Appearance
Verses 36–37
These two verses explain the sanctity of the Sacred Months of Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, and Rajab, confirming their inviolability and abrogating the practice of nasīʾ (‘postponement’) from the pre-Islamic era. The verses also command the Muslims to fight the idolaters altogether.
إِنَّ عِدَّةَ الشُّهُورِ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ اثْنَا عَشَرَ شَهْرًا فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ مِنْهَا أَرْبَعَةٌ حُرُمٌ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ الدِّينُ الْقَيِّمُ ۚ فَلَا تَظْلِمُوا فِيهِنَّ أَنْفُسَكُمْ ۚ وَقَاتِلُوا الْمُشْرِكِينَ كَافَّةً كَمَا يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ كَافَّةً ۚ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الْمُتَّقِينَ ٣٦
(9:36) Indeed the number of months with Allah is twelve months in Allah’s Book, the day when He created the heavens and the earth. Of these, four are sacred. That is the upright religion. So do not wrong yourselves during them. Fight all the polytheists, just as they fight you all, and know that Allah is with the Godwary.
The term month (shahr), like year (sana) and week (usbūʿ), is a unit of time known to all people since the dawn of human history. And some of these units of time led people to identify others of them. For example, people could directly observe the continuous passage of years with the passage of the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and then summer once again—and then people saw that these units of time could be subdivided into units of shorter duration based on the changing faces of the moon, from once crescent to another, which took approximately thirty days, which divided the year into approximately twelve months.
Now, based on the movements of the sun, a year consists of three hundred and sixty-five days, plus part of a day. Therefore, one solar year does not equate exactly to twelve lunar months, which consists of approximately three hundred and fifty-four days, and the only way to resolve this is through ‘leap’ counting. However, the lunar calendar is something directly observable by all people, whether they are settled or nomadic, young or old, educated or unlettered.
Then, the month can be divided into weeks. Even though a month cannot be divided exactly into weeks, this is another case where direct perception trumps exact measurement, and this is what has maintained the position of the week as a unit of time over the centuries, even as the calculation of the duration of a year has become more precise through astronomical observations, as has the counting of the months. Today, the lunar months have largely been replaced by solar months that correspond completely to the duration of the solar year.
This is with regard to equatorial regions and the temperate regions that extend from them to approximately sixty-seven degrees north and south, which covers most of the inhabited regions of the earth’s surface. In the areas beyond this band, which are approaching the Earth’s northern and southern polar regions, the system of years, months, and weeks breaks down, as the entirety of the year at each of the poles consists of one long night and one long day. Connections between the peoples who inhabit these extremes—who are very few in number—and peoples who inhabit the temperate band, however, have led the former to adopt the same calendrical system of days, weeks, months, and years as observed by the latter. Therefore, the system of measuring time we use is in relation to the majority of the people who live in the world’s temperate regions.
Therefore, our system of time only applies to the planet we currently inhabit. As for other planets, their year—which is the measure of the time it takes for them to make one complete orbit of the Sun—differs from our own. Equally, their lunar months differ depending on whether they have one or more moons, as has been discussed by astronomers.
Therefore, when God says, Indeed the number of months with Allah is twelve months, this is referring to the lunar months which make up lunar years, and these months are grounded in direct observations of the different phases of the moon by the Earth’s inhabitants.
The evidence that this verse is referring to lunar months is as follows:
First, that God then says: Of these, four are sacred, as it is well-established that Islam has only declared four months sacred—and these are Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, and Rajab—and these are lunar months, not solar ones.
Second, when the Qur’an uses the expressions, with God (ʿind Allāh) and months in God’s Book (fī kitāb Allāh), this shows that there is no way to change or alter this number of months because they are like this ‘with God’ and God’s knowledge does not change, and they were like this in God’s Book on the day when He created the heavens and the earth. Therefore, God gave the Sun a fixed course to follow, and He ordained phases for the moon to pass through until it becomes like an old palm leaf. Neither does it behove the sun to overtake the moon, nor may the night outrun the day, and each swims in an orbit (). This is the decree written in the Book of Creation, and there is no reversing God’s divine decree.
Moreover, it is clear that solar months exist purely as a matter of convention, even if this is not the case for the four seasons and the solar year. The twelve months of the year which are grounded in observable realities are the lunar months.
Therefore, the verse means that the months that make up each year are twelve in number; this is the number of months as it exists in the knowledge of God and the number inscribed in the book of creation on the day that God brought forth the heavens and the earth and set the firmament in motion, including the movements of the Sun and the Moon through the heavens. This is the objective basis for there being twelve months.
This makes clear the erroneousness of the claim, put forward by some commentators, that the term Allah’s Book in the verse refers to the Qur’an or a physical book made of pages upon which the number of the months is written in actual words with ink.
Of these, four are sacred (ḥurum). That is the upright religion (al-dīn al-qayyim). So do not wrong yourselves during them.
The word ḥurum (‘sacred’) is the plural of ḥarām, which means ‘forbidden or inviolable.’
Qayyim means something which contributes to people’s wellbeing and assists them in managing the affairs of their lives.
Of these, four are sacred—according to definitive narrations, this refers to the four sacred months of Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, and Rajab. This statement also has legislative force, as indicated by the following sentence: That is the upright religion.
God only made these four months sacred so that people would cease fighting and enjoy peace and security during this time, and so that they might seek comfort and happiness and turn to their Lord with worship and veneration therein.
The sanctity of these four months originates in the religion of Abraham, and the Arabs continued to respect this sanctity even in the days of pre-Islamic Ignorance when they would worship idols. However, they might sometimes delay the sanctity of one month to another month for one or more years as part of the practice they called nasīʾ (postponement), which is condemned in the following verse.
When He says that is the Upright Religion, this refers to the sanctity of the four sacred months. Dīn (religion) can refer to the totality of the teachings that God sent down to His prophets, but it can also refer to a part of them. Therefore, this means that four of the lunar months have been rendered sacred as part of the religion that looks after the wellbeing of God’s servants. This is also something God highlights in the verse, Allah has made the Ka’ba, the Sacred House, a sustentation for mankind, and also the sacred months (), and we have discussed this further in our commentary on it.
So do not wrong yourselves during them (fīhinna)—meaning during the four sacred months. If the verse was referring to the previously mentioned twelve (months), it would have been more appropriate to use the (singular feminine) pronoun hā instead of the (plural feminine) pronoun hinna, as noted by the grammarian al-Farrāʾ. Also, if it was referring to the twelve months, this is equivalent to a whole year, in which case it would mean ‘do not ever wrong yourselves,’ in which case this part of the verse should follow logically from indeed the number of months with Allah is twelve months. However, there is no apparent relation between the two. Therefore, the most appropriate reading of the verse is: ‘These four months are sacred and, because they are sacred in the eyes of God, you should desist from wronging yourselves during them out of respect for their sanctity and momentousness to God.’
The prohibition against wronging oneself during these months illustrates the magnitude of their sanctity, first of all, because this prohibition is delivered based on their sanctity and, secondly, because it is a specific prohibition that follows a general one. It is the same as saying: ‘Do no wrong, especially at such-and-such a time!’
Therefore, the wording of the sentence, so do not wrong yourselves during them, is general and, as such, conveys a prohibition on every kind of sin and wrongdoing. However, the context in which it occurs indicates that its primary concern is to deliver a prohibition against fighting during the sacred months.
Fight all (kāffatan) the polytheists, just as they fight you all (kāffatan), and know that God is with the Godwary—Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī says in his Mufradāt:
Kaff literally refers to the palm of a person’s hand, which is what they use to seize and release things. The verb kafaftuhu can mean ‘I seized his hand’ or it can mean ‘I struck him with my hand and warded him off with it.’ Hence, in whatever sense it is used, kaff conveys a meaning of repelling or pushing back, even if someone does not use his palm to do this. A person who has lost his sight is sometimes referred to as a rajul makfūf (lit. ‘a man seized (by blindness)’).
God says in the Qur’an: We did not send you except as one who wards off mankind (kāffatan lil-nās) (), meaning as someone who will prevent them from sinning, and the appearance of the hāʾ at the end of kāfa is to emphasise its meaning, in the same way as in the words rāwiyya (‘abundant narrator’), ʿallāma (‘extremely learned’), nassāba (‘genealogical expert’).
God also says: Fight all the polytheists, just as they fight you all (). Now, some have said this means: ‘fight them to repel them just as they fight you to repel you’; while others have said it means ‘fight them in a group as they fight you in a group.’ This is because a group is sometimes referred to as a kāffa (lit. ‘a palm’) because of its collective strength, just as it is sometimes referred to as a wāziʿa (lit. ‘a restraint’) for the same reason. It is based on this meaning that God says: O you who have faith! Enter into submission, all together ().
Al-Ṭabrisī says in Majmaʿ al-Bayān:
Kāffa means ‘to encompass.’ It is derived from the term kuffa, which refers to a thing’s edge or border—the point beyond which it is prevented from extending. The original meaning of kaff is ‘to restrain or prevent.’
God uses the term kāffa in the sense of ‘all’ and ‘together’ twice in this verse as an adverb (ḥāl) in relation to two subjects: the Muslims and the idolaters. Now, in the original Arabic construction of the verse, it is possible for each of these adverbs to refer to either of these two subjects, which present four possibilities for the verse’s meaning:
‘Fight the polytheists (you) all as they all fight you.’ (Muslims, idolaters)
‘Fight the polytheists (you) all as they fight all of you.’ (Muslims, Muslims)
‘Fight all the polytheists just as they all fight you.’ (idolaters, idolaters)
‘Fight all the polytheists just as they fight all of you.’ (idolaters, Muslims)
Of these, the meaning that springs most readily to mind when studying the verse is the fourth one. This is because it treats the two adverbial instances of the kāffa as referring to the subjects they appear next to in the sentence (so the kāffa next to ‘polytheists’ or mushrikīn refers to the polytheists, and the kāffa next to the pronoun ‘you’ or kum refers to the Muslims being addressed by the verse). Therefore, the meaning of the verse is: ‘Fight all of the polytheists just as they fight all of you.’
Therefore, this verse enjoins the faithful to fight the totality of the idolaters, which renders its meaning akin to the verse, kill the polytheists wherever you find them (). Whatever abrogates that verse also abrogates this one, and whatever specifies or otherwise restricts the meaning of that verse does the same to this one.
However, the verse only deals with the case of fighting the polytheists or idol worshippers, rather than the People of the Book. This is because, even if the Qur’an attributes polytheism (shirk)—directly or indirectly—to the People of the Book, it only refers to idol worshippers as ‘polytheists’ or mushrikīn. On the other hand, it attributes disbelief (kufr) to the People of the Book both in trait and in deed, and it is applied to them in the same way as it is applied to the idol worshippers without distinction.
Hence, the phrase fight all the polytheists should not be read as abrogating the verse that enjoins the Muslims to take tribute (jizya) from the People of the Book (see ), nor does it specify it or restrict its meaning in any way. There have been some other interpretations have been offered for this verse, but we have omitted them because there is little benefit to be had in discussing them here.
…and know that Allah is with the Godwary: This is a lesson and a reminder to the Muslims and, at the same time, an encouragement to acquire the trait of Godwariness in order to acquire the benefits associated with it. These are: Firstly, the promise of divine assistance and victory, for surely the party of God will be triumphant.
And, secondly, that it prevents them from overstepping God’s bounds in battles and military expeditions by killing women, children, or those who give greetings of peace to them. Khālid b. Walīd killed a woman at the Battle of Ḥunayn, so the Prophet sent a message to him telling him to desist from such actions. Then he killed some men of the Banū Judhayma tribe who had converted to Islam, so the Prophet paid compensation to their heirs and disavowed Khālid’s actions to God. Meanwhile, Usāma killed a Jewish man who had identified himself a Muslim, so God revealed the verse: do not say to someone who offers you peace, ‘You are not a believer,’ seeking the transitory wares of the life of this world. Yet with Allah are plenteous gains ().
إِنَّمَا النَّسِيءُ زِيَادَةٌ فِي الْكُفْرِ ۖ يُضَلُّ بِهِ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا يُحِلُّونَهُ عَامًا وَيُحَرِّمُونَهُ عَامًا لِيُوَاطِئُوا عِدَّةَ مَا حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ فَيُحِلُّوا مَا حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ ۚ زُيِّنَ لَهُمْ سُوءُ أَعْمَالِهِمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الْكَافِرِينَ ٣٧
(9:37) Indeed postponement (nasīʾ) is an increase in unfaith, whereby the faithless are led astray. They declare it permissible in one year and forbid it another year, so as to fit in with the number which Allah has made inviolable, thus permitting what Allah has forbidden. Their evil deeds have been made to appear to them as decorous, and Allah does not guide the faithless lot.
The verb nasaʾ means to delay or put off something, and the noun nasīʾ refers to a sacred month whose prohibition on fighting has been delayed, which was something that the Arabs did during the pre-Islamic era. Perhaps they would delay the sanctity of some of the sacred months to other months.
As for precisely how this practice operated, commentators and historians alike have presented a variety of opinions. Based on what is said in the verse, it appears that there was a practice observed by the pre-Islamic Arabs with regard to the sacred months that was called nasīʾ. The term nasīʾ suggests that they postponed the prohibitions associated with a sacred month until a later ordinary month. So, they would postpone the sanctity of the month, but they would not cancel it altogether, because they wanted to preserve the traditions that had been handed down to them from Abraham via their ancestors.
This meant they would not ignore the prohibitions associated with a sacred month, but simply delay them to a different month for a year or more so as to observe the full number of months that God had sanctified, which were four in number, before returning the rules pertaining to the sanctity of the months to their original place in the calendar.
In this way, they continued to distort the divine laws even after they had disbelieved in God by associating idols with Him as partners. That is why God describes it as an increase in unfaith (ziyāda fī al-kufr).
God has already mentioned the specific ordinance concerning the sanctity of the sacred months in the previous verse, namely the prohibition: So do not wrong yourselves during them (). The most obvious example of wrongdoing included in this prohibition is fighting. In fact this is the sole example that we know the Prophet was asked about, as God relates in the verse: They ask you concerning warfare in the holy month. Say, ‘It is an outrageous thing to fight in it…’ (). This is in a similar vein to the verses, Do not violate Allah’s sacraments, neither the sacred month… (), and Allah has made the Ka’ba, the Sacred House, a sustentation for mankind, and also the sacred month, the offering and the garlands… ().
Equally, the sanctity of the Ka’ba or of the Holy Mosque is manifest in the fact that God designated it a place of security, as He says: …and whoever enters it shall be secure… (), and: Did We not establish a secure sanctuary for them ().
Therefore, it appears that the nasīʾ or ‘postponement’ mentioned in the verse only refers to delaying the sanctity of a sacred month to allow for fighting to take place in it rather than to delay the Hajj pilgrimage, which is a ritual act of worship associated with one of the sacred months.
This corroborates those accounts which describe the Arabs as sanctifying particular months of the year in accordance with the ancient traditions of Abraham and Ishmael that they continued to observe. The pre-Islamic Arabs were a people for whom raiding and warring with one another were a way of life, so perhaps it was difficult for them to observe three consecutive months in which there could be no fighting. To get around this, they would delay the prohibition on fighting in the month of Muḥarram to that of Ṣafar, meaning they would prohibit fighting in Ṣafar to allow it in Muḥarram. They would observe this postponement for a time, then they would restore the prohibition on fighting to Muḥarram once more. And they would not delay the prohibition of fighting in Muḥarram until the month of Ṣafar before the month of Dhū al-Ḥijja had set in.
As for those accounts which say that the Arabs would postpone the Hajj pilgrimage from Dhū al-Ḥijja to another month, these find no support in the wording of the verse whatsoever, and we will discuss these in detail in our treatment of the relevant narrations, below.
When the Qur’an says, Indeed nasīʾ is an increase in unfaith, this means that delaying the sanctity that God had ordained particularly for these sacred months and moving it to another ordinary month is an increase in faithlessness. This is because it is interfering with the ordinance that God has legislated, and disbelieving in God’s signs after having already disbelieved in God by associating partners with him is an increase in unfaith.
…whereby the faithless are led astray: Meaning that others lead them astray through this practice. This implies that there is some authority who decides when the nasīʾ takes place. Traditions say that this was one of the Banū Kināna tribe, and we will discuss this in full when we come to the narrations.
They declare it permissible in one year and forbid it another year, so as to fit in with the number which God has made inviolable, thus permitting what God has forbidden. This is an explanation how nasīʾ works, and the context of the verse indicates that the pronoun ‘it’ refers to the sacred month, meaning that they permit fighting in a sacred month whose sanctity they have delayed in one year, then observe its sanctity in the correct month the following year. Or, to put it another way, they permit fighting in the month by delaying the prohibition to another month, and they forbid fighting in it the next year by returning the prohibition to its original place in the calendar.
The verse further says that they only follow this approach of delaying it one year and keeping it the next so that they maintain the sanctity of the same number of months in a year that God has declared inviolable. In other words, they wish to preserve the sanctity of the four sacred months by observing the ban on fighting for the same number of months in the year, while altering the months in which the prohibition on fighting occurs to allow for their wars and raids without violating this tradition.
Their evil deeds have been made to appear to them as decorous, and Allah does not guide the faithless lot: The one who made these deeds appear decorous to them is Satan, as we have discussed in our commentary on other verses of the Qur’an where this phrase appears. Although this act could also be attributed to God, as is the case with other verses too, an evil act is never attributed to God unless this refers to the recompense for the act, as per the verse: Thereby He leads many astray, and thereby He guides many; and He leads no one astray thereby except the transgressors ().
This means that when one of God’s servants commits a sin and God prevents guidance from reaching him, this provides an opening for the one who tempts mankind into error, namely Satan, to make their deeds seem decorous and pleasant to them. In doing so, he corrupts them and misguides them. That is why God says: Their evil deeds have been made to appear to them as decorous, and immediately follows this with: And Allah does not guide the faithless lot. It is as if when it was said: Their evil deeds have been made to appear to them as decorous, someone asked: ‘How can God allow that to happen?’ To which the response came: ‘Those are disbelievers in God, and God does not guide the faithless lot.’
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Abū Khālid al-Wāsiṭī, who narrates from Imām al-Bāqir, who narrates from his father, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, from the Commander of the Faithful that when the Messenger of God’s illness became severe, he said: ‘O people! The year consists of twelve months, of which four are sacred.’ Then he counted them on his hand: ‘Rajab by itself, then Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, and Muḥarram in succession.’
Author’s comments: There are a number of traditions which interpret the twelve months of the year in terms of the twelve Imams: the four sacred months as ʿAlī the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riḍā, and ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, and the year as the Messenger of God. However, how these traditions relate to the verse () is not entirely clear given its context.
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is narrated via Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Abū al-Shaykh, Ibn Mardawayh, and al-Bayhaqī’s Shuʿub al-Īmān from Abū Bakr, that the Prophet delivered a sermon during his Hajj pilgrimage, in which he said: ‘Know that time has passed and returned to the form it had on the day when He created the heavens and the earth. The year is twelve months, of which four are sacred, the three successive months of Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, and Muḥarram, and Rajab on its own between Jumādā and Shaʿbān.’
Author’s comments: This is one of the well-known sermons of the Prophet, which has been narrated through a variety of routes, including from Abū Hurayra, Ibn ʿUmar, and Ibn ʿAbbās, and from Abū Ḥamza al-Riqāshī, from his uncle, who had been alive at the time of the Prophet, as well as others.
When the Prophet says that ‘time has passed and returned to the form it had on the day when He created the heavens and the earth,’ this shows that the laws of Islam are founded on the divinely instituted natural order and that this is what renders it capable of governing human affairs. This includes the issue of the four sacred months and the abolition of nasīʾ, which is an increase in unfaith.
- In the same source, it is narrated via Ibn Abī Ḥātim and Abū al-Shaykh from Ibn ʿUmar: ‘The Messenger of God stopped in ʿAqaba and said: “Surely nasīʾ is from Satan and an increase in unfaith by which the disbelievers are led astray; they allow fighting in a month one year and prohibit it the next, they declare Muḥarram sacred one year only to declare Ṣafar sacred the next and permit fighting in Muḥarram. This is nasīʾ.’
- In the same source, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Ibn Mardawayh narrate from Ibn ʿAbbās: ‘Junāda b. ʿAwf al-Kinānī would attend the (Hajj) season each year. He was also known as Abū Thumāda. There, he would call out: “Pay attention! Surely Abū Thumāda neither fears nor is blamed! Pay attention! The Muḥarram is permitted (for fighting)…”
‘When some of the Arab tribes wished to raid their enemies during the sacred months, they would come to Junāda and say: “Permit for us to fight in this month in exchange for abstaining from fighting in Ṣafar.” And the Arabs would not fight during the sacred months, so he would permit it to them for one year and forbid it to them the following year, and he would forbid it in the next year in order for it to correspond to the number of months God had declared inviolable, so that they would keep four months sacred, even though they would make the month of Ṣafar permissible for fighting in one year and forbidden another.’
- In the same source, it is narrated via Ibn al-Mundhir from Qatāda, about the verse, Indeed nasīʾ is an increase in unfaith (): ‘Some misguided people added Ṣafar to the sacred months; their spokesperson would get up during the Hajj season and say: “Your gods have made Ṣafar sacred!” So they would treat it as though fighting were forbidden in it for that year, and they used to refer to Muḥarram and Ṣafar as “the two Ṣafars.” The first to practice nasīʾ with regard to the sacred months were the Mālik clan of the Kināna tribe. There were three of them: Abū Thumāma Ṣafwān b. Umayya, one of the Banū Faqīm b. al-Ḥarith, and one of the Banū Kināna.’
- In the same source, it is narrated from Ibn Abī Ḥātim, from al-Sudayy, about the same verse: ‘A man of the Banū Kināna called Junāda b. ʿAwf and known as Abū Thumāma was the one who postponed the sacred months. It was hard for the Arabs to keep off fighting for three months as this meant they could not raid one another. So, whenever they wanted to raid someone, Abū Thumāma would stand up at Minā and deliver a speech, in which he would say: “I have declared Muḥarram permissible for fighting and forbidden fighting during Ṣafar in its place.” Then, people would fight one another in Muḥarram and when Ṣafar commenced, they would retire and lay down their weapons once again. Then Abū Thumāma would get up the following year and say: “I have declared fighting in Ṣafar permissible and forbidden it in Muḥarram.” In this way, they were able to observe four sacred months, while still being allowed to fight in Muḥarram.’
- In the same source, it is narrated from Ibn Mardawayh, from Ibn ʿAbbās, about the verse, They declare it permissible in one year and forbid it another year (): ‘This refers to the month of Ṣafar. The Hawāzin and Ghaṭafān would permit fighting in it one year and forbid it the next.’
Author’s comments: The kernel of these narrations, as you can see, is that the Arabs observed the sanctity of the four sacred months of Rajab, Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, and Muḥarram. However, they sometimes found it difficult to hold off from warring and raiding for three consecutive months, so they asked someone from the Banū Kināna to declare the third of the three months permissible for fighting. This person would stand up amongst them in Minā during the Hajj season and declare Muḥarram permissible for fighting and postpone its inviolability until Ṣafar. Then they would go and fight their enemies during Muḥarram of that year, then respect the sanctity of it the following year. This is the practice known as nasīʾ.
They also used to call Muḥarram ‘the first Ṣafar’ and Ṣafar ‘the second Ṣafar’ in the same way as the spoke of two Jumādās and two Rabīʿs. The practice of nasīʾ or ‘postponement,’ therefore, seems to have been restricted to Muḥarram and Ṣafar. In fact, it is because God specifically forbade fighting in Muḥarram and revoked the practice of nasīʾ that the first Ṣafar came to be known as Muḥarram, a name which means ‘forbidden,’ as it was originally known as Shahr Allāh al-muḥarram (‘the month that God has forbidden fighting in’). Meanwhile, the name Ṣafar came only to apply to the second of the two Ṣafars. This means that the name Muḥarram is one of the terms that Islam introduced to the Arabic language, as al-Suyūṭī mentions in his Muzhir.
- In the same source, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Abū al-Shaykh narrate from Mujāhid about the verse, Indeed nasīʾ is an increase in unfaith: ‘God ordained that the Hajj should be performed in Dhū al-Ḥijja. The idolaters used to call the months Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, Ṣafar, Rabīʿ, Rabīʿ, Jumādā, Jumādā, Rajab, Shaʿbān, Ramaḍān, Shawwāl, and Dhū al-Qaʿda, which would be followed by Dhū al-Ḥijja, in which they would perform the Hajj. Then they remained silent about Muḥarram and did not say anything about it. Instead, they would call it Ṣafar and Ṣafar, then they would call Rajab Jumādā al-Ākhar, then they would call Shaʿbān Ramaḍān and Ramaḍān Shawwāl, then call Shawwāl Dhū al-Qaʿda, and Dhū al-Qaʿda Dhū al-Ḥijja, then they would call Muḥarram Dhū al-Ḥijja, and they would perform the pilgrimage in this month, which they called Dhū al-Ḥijja.
‘They continued this way, performing the Hajj in a different month each year, until the pilgrimage of Abū Bakr fell in the month of Dhū al-Qaʿda. However, the Prophet performed his pilgrimage in the month of Dhū al-Ḥijja, whereat he got up and addressed the crowds, saying: “Know that time has passed and returned to its original form on the day when He created the heavens and the earth.”’
Author’s comments: In spite of its evident confusion of details, the key point of this account is that the pre-Islamic Arabs would perform the Hajj pilgrimage annually in the month of Dhū al-Ḥijja, but they actually wanted to perform the pilgrimage in a different month each year. To that end, they would move it from one month to another, and each year that month would be known as Dhū al-Ḥijja and the month’s original name would be omitted.
In practice, this meant that each year would consist of thirteen months, even if this meant that some months were repeated in the calendar twice or more times, as the narration seems to indicate. This is why al-Ṭabarī reports that the pre-Islamic Arabs used to say that the year consisted of thirteen months, or—in an alternative report—twelve months and twenty-five days.
Another corollary of this is that all of the names of different months would shift year by year, and that the same month would not be called by the same name twice except once every twelve years, assuming that this system was consistently applied. However, this would not be called a delay or postponement, as adopting a thirteen-month year and calling the last month of the year Dhū al-Ḥijja actually involves changing the very basis of one’s calendrical system rather than merely delaying one of its months.
Moreover, given that this account contradicts all of the reports and accounts that have come down on this topic, and there is nothing to corroborate this account save this report and others like it, such as the narration of ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb from his father, from his grandfather: ‘The Arabs would add a month or two to each year, and they would not perform Hajj at the proper time except once every sixteen years. This is the nasīʾ that God mentions in His Book. So, when it was the year of the Greater Pilgrimage—and the Messenger of God performed the pilgrimage from the following year—and people were bringing offerings, God’s Messenger got up and delivered a sermon, in which he said: “Know that time has passed and returned to the form it had on the day when He created the heavens and the earth.”’ However, this narration is just as confused as the one above from Mujāhid.
The accounts which state that Abū Bakr performed the Hajj in Dhū al-Qaʿda have been transmitted by Sunnī sources, as has the report that the Prophet made him the leader of the Hajj that year, 9 A.H., and there are other reports still that say the Hajj was performed in Dhū al-Qaʿda of that year.
Now, this pilgrimage, however it has been described in the sources, would have been performed by the command and consent of the Prophet, and he would not have commanded anything save that this was by the command of his Lord. Now, how is it possible that God could have commanded people to perform the Hajj in the month of nasīʾ only to turn around and call nasīʾ an ‘increase in unfaith’?
Therefore, the reality is that the practice of nasīʾ was as we have previously described, namely that the Arabs found it difficult to keep off fighting for three consecutive sacred months, so they would postpone the sanctity of Muḥarram until Ṣafar one year, then observe it at the normal time the following year.
As for the idea that the pre-Islamic Arabs would perform the Hajj pilgrimage in a different month each year, or a different month every two years, or in one month one year and then in another month for two years, this is not clearly established by any reliable sources. Moreover, it is likely that the pre-Islamic Arab tribes differed amongst themselves in this regard because they belonged to different tribes and clans, each of which had its own customs that it followed. However, the Hajj was also a seasonal pilgrimage, and these tribes would have had to perform it at the same time as one another in order to benefit from the security provided by the sacred months. They could not have done so if one group considered a particular month permitted for fighting, while others considered it forbidden, as is obvious.
Referring to the tāʾ marbūta that is pronounced as a soft hāʾ if one stops on it or as a tāʾ if it is connected to the following word. The appearance of this letter at the end of the word typically marks it as grammatically feminine. Hence, the question Rāghib addresses here is: how can this word refer to the Prophet while being grammatically feminine? His answer is that this tāʾ marbūṭa intensifies the meaning of the word, as is the case with the other examples he presents. Therefore, kāffa means ‘someone who repels forcefully.’ (Trans.) ↩︎