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Muḥarram ( ar, ٱلْمُحَرَّم) (fully known as Muharram ul Haram) is the first month of the
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 ...
. It is one of the four sacred months of the year when warfare is forbidden. It is held to be the second holiest month after
Ramadan , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...
. The tenth day of Muharram is known as Ashura. Better known as part of the
Mourning of Muharram The Mourning of Muharram (also known as Azadari, Remembrance of Muharram or Muharram Observances) is a set of commemoration rituals observed primarily by Shia people. The commemoration falls in Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. ...
,
Shi'a Muslims Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
mourn the tragedy of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī's family. Shiites mourn the martyrdom of Ḥusayn by abstaining from joyous events. Instead, Shia Muslims hold many events to offer condolences to Imam Husayn and to honor the martyrs by prayer, reading supplications, and holding charity events. Shiʿi Muslims eat as little as possible on the Ashura; however, this is not seen as fasting.
Alevis Alevism or Anatolian Alevism (; tr, Alevilik, ''Anadolu Aleviliği'' or ''Kızılbaşlık''; ; az, Ələvilik) is a local Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Alevi Islamic ( ''bāṭenī'') teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, ...
fast ten or twelve days, each day for one of
the Twelve Imams The Twelve Imams ( ar, ٱلْأَئِمَّة ٱلْٱثْنَا عَشَر, '; fa, دوازده امام, ') are the spiritual and political successors to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Twelver branch of Islam, including that of the Alawi ...
of Shiʿa Islam, to commemorate and mourn the Imams, as if a very close relative has died. Some (excluding children, elderly or sick) do not eat or drink, avoid entertainment until ''zawal'' (afternoon) as a part of their mourning for Husayn. In addition, there is an important
ziyarat In Islam, ''ziyara(h)'' ( ar, زِيَارَة ''ziyārah'', "visit") or ''ziyarat'' ( fa, , ''ziyārat'', "pilgrimage") is a form of pilgrimage to List of Ziyarat sites, sites associated with Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad, his family members and ...
book, the ''
Ziyarat Ashura ''Ziyarat Ashura'' ( ar, زیارة عاشوراء) is an Islamic salutatory prayer to God. The prayer is part of the liturgy used in pilgrimages to the shrine of Husayn in Karbala. Muhammad al-Baqir, Prophet's descendant and the fifth Shia ...
'' about Ḥusayn. In Shiʿism, it is popular to read this ziyarat on this date.


Muharram and Ashura

The word ''Muharram'' means forbidden or prohibited. Before Islam, it is said that this month was called as ''Safer ul Awwal''. The sighting of the new moon ushers in the Islamic New Year. The first month, Muharram, is one of the four sacred months mentioned in the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
(although not mentioned by name), along with the seventh month of
Rajab Rajab ( ar, رَجَب) is the seventh month of the Islamic calendar. The lexical definition of the classical Arabic verb ''rajaba'' is "to respect" which could also mean "be awe or be in fear", of which Rajab is a derivative. This month is re ...
, and the eleventh and twelfth months of
Dhu al-Qi'dah Dhu al-Qa'dah ( ar, ذُو ٱلْقَعْدَة, ', ), also spelled Dhu al-Qi'dah or Zu al-Qa'dah, is the eleventh month in the Islamic calendar. It could possibly mean "possessor or owner of the sitting and seating place" - the space occupied w ...
and
Dhu al-Hijjah Dhu al-Hijja ( ar, ذُو ٱلْحِجَّة, translit=Ḏū al-Ḥijja, ), also spelled Zu al-Hijja, is the twelfth and final month in the Islamic calendar. It is a very sacred month in the Islamic calendar, one in which the ''Hajj, Ḥajj'' (P ...
, respectively, immediately preceding Muharram. During these sacred months,
warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
is forbidden. Before the advent of Islam, the
Quraish The Quraysh ( ar, قُرَيْشٌ) were a grouping of Arab clans that historically inhabited and controlled the city of Mecca and its Kaaba. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born into the Hashim clan of the tribe. Despite this, many of the Qu ...
and
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
s also forbade warfare during those months. Before Islam, the Arabs also fasted on the tenth day of Muharram. This day also had importance in other Semitic religions like Judaism and Christianity.
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 ...
also fasted many times on this day before his prophethood and after his migration to Medina and also ordered the Muslims to fast on this day and ninth and eleventh day as well. But the fasting was optional after Ramadan fasting was made obiligatory. It is narrated by
Abu Hurairah Abu Hurayra ( ar, أبو هريرة, translit=Abū Hurayra; –681) was one of the companions of Islamic prophet Muhammad and, according to Sunni Islam, the most prolific narrator of hadith. He was known by the ''kunyah'' Abu Hurayrah "Fathe ...
that the Prophet Muhammad said, "The most virtuous fasting after the month of Ramadan is (in) Allah's month Al-Muharram."


Muharram and Ashura to the Muslims

Ashura, which literally means the "Tenth" in Arabic, refers to the tenth day of Muharram. According to Sunni Muslims, fasting on Ashura, the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram was a practice established by Muhammad in the early days of Islam that commemorates the
parting of the Red Sea The Crossing of the Red Sea ( he, קריעת ים סוף, Kriat Yam Suph, parting of the Sea of Reeds) forms an episode in the biblical narrative of The Exodus. It tells of the escape of the Israelites, led by Moses, from the pursuing Egyptians ...
by
Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...
. While in Shia Islam, Muharram is a month of remembrance. Ashura is well known in Shia tradition because of its historical significance and mourning for the ''Shahadat'' (martyrdom) of Ḥusayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad. Shia Muslims begin mourning from the first night of Muharram and continue for ten nights, climaxing on the 10th of Muharram, known as the Day of Ashura. The last few days up until and including the Day of Ashura are the most important because these were the days in which Hussain and his family and followers (including women, children and elderly people) were deprived of water from the 7th onward and on the 10th, Husayn and 72 of his followers were killed by the army of
Yazid I Yazid ibn Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan ( ar, يزيد بن معاوية بن أبي سفيان, Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn ʾAbī Sufyān; 64611 November 683), commonly known as Yazid I, was the second caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate. He ruled from ...
at the
Battle of Karbala The Battle of Karbala ( ar, مَعْرَكَة كَرْبَلَاء) was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and a small army led by Husayn ...
on Yazid's orders. The surviving members of Husayn's family and those of his followers were taken captive, marched to Damascus, and imprisoned there.


Timing for Muharram

The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year 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 ...
, Muharram migrates throughout the solar years. The estimated start and end dates for Muharram are as follows (based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
):


Incidents that occurred during this month

* 1 Muharram: Seizure of the Grand Mosque in 1400 AH (1979 AD). * 3 Muharram: Husayn ibn Ali enters
Karbala Karbala or Kerbala ( ar, كَرْبَلَاء, Karbalāʾ , , also ;) is a city in central Iraq, located about southwest of Baghdad, and a few miles east of Lake Milh, also known as Razzaza Lake. Karbala is the capital of Karbala Governorat ...
and establishes camp. Yazid's forces are present. 61 AH (680 AD). * 5 Muharram: 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
Baba Farid Farīd al-Dīn Masʿūd Ganj-i-Shakar ( ; – 7 May 1266) was a 13th-century Punjabi Sunni Muslim preacher and mystic, who was one of the most revered and distinguished Muslim mystics of the medieval period. He is known reverentially as B ...
, a
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
i Sufi saint, in 665 AH (1266 AD). His urs is celebrated for six days during Muharram, in Pakpattan, Pakistan. * 7 Muharram: Access to water was banned to Husayn ibn Ali by Yazid's orders. 61 AH (680 AD). * 8 Muharram: Referred to as the
Muharram Rebellion The Muharram Rebellion ( bn, মুহররমের হাঙ্গামা, Muhôrrômer Haṅgama) was a Bengali uprising which took place in early December 1782 against the East India Company in colonial Sylhet, eastern Bengal (now Bangla ...
, the day on which
Bengali Muslims Bengali Muslims ( bn, বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising about two-thirds of the global Bengali population, they are the sec ...
in Sylhet lead one of the earliest anti-British uprisings in
the subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India ...
. 1197 AH (1782 AD). * 10 Muharram: Referred to as the Day of Ashurah (lit. "the Tenth"), the day on which
Husayn 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 and a son of Ali ibn Abi ...
was martyred in the
Battle of Karbala The Battle of Karbala ( ar, مَعْرَكَة كَرْبَلَاء) was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and a small army led by Husayn ...
. Shia Muslims spend the day in
mourning Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...
, while Sunni Muslims fast on this day, commemorating the rescue of the Israelites by Musa (Moses) from
Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...
. Shia Muslims also mourn for the martyrs of Karbala. Many
Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
Muslims fast for the same reason as the Sunnis mentioned above, but also for the martyred dead in Karbala. * 15 Muharram: Birth of Muhammad Sirajuddin Naqshbandi in 1297 AH (1879 AD). * 25 Muharram:
Zayn al-‘Ābidīn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ( ar, علي بن الحسين زين العابدين), also known as al-Sajjād (, ) or simply as Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (), , was an Imam in Shiʻi Islam after his father Husayn ibn Ali, his uncle Hasan ...
, fourth
Shia Imam In Shia Islam, the Imamah ( ar, إمامة) is a doctrine which asserts that certain individuals from the lineage of the Islamic prophet Muhammad are to be accepted as leaders and guides of the ummah after the death of Muhammad. Imamah further ...
was martyred by Marvanian in 95 AH (714 AD). * 28 Muharram: 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
Ashraf Jahangir Semnani Sultan Makhdoom Ashraf Jahangir Semnani ( ur, ; (1285–1386) was an Iranian Sufi saint from Semnan, Iran. He was the founder of the Ashrafi Sufi order. He is India's third most influential Sufi Saint after Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer ...
, an
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n Sufi saint, in 808 AH (1405 AD).


See also

*
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 ...
*
Day of Ashura A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two s ...
*
Mourning of Muharram The Mourning of Muharram (also known as Azadari, Remembrance of Muharram or Muharram Observances) is a set of commemoration rituals observed primarily by Shia people. The commemoration falls in Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. ...
* Day of Tasu'a *
Hosay Hosay (originally from Husayn) is a Muslim Indo-Caribbean commemoration that is popularly observed in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, and Suriname. In Trinidad and Tobago, multi-coloured model mausoleums or mosque-shaped model tombs kno ...
*
Rawda Khwani Rozeh Khani or Rawda khwani ( fa , روضه خوانی, "reading the Rozeh") is the Shia Iranian Muslim ritual of the Mourning of Muharram. It is held every day of the year to commemorate the death of Husayn ibn Ali and his followers during the ...


References


Further reading

* Chelkowski, Peter J. ed. (1979). ''Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran''. New York: New York University Press. * Cole, Juan (1988). ''Roots of North Indian Shiism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Avadh, 1722–1859''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. * Kartomi, Margaret (1986). "Tabut – a Shia Ritual Transplanted from India to Sumatra", in ''Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Indonesia: Essays in Honour of Professor J.D. Legge'', edited by David P. Chandler and M.C. Ricklefs, Australia: Monash University, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 141–62. * Mason, P.H. (2016) "Fight-dancing and the Festival: Tabuik in Pariaman, Indonesia, and Iemanjá" in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. ''Martial Arts Studies Journal'', 2, 71–90. * Pinault, David (1992). ''The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community''. London: I.B. Tauris.


External links


Commemoration of Muharram is permissible

Optional prayers for Muharram, especially Qalbi Zikr

Muharram Quotes and Wishes


*
A day of mourning for Shiites

Muharram in West Sumatra

What is Muharram ?
{{Authority control 1 Islamic terminology Public holidays in Indonesia Public holidays in Malaysia Shia Islam Hussainiya