Muharram

Overview

Muharram is the first month of the Islamic Hijri calendar and one of the four sacred months in which warfare and bloodshed are explicitly prohibited by the Qur'an. The name Muharram derives from the Arabic root harama, meaning forbidden or sacred. The month opens the Islamic year and contains the Day of Ashura on the tenth, observed across Sunni and Shia traditions in different but profound ways. For Sunni Muslims, Ashura commemorates the deliverance of the Prophet Musa and the Israelites from Pharaoh, marked by a recommended voluntary fast. For Shia Muslims, the entire first ten days of Muharram are a period of mourning culminating in the remembrance of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.

Notable Observances

The month is widely observed with intensified prayer, voluntary fasting, charitable giving, and the reading of historical accounts of the early Muslim community. Many mosques host evening lectures throughout the first ten nights, and Shia mosques and husayniyyas hold majlis gatherings of mourning poetry. The Hijri New Year on the first of Muharram is a public holiday in most Muslim-majority nations, though it is observed quietly without festivity, in keeping with the month's solemn character.