Rajab is the seventh month of the Islamic (Hijri) calendar and one of its four sacred months, in which warfare was traditionally forbidden; its name is linked to respect and honour. It is one of the two sacred months that stand apart from the others rather than in a run. For many Muslims the twenty-seventh of Rajab commemorates the Isra and Mi'raj, the Prophet's night journey to Jerusalem and ascension through the heavens, and the month is kept by some with voluntary fasting and devotion in preparation for Ramadan, now two months away. The Islamic calendar is purely lunar, its year of about 354 days drifting against the solar seasons. These are the observances of the Islamic calendar tradition, in which Rajab is honoured as a sacred month and, for many, as the month of the Night Journey.
Rajab, one of the four sacred months, is traditionally associated with the Isra and Mi'raj, the Prophet Muhammad's night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and subsequent ascension through the heavens, commemorated by many Muslims on the twenty-seventh, though, as with several dates tied to events in the Prophet's life, the exact date and even year of the journey are not fixed with certainty in the earliest sources and are a matter of some scholarly disagreement. Rajab's sanctity, restricting warfare, predates Islam itself; pre-Islamic Arabian tribes are recorded as having already observed Rajab, along with Muharram, Dhu al-Qadah and Dhu al-Hijjah, as months of truce, a practice the Quran affirms rather than introduces.