The Turning of the Muslim Year

The Islamic New Year falls on the first of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic (Hijri) calendar. The calendar counts not from the Prophet's birth or the first revelation but from the Hijra, the migration of the Prophet and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, the event that marks the founding of the first Muslim community; the epoch was established under the caliph Umar. Because the year is purely lunar, of about 354 days with no intercalated month, its months and festivals move backward through the solar seasons by roughly eleven days a year.

The day itself is observed quietly by comparison with the two Eids; there is no prescribed festivity, and it is marked in many places with reflection on the meaning of the Hijra as a turning point. Its tone is shaped above all by what follows: the tenth of Muharram, Ashura, which for Sunni Muslims is a day of voluntary fasting linked to Moses and the Exodus, and for Shia Muslims is the solemn commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn, grandson of the Prophet, at Karbala in 680, kept with mourning rather than celebration. The new year thus opens for many into a season weighted more toward mourning and remembrance than rejoicing.