The Islamic New Year: What 1 Muharram Marks

The Islamic New Year is 1 Muharram, the first day of the first month of the Hijri calendar. It marks a change in the year number, not an event that happened on that day. The years are counted from the Hijra, the Prophet's migration from Makkah to Madinah in 622 CE, and the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab set the first day of that count at the start of Muharram. In Sunni practice it is not one of the two Eids, and no special rite is attached to the day itself. By the calculated Umm al-Qura calendar, 1 Muharram 1449 AH falls on Sunday 6 June 2027, beginning at sunset on Saturday 5 June.

Key Takeaways

• 1 Muharram is New Year's Day of the Hijri calendar. It begins at sunset the evening before.
• The year count starts from the Hijra of 622 CE. Umar introduced that era in 639 CE and began year 1 with 1 Muharram, which corresponds to 16 July 622 (Julian).
• The migration itself is traditionally placed in Rabi al-Awwal, so 1 Muharram is not the anniversary of the journey.
• Islam's two festivals are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The Islamic New Year is not a festival in Sunni practice, while for Shia Muslims it opens the mourning period that leads to Ashura.
• Calculated date for 1449 AH: Sunday 6 June 2027. Local announcements may differ by a day.

What 1 Muharram actually marks

1 Muharram marks the point where the Hijri year number goes up by one. The Hijri calendar has twelve lunar months, and Muharram is the first of them. In a translation of the meaning of Quran 9:36 (Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, on quran.com), the verse begins: "Indeed, the number of months ordained by Allah is twelve." The same verse says four of the months are sacred, and Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry on Ashura notes that Muharram was traditionally one of those four, when fighting was not allowed.

The year that begins on 1 Muharram carries the label AH, for anno Hegirae, "in the year of the Hijra." The US Naval Observatory's Islamic calendar page states that the count of years "begins with 1 Muharram A.H. 1," which it equates with Friday, 16 July 622 CE in the Julian calendar.

Because a Hijri year is about 11 days shorter than a solar year, the new year moves earlier through the Gregorian calendar each year.

The link to the Hijra and Umar's choice

The Islamic New Year is tied to the Hijra because the Companions chose the migration, rather than another event, as the start of the count. In Sahih al-Bukhari 3934, Sahl ibn Sa'd says the Companions did not date the calendar from the day the Prophet ﷺ was sent as a messenger or from the day of his death, "but the day of his arrival at Medina." Imam al-Bukhari placed it under a chapter titled "When did the Muslim calendar start?"

The era came some years after the migration. Britannica's entry on the Hijrah says the Prophet ﷺ dated his own letters and treaties by other events in his life. It was Umar, the second caliph, who introduced the Hijra era in 639 CE. Britannica adds that Umar "started the first year AH with the first day of the lunar month of Muḥarram," corresponding to 16 July 622 in the Julian calendar.

Why 1 Muharram is not the day of the migration

The new year is not the anniversary of the journey. The count treats the year in which the Hijra happened as year 1 and starts it at 1 Muharram, the first month. R.H. van Gent of Utrecht University, in his note on early-Islamic chronology, records that later traditions place the first day of the Hijra on the first day of Rabi al-Awwal, the third month. He also points out that the date of the Hijra is not mentioned in the Quran or in other early Islamic texts.

So when someone says the Islamic New Year "commemorates the Hijra," that is true of the year count, not of the date. The sister posts on how Umar adopted the Hijri calendar and why the Hijri year starts in Muharram, not Rabi al-Awwal go through the reports about that decision in detail.

When the next Islamic New Year falls

The next Islamic New Year, 1 Muharram 1449 AH, is calculated for Sunday 6 June 2027. Like every Islamic date, it begins at sunset the evening before. The table gives calculated dates from the Umm al-Qura calendar.

These are calculated dates. Many communities start Muharram from a sighting of the crescent or from a local announcement, so the day you observe can be a day later (or occasionally earlier) than the table. Public holidays follow the same pattern. The UAE government's public holidays page, for example, lists "Hijri New Year (Islamic New Year) - 1 Muharram" and notes that Islamic holiday dates depend on moon sighting.

How Muslims observe it

Observance of 1 Muharram varies by community, and much of it is quiet. Here is what the main sources say, without prescribing any one practice.

Not one of the two Eids

In Sunni practice the two festivals of the year are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. In Sunan Abi Dawud 1134, graded sahih by al-Albani on sunnah.com, Anas ibn Malik reports that the people of Madinah had two days of play inherited from before Islam. The Prophet ﷺ told them God had given them something better in their place: "the day of sacrifice and the day of the breaking of the fast."

For this reason, 1 Muharram is not kept as a festival in Sunni practice. The narrations quoted below concern the month of Muharram as a whole and the day of Ashura, not New Year's Day itself.

Fasting in Muharram

The month carries a general merit for voluntary fasting. In Sahih Muslim 1163a, Abu Hurayra reports the Prophet ﷺ as saying: "The most excellent fast after Ramadan is God's month. al-Muharram." This applies to the month, not to a particular date. The best-known fast in the month is Ashura on the 10th, covered in the sister post on Ashura and the fast of the 9th.

The start of Muharram for Shia Muslims

For Shia Muslims, the beginning of Muharram has a very different tone. Britannica's Ashura entry describes how Shia communities commemorate the killing of Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala with mourning rituals "during the first 10 days of Muharram," culminating on Ashura. Gatherings with sermons and recitations about Karbala begin at the start of the month, and black clothing is common. For many Shia Muslims, then, the new year opens a period of mourning, not celebration.

New-year greetings

Some Muslims exchange new-year greetings, and others prefer not to start them. Scholars have given different answers on this, so it is a question to take to a scholar or your local mosque rather than one a calendar can settle.

Common questions

Is the Islamic New Year the same as the day of the Hijra?

No. The year count starts from the year of the Hijra, but the migration itself is traditionally dated to Rabi al-Awwal, two months after 1 Muharram. The new year marks the start of the counted year, not the journey.

Why is 1 Muharram on a different Gregorian date every year?

The Hijri year has 354 or 355 days, about 11 fewer than the solar year. So 1 Muharram arrives about 11 days earlier each Gregorian year, as the table above shows.

Plan for the next 1 Muharram

To see the calculated date and countdown for the next new year, open the Islamic New Year page. For the whole month, including Ashura, the Muharram 1449 calendar lays out each day against its Gregorian date. If you are planning an event or a fast, mark the date as provisional and confirm it with the mosque or authority you follow once Muharram has been announced.