Ṣafar ( ar, صَفَر) also spelt as Safer in Turkish, is the second month of the lunar

Islamic calendar The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or ...

. The Arabic word ''ṣafar'' means "travel, migration", corresponding to the

pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia ( ar, شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام) refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the History of Islam, emergence of Islam in 610 CE. Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizati ...

n time period when muslims flee the oppression of Quraish in Mecca and travelled (most of the them barefooted)to Madina. Most of the Islamic months were named according to ancient Arabian weather conditions; however, since the calendar is lunar, the months shift by about 11 days every solar year, meaning that these conditions do not necessarily correspond to the name of the month.

Timing

The

is a purely

lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gre ...

, and its months begin when the first crescent of a

new moon In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse. ...

is sighted. Since the Islamic

lunar year A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gr ...

is 11 to 12 days shorter than the

solar year A tropical year or solar year (or tropical period) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the sky of a celestial body of the Solar System such as the Earth, completing a full cycle of seasons; for example, the time fro ...

, Safar migrates throughout the seasons. The estimated start and end dates for Safar are as follows (based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi ArabiaUmm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia
/ref>):

Islamic events

* 01 Safar 61 AH, prisoners of Karbalā entered Yazid's Palace in Syria * 10 Safar 61 AH, death of

Sakina bint Husayn , image = , caption = , father = Husayn ibn Ali , spouse = Abu Bakr Abd Allah al-Akbar ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib , mother = Rubab bint Imra al-Qais , birth_date ...

, youngest daughter of

Hussain ibn Ali Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, أبو عبد الله الحسين بن علي بن أبي طالب; 10 January 626 – 10 October 680) was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad and a ...

and a prisoner of Karbalā * 17 Safar 202 AH, martyrdom of

Ali al-Ridha Ali ibn Musa al-Rida ( ar, عَلِيّ ٱبْن مُوسَىٰ ٱلرِّضَا, Alī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā, 1 January 766 – 6 June 818), also known as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Thānī, was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the e ...

according to one tradition * 18 Safar, Grand Magal pilgrimage is celebrated at

Touba Touba (Hassaniya Arabic: , 'Felicity'; Wolof: Tuubaa) is a city in central Senegal, part of Diourbel Region and Mbacké district. With a population of 529,176 in 2010, it is the second most populated Senegalese city after Dakar. It is the holy ...

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 � ...

, commemorating the departure of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba * 18, 19 and 20 Safar, Death Anniversary (

urs Urs (from ''‘Urs'') or ''Urus'' (literal meaning wedding), is the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, usually held at the saint's dargah (shrine or tomb). In most Sufi orders such as Naqshbandiyyah, Suhrawardiyya, Chishtiyya, Qadiriyya, etc ...

) of Ali Hajveri is celebrated at

Data Darbar Data Darbar (also spelt Data Durbar; ), located in the city of Lahore (Punjab, Pakistan), is the largest Sufi shrine in South Asia. It was built to house the remains of Ali Hujwiri, commonly known as ''Data Ganj Baksh'', a Sufi saint from Ghazni ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

* Every 20 or 21 Safar,

Arba'een , duration = 1 day , frequency = once every Islamic year , observedby = Shia , date = 20 Safar , date2018 = 30 October , date2019 = 19 October , date2020 = 8 October , date2021 = 28 September , date ...

or Chehlum (the 40th day after

Ashura Ashura (, , ) is a day of commemoration in Islam. It occurs annually on the 10th of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. Among Shia Muslims, Ashura is observed through large demonstrations of high-scale mourning as it marks the ...

) * 27 Safar 1 AH, Migration was started (

Hijrah The Hijrah or Hijra () was the journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina. The year in which the Hijrah took place is also identified as the epoch of the Lunar Hijri and Solar Hijri calendars; its date eq ...

) from Mecca to Medina by

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

with

Abu Bakr Abu Bakr Abdallah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa (; – 23 August 634) was the senior companion and was, through his daughter Aisha, a father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as the first caliph of Islam. He is known with the honor ...

* 27 Safar 589 AH, death of Salahuddin al-Ayyubi * 28 Safar 11 AH,

fell deathly ill * 28 Safar 50 AH, Martyrdom of Imam Hasan ibn ‘Alī, grandson of

References

External links

Islamic-Western Calendar Converter (Based on the Arithmetical or Tabular Calendar)
{{IslamicMonths 2 Islamic terminology