Documents of the Right Word

have mourned over the martyrdoms of hadrat ’Umar, hadrat Alî
and hadrat Huseyn. We love them all very much. We are deeply
sad about their martyrdoms. Yet we do not mourn over them. We
do not mourn although we do feel extremely sorry. We do not
mourn because Muslims are forbidden to mourn or to curse
others.
Islam licenses celebrating one’s birthday and thanking Allâhu
ta’âlâ for this. Our master the Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ alaihi wa
sallam’ would fast on Mondays. When he was asked the reason, he
stated, “It is my birthday. I am fasting to show my gratitude.”
21- Birthday celebrations and holy nights should be observed in
accordance with the Hijrî calendar. The thirty-seventh âyat of
Tawba sûra purports, “The number of months have been twelve
since Allâhu ta’âlâ created heavens and earth. Four of them are
months that are harâm. It is a powerful faith, [that is, it has been
known since the times of Ibrâhîm and Ismâîl ‘alaihis-salâm’], that
these four months are harâm. Do not torment yourselves in these
four months!” That the four harâm months are Rajab, Zilqa’da,
Zilhijja, and Muharram was informed by our master the Prophet.
The twelve months are the Arabic months whereby hijrî years are
calculated.
The thirty-eighth âyat of Tawba sûra purports, “To postpone a
month’s being harâm to another month would only aggravate the
state of disbelief. Disbelievers deviate in this matter. In order to
equalize the number of months made harâm by Allâhu ta’âlâ, they
make a harâm month halâl for one year and make it harâm again
in another year. Thus they make halâl what Allah has made
harâm.” Before Islam it was a common practice among the Arabs;
when they wanted to make war in a harâm month, say, in
Muharram, they would give the name Muharram to the month
following the actual month of Muharram, giving in turn this second
month’s name to the month of Muharram. Thus the month
immediately coming after Muharram would become the harâm
month. This âyat-i-kerîma prohibited to change months’ places. To
say that the observed months move ten days forward each year
would be a void explanation of the matter. A more correct
explanation would be that the Arabic year whose months are
mentioned in Qur’ân al-kerîm and used in the Islamic
technicalities is ten days shorter than a solar year. The hijrî lunar
new year is therefore ten days earlier than the hijrî solar and the
Christian new years. Consequently, Muslims’ holy days and nights
are ten days earlier each year when they are calculated by solar
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