Rabi al-Awwal: The Third Month of the Islamic Calendar

Rabi al-Awwal (ربيع الأول) is the third month of the Hijri calendar, after Muharram and Safar. Its name means "the first spring". It is the month in which the Prophet ﷺ reached Madinah at the end of the Hijra, and by long tradition the month of both his birth and his death. The exact day of his birth is not agreed, and neither is whether it should be celebrated. By the calculated Umm al-Qura calendar, the next Rabi al-Awwal runs from Tuesday 3 August to Wednesday 1 September 2027 (1449 AH).

Key Takeaways

• Rabi al-Awwal is the third Hijri month. Rabi' is the Arabic word for spring, but the lunar month moves through every season.
• Sahih al-Bukhari records that the Prophet ﷺ arrived at Quba, outside Madinah, on a Monday in Rabi al-Awwal.
• Sahih Muslim records that he was born on a Monday, and Sahih al-Bukhari that he died on a Monday. The day of the month comes from later tradition and varies by source.
• The 12th is the date most Sunnis mark as his birthday; many Shia Muslims mark the 17th. Muslims also differ on whether celebrating the Mawlid is permitted.
• Calculated dates for 1449 AH: 1 Rabi al-Awwal is Tuesday 3 August 2027 and 12 Rabi al-Awwal is Saturday 14 August 2027. Local announcements may differ by a day.

What the name Rabi al-Awwal means

Rabi' means spring and al-awwal means "the first". The month that follows, Rabi al-Thani (also called Rabi al-Akhir), is "the second spring". A Hamad Bin Khalifa University article on the names and meanings of the Arabic months explains that the name fitted the season when the months were first named, a time of rain and new growth when Arabs took their herds out to graze.

The name stayed fixed while the season did not. A Hijri year of 12 lunar months is about 11 days shorter than a solar year, and the Islamic calendar adds no leap month to pull it back. Rabi al-Awwal therefore drifts through summer, winter and every season in between over a cycle of roughly 33 years. In 2027 it falls in August, in the northern summer. The sister post on why Islamic dates move about 11 days earlier each year explains the arithmetic.

The Hijra: arrival in Madinah in Rabi al-Awwal

The migration of the Prophet ﷺ from Makkah to Madinah ended in this month. The long Hijra narration in Sahih al-Bukhari 3906 describes the Muslims of Madinah waiting each morning on the lava plain outside the town. When he finally appeared, he turned to the quarters of Banu Amr ibn Awf at Quba, "and this was on Monday in the month of Rabi-ul-Awal". The same narration says he stayed there for ten nights and founded the mosque of Quba before moving into Madinah itself.

The Quran refers to the journey without giving a date. In Surah at-Tawbah 9:40, it recalls the Prophet ﷺ hiding in the cave with his companion and reassuring him. In The Clear Quran translation of the meaning by Mustafa Khattab, he says: "Do not worry; Allah is certainly with us."

Later historians filled in the days. R.H. van Gent of Utrecht University summarises the tradition in his study of the Arabian calendar in the life of Muhammad: the journey began on 1 Rabi al-Awwal, the travellers reached the outskirts of Yathrib (Madinah) on the 12th, and they entered the town on the 16th. He also cautions that the date of the Hijra is not given in the Quran or other early Islamic texts, and that it is not known how the pre-Islamic Arabs added extra months before the practice was abolished in 10 AH. Any conversion of these events to a Western date is therefore a reconstruction, and van Gent warns it can be wrong by one or more lunar months. His own reconstruction puts the arrival at Quba in late June 622, which is one reason published Western dates for the Hijra differ.

The Hijri year does not begin in Rabi al-Awwal, even though this is when the migration was completed. The year starts in Muharram, a choice explained in the sister post on why the Hijri year starts in Muharram, not Rabi al-Awwal.

The Prophet's birth: the Monday is certain, the date is not

The day of the week is recorded in a sahih hadith. In Sahih Muslim 1162b, the Prophet ﷺ was asked about fasting on Monday and replied that it was the day on which he was born and the day on which he received prophethood or revelation. This hadith is also one of the main texts behind the voluntary Monday fast, covered in the sister post on fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.

The day of the month is not given in that hadith. It comes from later biographical tradition, and two dates are widely observed: the 12th, marked by most Sunni Muslims, and the 17th, marked by many Shia Muslims.

Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry on the mawlid describes the 12th as a date fixed by tradition. Dr Attia Youseif, a senior lecturer at Indiana University, writes in an Indiana University article on al-Mawlid al-Nabawi that the precise date is debated among scholars, while the 12th is the most widely accepted. The timeanddate.com page for Milad un Nabi notes that Sunni Muslims generally mark the 12th and Shia Muslims the 17th.

The year is also traditional. Britannica's biography of Muhammad gives his birth as c. 570 in Makkah. Because the birth came more than 50 years before the Hijra, and the pre-Islamic calendar still added extra months, there is no reliable way to convert 12 Rabi al-Awwal of that year to an exact Gregorian day.

The Prophet's death in Rabi al-Awwal

The day of the week of his death is again in Sahih al-Bukhari. In Sahih al-Bukhari 1387, Abu Bakr, during his own final illness, asks Aisha on which day the Prophet ﷺ died, and she replies, "He died on Monday."

Britannica's biography dates his death to 8 June 632 (11 AH), in Madinah. Its mawlid entry notes that the 12th of Rabi al-Awwal, the traditional birthday, is also traditionally the day of his death, which is why the same date carries both meanings for many Sunni Muslims.

Not every community marks the death in this month. Iran's official calendar, for example, marks the death of the Prophet ﷺ at the end of Safar and his birth in mid-Rabi al-Awwal. The timeanddate.com list of Iran's 2026 holidays shows the death on Wednesday 12 August 2026 and the birthday on Sunday 30 August 2026. On the calculated Umm al-Qura calendar, 30 August 2026 is 17 Rabi al-Awwal 1448.

The Mawlid: how Muslims differ

Mawlid al-Nabi means the birthday of the Prophet ﷺ. It is the observance most people link with Rabi al-Awwal. Where it is observed, practice ranges from public holidays and processions to gatherings with sermons and poems about the life and virtues of the Prophet ﷺ. Other Muslims do not observe it at all.

Its history is later than the Prophet's lifetime. Britannica's mawlid entry says the birthday was not widely celebrated until about the 13th century. It records official mawlids under the Fatimids in Egypt at the end of the 11th century. For Sunnis, the entry points to a festival held at Erbil in 1207 by Muzaffar al-Din Gökburi as the first mawlid. From there the celebration spread across the Muslim world.

Scholars have disagreed about it since then. The Indiana University article summarises the two main positions:

• Those who object hold that celebrating the birthday is an innovation (bid'ah) in religion, since it was not practised in the first generations of Islam.
• Those who support it, including many Sufi scholars, see it as a legitimate expression of love and reverence for the Prophet ﷺ.

A Congressional Research Service fact sheet on Muslim holidays (updated March 2026) likewise describes the Mawlid's legitimacy as a subject of intense debate. It adds that the day is a national holiday in most Muslim-majority countries, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar as exceptions.

This article does not take a side. If you are deciding what to do yourself, ask a qualified scholar or your local mosque.

Rabi al-Awwal dates for 1448 to 1450 AH

Dates are calculated from the Umm al-Qura tables in the open-source hijri-converter library that this site uses. Many communities start the month from a local crescent sighting or announcement, so the date you observe may be a day different.

Each Islamic day begins at sunset. A date listed as Saturday 14 August 2027 begins on the evening of Friday 13 August, so an evening gathering "on the 12th" may be held on Friday night. The sister post on why the Islamic day begins at sunset explains the convention.

Planning around Rabi al-Awwal

To see the month laid out day by day, open the Rabi al-Awwal 1449 calendar, or look back at Rabi al-Awwal 1448. To check a single date, such as the Hijri date of a family event or a Monday you plan to fast, use the Hijri date converter. Then confirm the start of the month with the mosque or authority you follow once the crescent is announced.