The Sacred Months

Mentioned in the previous verses were the errors and misdeeds of disbelievers and Mushriks who persisted with their disbelief and kept associating others in the pristine divinity of Allah. In the present two verses, mentioned there is another bad custom prevailing in Arabia since its age of ignorance – which Muslims have been instructed to ab- stain from. That bad custom relates to a chain of happenings. Details go back to the distant past since when a year was accepted as having twelve months by the religious codes of all past prophets. Out of these twelve months, four were considered sacred, therefore, worthy of great reverence. They were three consecutive months of Dhu al-Qa’dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, Muharram, and the month of Rajab.

All religious codes of past prophets agree that every act of worship during these four months is more reward-worthy – and should some- one commit a sin during these months, the curse and punishment re- sulting from it is also more blameworthy. Under these past religious codes, fighting and killing was prohibited during these months.

Since the Arabs of Makkah al-Mukarramah are the progeny of Sayyidna Ibrahim (AS) through Sayyidna Ismail (AS), they all professed belief in Sayyidna Ibrahim (AS) a prophet and messenger of Allah and claimed to follow his Shari’ah. However, as fighting, killing and hunting was also prohibited during these four sacred months among the followers of the Ibrahimi community, the people of the Arab age of ignorance found the implementation of this injunction extremely hard. The reason was that, during the pagan period, fighting and killing had become the only vocation for them. Therefore, in order to make this restriction somewhat easy on them, they spun out all sorts of excuses to satisfy their self-serving motives. Whenever they needed to fight during one of the sacred months, or whenever a sacred month approached while they were already fighting, then, they would say: This year, this month is not sacred. The next month will be the sacred one. For example, when Muharram arrived, they would say that ‘this year, the month of Muharram is not sacred, instead of that, the month of Safar will be sacred’. And if they had some other exigency, they would say, ‘this year, the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal will be sacred;’ or say, ‘this year the month of Safar has come earlier and Muharram will come later.’ Thus, in one stroke, they made the month of Muharram the month of Safar!

In short, they would somehow complete the count of four month during one year, but would not bother to retain the order and signification of what was divinely determined. It was up to them to give any name to any month, call it Dhu al-Hijjah or call it Ramadan or make one come earlier and make the other come later. If another emergency came, for example, when they would remain engaged in fighting for a period as long as ten months leaving only two months to the year, then, on this occasion, they would increase the number of months in a year saying, ‘this year will be of fourteen months.’ In this way, they would make the remaining four months the sacred months.