to flatten him into a symbol.
The Year He’s Missing
This December, something shifted. The photo arrived as usual… the tree, the gifts plus the girls smiling. But Mo Salah wasn’t in it. He’s in Africa with Egypt, preparing for AFCON, missing Christmas entirely because duty doesn’t negotiate.
But his family goes ahead, anyway. That decision fascinated me more than any of the previous years. The tradition didn’t collapse without him. His family held it down… kept the ritual going, not as a performance for the internet, but because it mattered to them.
I imagine Salah zooming in on his phone between training sessions— his girl’s faces, the glow of the tree, the life continuing without him. Because this is what elite football demands. You miss births… sometimes, anniversaries. You FaceTime your children from hotel rooms and watch them grow up in fragments. And when your country calls, you go… even when it means missing the small, irreplaceable moments.
But the tree still glows. His girls still open presents and life doesn’t pause.
And when Salah finally comes home, probably exhausted… maybe triumphant or even heartbroken—his girls will tell him everything. Every— gift, laugh and moments he didn’t witness.
The post will fade from timelines soon… probably buried under transfer rumors and match highlights. But the feeling lingers… some reminder that identity doesn’t need to be rigid to be real and faith doesn’t weaken when it’s calm.
With a room full of warmth, a tree in the corner and a family at the end of the year… it’s just the Salah family, living the only way they know how.
