The Islamic Calendar and Its Sacred Days

New to the Qur'an? Start with The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept, then read Muhammad ﷺ: A Life. All articles: Deen: Start Here.

Deen · Time التقويم الهجري

Ask a Muslim friend when Eid is this year and you will often get two answers: a date in March, and "it depends on the moon". Both are true. The Islamic calendar is a calendar of the moon alone, counted from the Prophet's emigration to Medina, and its months walk backwards through the seasons so that Ramadan, which fell in the Sydney winter in the 2010s, now arrives in late summer and will be at Christmas by the early 2030s.

This page explains how that calendar works: why it has twelve months and never adds a thirteenth, which four months are sacred, how the Companions came to count years from the Hijra, and which days in the year matter and why, including the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, which Sunni and Shia Muslims keep in very different ways. It ends with the calendars actually in use today and a converter between Gregorian and Hijri dates, with a warning about why its answers can be a day or two away from the date your mosque announces.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. Where it describes what is recommended on particular days, it reports what the texts say and how the schools have read them. For your own practice please ask a qualified scholar you trust.

Contents

1. A year of twelve moons
2. The twelve months
3. The four sacred months
4. Counting from the Hijra
5. The sacred days through the year
6. ʿĀshūrāʾ: one day, two memories
7. Mondays, Thursdays and the white days
8. The calendars in use
9. Date converter
10. The year 1448 at a glance
11. Glossary
12. Sources

A year of twelve moons

The Qur'an treats the sun and the moon as God's way of giving people a clock. "He is the One Who made the sun a radiant source and the moon a reflected light, with precisely ordained phases, so that you may know the number of years and calculation ˹of time˺."¹ When people asked the Prophet ﷺ about the new moons, the answer was practical: "They are a means for people to determine time and pilgrimage."² The months of worship, above all Ramadan and the month of Hajj, follow the moon.

The key verse is in Sūrat al-Tawba:

إِنَّ عِدَّةَ الشُّهُورِ عِندَ اللَّهِ اثْنَا عَشَرَ شَهْرًا فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ مِنْهَا أَرْبَعَةٌ حُرُمٌ

"Indeed, the number of months ordained by Allah is twelve, in Allah's Record since the day He created the heavens and the earth, of which four are sacred."

Qur'an 9:36³

The verse that follows condemns al-nasīʾ, the "postponement". Before Islam the Arabs could declare that a sacred month would be moved, fighting in it one year and keeping it sacred another, so that the number of sacred months came out right while the months themselves were shifted to suit war and trade. The Qur'an calls this "an increase in disbelief".⁴ The verse describes moving a month's sanctity from one year to the next. Encyclopaedia Iranica adds that the old month names, many of which refer to the weather, suggest the pre-Islamic Arabs also inserted an extra month from time to time to keep the lunar months in line with the seasons, which would have kept the pilgrimage in a convenient season.⁷ Its abolition meant that the Islamic year became purely lunar: twelve months of 29 or 30 days, with nothing added to catch up with the sun.

The consequences are easy to state. A lunar month averages a little over 29½ days, so a year of twelve comes to 354 or 355 days.⁵ The solar year is about eleven days longer, and the Islamic months drift backwards through the seasons, completing the circuit roughly every 32½ solar years.⁵ Someone who fasts for fifty years or more will meet Ramadan in every season, most of them twice. For Australians it means that Ramadan, which fell in the cool of June and July in the mid-2010s, falls in February in 2027 and will reach December in the early 2030s; the Ramadan page shows what that does to the length of the fast.

The Prophet ﷺ returned to the theme in his sermon at the Farewell Pilgrimage in 10 AH. In Abū Bakra's report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ he said: "Time has turned round to the form it had on the day God created the heavens and the earth. The year is twelve months, of which four are sacred: three in succession, Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja and Muḥarram, and the Rajab of Muḍar, which comes between Jumādā and Shaʿbān."⁶ Scholars read "time has turned round" as saying that, with the postponement ended, the months were now back in their proper places.

The twelve months

The names are older than Islam, and in their pre-Islamic form they probably tracked the seasons. Some still carry a hint of that (Ramaḍān is usually linked to the root for scorching heat), but because the months now move freely the meanings have no bearing on when they fall, and I have not tried to vouch for the etymologies here. What matters is the order, and what happens in each.

In the arithmetic calendar used by most software, the odd-numbered months have 30 days and the even-numbered months 29, except that Dhū al-Ḥijja gets a thirtieth day in eleven years out of every thirty.⁵⁷ In real life, where months begin with the crescent, any month can have 29 or 30 days.

The four sacred months

The sacred months (al-ashhur al-ḥurum) are Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram and Rajab.⁶ The first three run together around the pilgrimage month. Rajab stands alone in the middle of the year, and the hadith calls it "the Rajab of Muḍar", tying it to the northern Arab tribes of that name.

The Qur'an's instruction for these months is short: "do not wrong one another during these months", in Khattab's translation; the Arabic, fa-lā taẓlimū fīhinna anfusakum, is more literally "do not wrong yourselves in them".³ The ban on starting a war in them was the most visible sign of their sanctity in the Prophet's ﷺ time, and the jurists later debated whether that ban still stood or had been superseded. The majority held that the ban on starting a war in them was abrogated; others held that it was not, and IslamQA's answer on the question sets out both views with the exegetes and jurists behind them.⁸¹

What about fasting? There is a report in Abū Dāwūd in which the Prophet ﷺ tells a man who had exhausted himself with fasting to fast Ramadan and a few days each month, and then, "fast from the sacred months and leave off", gesturing with three fingers. Al-Albānī graded it weak.⁸ A report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ gives a more general encouragement: "The best fast after Ramadan is in God's month, al-Muḥarram."⁹ Nothing in the sound hadith picks out Rajab for special fasts or prayers. A report in Ibn Mājah that he forbade fasting Rajab altogether is graded weak by Darussalam,¹⁰ and the popular Rajab prayers such as the "Ṣalāt al-Raghāʾib" have a history very like the prayers of mid-Shaʿbān, discussed on the 15th of Shaʿbān page. Shia practice treats the whole of Rajab and Shaʿbān as a recommended time for fasting, in al-Sīstānī's list of recommended fasts.¹¹

Counting from the Hijra

In the Prophet's ﷺ own lifetime there was no numbered era. Years were remembered by what happened in them: the Year of the Elephant, the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage. It was under the second caliph, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, that the state needed a single way of dating letters and records, and the Hijrī era was introduced. The sources credit ʿUmar with the decision and differ on the year, 16, 17 or 18 AH (637–639 CE), although Encyclopaedia Iranica notes some evidence that the count was already being used before he became caliph.⁷¹²

The choice of starting point was deliberate. Sahl ibn Saʿd, in a report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, says the Companions "did not count from the Prophet's call, nor from his death, but from his arrival in Medina".¹³ The Hijra marked the moment the Muslims became a community with a home of their own, and it was a date everyone knew.

There is a small subtlety that trips up almost everyone. The Prophet ﷺ left Mecca in the month of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, not Muḥarram; Encyclopaedia Iranica gives 1 Rabīʿ al-Awwal of year 1, 12 September 622, for the departure. But the new era was made to begin at the start of the Arab year in which the emigration took place, so 1 Muḥarram 1 AH corresponds to 15 or 16 July 622, about two months before the journey.⁷¹² (The two July dates are both used: the "astronomical" epoch is Thursday 15 July, the "civil" one Friday 16 July, and the difference is simply whether you count from the evening the crescent could first be seen or from the following day.)¹⁴

The Hijra dating spread wherever Islamic government went. Iran kept the Hijra as its starting point but switched to a solar year: the Iranian solar Hijrī calendar, with Persian month names and a year that begins at the spring equinox, became official by a law of the Majlis on 31 March 1925 and is still the civil calendar there.⁷ Most other Muslim countries use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes and the lunar Hijrī calendar for religious ones.

The sacred days through the year

Walking through the year month by month is the easiest way to see which days are rooted in sound texts, which are rooted in the history of one community, and which are popular customs whose textual basis is thin. All three kinds matter to the people who keep them; they are simply different kinds of thing.

Muḥarram: the new year

The first of Muḥarram is the start of the Hijrī year. There is no special worship attached to the day itself in the sound hadith, and many Muslims mark it with nothing more than a greeting. The month as a whole, though, is praised: "The best fast after Ramadan is in God's month, al-Muḥarram," in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.⁹ Its tenth day, ʿĀshūrāʾ, has a section of its own below.

Rabīʿ al-Awwal: the Prophet's month

The Prophet ﷺ was born on a Monday; he said so himself when asked about fasting on Mondays: "That is the day on which I was born, and on which revelation came to me," in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.¹⁵ The month is almost universally given as Rabīʿ al-Awwal. The day is not certain. The 12th is the best-known Sunni date, other early authorities gave the 2nd, 8th, 9th or 10th, and most Twelver Shia scholars follow the 17th.¹⁶ Al-Sīstānī lists the 17th among the recommended days for fasting.¹¹ He arrived in Medina in the same month, and most Sunni sources also place his death on 12 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 11 AH, while most Twelver Shia follow al-Mufīd and al-Ṭūsī in dating it to 28 Ṣafar.¹⁶¹⁷

Whether and how to celebrate the birthday, the Mawlid, is one of the oldest arguments in modern Muslim life, and this site has two long pages on it: the Mawlid session by session and the Mawlid Sourcebook, which sets out the texts and the arguments on each side. Here it is enough to say that public celebration is not attested in the first centuries; Britannica notes that the Fatimids in Egypt observed it by the end of the eleventh century and that it became popular in the thirteenth.¹⁸

Rajab and Shaʿbān

Rajab is sacred, as above. The 27th is widely kept as the night of the Isrāʾ and Miʿrāj, the Night Journey to Jerusalem and the ascension, and is celebrated with readings of the story;¹⁹ the Qur'an mentions the journey (17:1) without dating it, and no authentic hadith fixes the date,⁶⁷ so the 27th is a custom rather than a certainty. Whether to mark it at all divides scholars much as the Mawlid does. Egypt's Dār al-Iftāʾ counts gatherings for religious occasions such as the Isrāʾ and Miʿrāj as commendable so long as nothing forbidden is involved,⁶⁶ while Ibn Bāz, in an answer IslamQA reproduces, held that celebrating the night is an innovation because neither the Prophet ﷺ nor his Companions did so.⁶⁷ For Shia Muslims the 27th of Rajab is also the Mabʿath, the day the Prophet ﷺ was sent, and it is among their recommended fasts.¹¹

Shaʿbān is the month the Prophet ﷺ fasted most outside Ramadan. ʿĀʾisha said he fasted no complete month except Ramadan and she never saw him fast more in any month than in Shaʿbān, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.²⁰ In another report he explained it as a month people neglect, between Rajab and Ramadan, in which deeds are raised to God; Darussalam grades it ḥasan.²¹ The night of the 15th, Shab-e-Barāt in South Asia, is a much more disputed matter, and it has its own page: the one hadith that carries its virtue is graded weak by some and accepted through supporting routes by others, and the special prayers attached to it are later inventions.²²²³ For Twelver Shia the 15th of Shaʿbān is also the birthday of the twelfth Imam, Muḥammad al-Mahdī, born in 255 or 256 AH (869 or 870) in the dating of al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī and al-Mufīd's al-Irshād, and it is kept as a festival.⁶⁴

Ramaḍān

The ninth month is the month of the obligatory fast, and it has its own long page. For the calendar what matters is Laylat al-Qadr (often translated "the Night of Decree"; Khattab renders it "the Night of Glory"), "better than a thousand months".²⁴ The Prophet ﷺ told people to seek it in the odd nights of the last ten, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, and the date is deliberately left open;²⁵ many Sunni communities give special weight to the 27th, and Shia practice concentrates on the 19th, 21st and 23rd.²⁶

Shawwāl: ʿĪd al-Fiṭr

The first of Shawwāl is ʿĪd al-Fiṭr, the festival of breaking the fast. When the Prophet ﷺ came to Medina and found two days of pre-Islamic festivity, he told the people that God had given them two better days, the two ʿĪds; al-Albānī graded the report ṣaḥīḥ.²⁷ Fasting on either ʿĪd is forbidden.²⁸ Many people then fast six days of Shawwāl, following a report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.²⁹

Dhū al-Ḥijja: ʿArafa and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā

The twelfth month holds the most concentrated run of sacred days in the year. The first ten days are praised above all others. In Ibn ʿAbbās's report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, the Prophet ﷺ said that no good deeds done on other days are better than those done on these days; asked whether that included struggle in God's path, he said it did, except for a man who goes out risking his life and wealth and comes back with neither.³⁰ Many commentators read the oath "by the ten nights" at the opening of Sūrat al-Fajr as referring to them.³¹ Someone who intends to offer a sacrifice is told, in a report of Umm Salama in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ, not to cut their hair or nails once the month begins; Sufyān, one of its narrators, noted that some scholars did not take it to be the Prophet's ﷺ own words, though he did.⁷¹

The ninth is the Day of ʿArafa, when the pilgrims stand on the plain of ʿArafāt. It was on that day, a Friday, during the Farewell Pilgrimage, that the verse "Today I have perfected your faith for you" was revealed, according to ʿUmar in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.³²³³ For those not on pilgrimage, fasting on ʿArafa is among the most emphasised voluntary fasts in Sunni practice: asked about it, the Prophet ﷺ said it expiates the sins of the year before and the year after, in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.³⁴ Al-Sīstānī also lists fasting in the first nine days of Dhū al-Ḥijja as recommended, though he regards fasting as disliked on a day when one is unsure whether it is ʿArafa or already the ʿĪd.¹¹³⁵

The tenth is ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā, the festival of the sacrifice, which recalls how Abraham's son was ransomed "with a great sacrifice".³⁶³⁷ Those who can afford it sacrifice an animal and share the meat, pronouncing "the Name of Allah on appointed days over the sacrificial animals He has provided for them. So eat from their meat and feed the desperately poor."³⁸ The three days after the ʿĪd are the days of tashrīq, when the pilgrims remain at Minā; the Qur'an says "remember Allah during ˹these˺ appointed days",³⁹ and the Prophet ﷺ called them "days of eating and drinking", in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ, so they are not fasted.⁴⁰

Whether the sacrifice is required is a real difference between the schools. The Qur'an tells the Prophet ﷺ, "So pray and sacrifice to your Lord ˹alone˺",⁷² and in al-Barāʾ's report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ he said that on this day the first thing is the prayer, then the sacrifice: whoever does it in that order "acted according to our Sunna", and an animal slaughtered before the prayer is just meat for the family.⁷³ The Ḥanafīs hold the sacrifice to be wājib, binding but a degree below farḍ in their terms, on every free Muslim who is resident and has the means. That is the wording of al-Marghīnānī's al-Hidāya; its commentator al-ʿAynī gives this as the view of Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad, with Abū Yūsuf reported both ways.⁷⁴ The report usually cited for it is Abū Hurayra's "Whoever can afford it, but does not offer a sacrifice, let him not come near our prayer place", graded ḥasan by Darussalam on sunnah.com,⁷⁵⁷⁶ though several critics judged it more reliably Abū Hurayra's own words than the Prophet's.⁷⁷ The Mālikīs (in their well-known position), the Shāfiʿīs and the Ḥanbalīs hold it a confirmed sunna (sunna muʾakkada), not an obligation.⁷⁸ Ibn Qudāma says this is the view of most scholars, though he lists Mālik with Abū Ḥanīfa among those who called it obligatory.⁷⁶ One of the majority's arguments is Umm Salama's report: it speaks of someone "intending to sacrifice", and a duty is not left to a person's intention.⁷¹⁷⁸

The same report is the basis for the rule on hair and nails, and the schools part ways again. For the Ḥanbalīs it is forbidden to cut either from the start of the month until the animal is sacrificed: Ibn Qudāma takes the prohibition at face value, as Aḥmad is reported to have done, while noting that some of his own school called it only disliked; if someone does cut, he says, they ask God's forgiveness and owe no expiation.⁷⁹ Al-Shāfiʿī and his school hold it disliked but not forbidden, and Ibn Qudāma gives the same view for Mālik, though al-Nawawī records two other reports from Mālik as well. Abū Ḥanīfa held that it is not disliked at all.⁷⁹⁸⁰ Those who stop short of prohibition point to ʿĀʾisha's report that the Prophet ﷺ sent off his sacrificial animals to Mecca and nothing God had made lawful for him became unlawful until they were slaughtered.⁸⁰

Shia Muslims keep two further days in the month. The 18th of Dhū al-Ḥijja is ʿĪd al-Ghadīr, commemorating the Prophet's ﷺ words at Ghadīr Khumm on the way home from the Farewell Pilgrimage, "for whomever I am his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā", which Shia read as the designation of ʿAlī as his successor and Sunnis read as a declaration of love and support.⁴¹ The 24th is, in the best-known dating, the day of the Mubāhala, the mutual invocation with the Christians of Najrān in 9 AH (other reports give the 21st or the 25th).⁶⁵ Both are recommended fasts in al-Sīstānī's list.¹¹ The site's page on how Sunni and Shia came to be covers Ghadīr in detail.

ʿĀshūrāʾ: one day, two memories

No day in the calendar shows more clearly how one date can carry two quite different meanings.

The Sunni fast

ʿĀshūrāʾ means "the tenth", and it falls on 10 Muḥarram. According to ʿĀʾisha, Quraysh fasted it before Islam and the Prophet ﷺ fasted it in Mecca; in Medina he fasted it and told others to; and when the fast of Ramadan was made obligatory, fasting ʿĀshūrāʾ became optional, in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.⁴² Ibn ʿAbbās adds that when the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Medina he found the Jews fasting that day for Moses, whom God had saved from Pharaoh, and said, "We have more claim over Moses than you," and fasted it and told the Muslims to fast it.⁴³⁴⁴ Ibn ʿAbbās also said he never saw the Prophet ﷺ seek out the virtue of any day's fast as he did ʿĀshūrāʾ, and of any month as he did Ramadan.⁴⁵

Two further details shape Sunni practice. Asked about the fast of ʿĀshūrāʾ, the Prophet ﷺ said it expiates the sins of the year before, in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.³⁴ And when his Companions pointed out that the Jews and Christians honoured the day, he said that the next year, God willing, they would fast on the ninth; he died before the next Muḥarram came.⁴⁶ Most Sunni Muslims therefore fast the ninth and tenth together.

Other customs have attached themselves to the day with far weaker support. Asked about wearing kohl, bathing, dyeing with henna and cooking special dishes on ʿĀshūrāʾ, Ibn Taymiyya answered that nothing of the kind is reported from the Prophet ﷺ or the Companions in any sound or even weak report in the main collections, and he called the saying that whoever is generous to his family on ʿĀshūrāʾ will be treated generously all year a fabrication.⁶⁹ Other ḥadīth scholars were kinder to that last report: al-ʿIrāqī judged one of its routes at least ḥasan and a long line of later scholars followed him, while others, among them Muḥammad Yūnus Jownpūrī, found every route defective.⁷⁰ Of the Sunni observances of the day, only the fast rests on the reports in al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

The Shia mourning

On 10 Muḥarram 61 AH, 10 October 680, the Prophet's ﷺ grandson al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī was killed with most of his small party by an Umayyad army at Karbala in Iraq. For Shia Muslims ʿĀshūrāʾ is above all the anniversary of that death, "a holy day of public mourning", in Britannica's phrase.⁴⁷ The first ten days of Muḥarram are kept with gatherings (majālis) at which elegies for the martyrs are recited, each day dedicated to particular figures of Karbala; many communities hold mourning processions with chest-beating, and the ninth (Tāsūʿāʾ) and the tenth are the climax.⁴⁸

Shia jurists do not recommend fasting on ʿĀshūrāʾ. Al-Sīstānī lists fasting on that day as disliked.³⁵ A response by Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Saeed al-Hakeem, published by the Shia organisation I.M.A.M. in the United States, sets out the reasons usually given: a saying of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq that the day is for mourning and sorrow and "not a day for fasting", and the argument that there is no sound Islamic proof for the fast.⁴⁹ Sunni scholars, who accept the reports above, keep the fast. Each community is reading its own trusted sources, and in a mixed family both the fast and the mourning are often kept under one roof.

Mondays, Thursdays and the white days

Alongside the annual cycle there is a smaller one. The Prophet ﷺ fasted on Mondays, explaining that it was the day of his birth and of the first revelation.¹⁵ Mondays and Thursdays are also named in a report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ as the days on which the gates of Paradise are opened.⁵⁰ Singling out Friday alone for a fast is discouraged, unless it falls within a fast one already keeps.⁵¹

Within each month, the Prophet ﷺ recommended fasting three days. Abū Hurayra said his "friend" had advised him to fast three days every month, in a report al-Bukhārī placed under the heading "fasting the 13th, 14th and 15th",⁵² and a report in al-Nasāʾī, graded ḥasan by Darussalam, has the Prophet ﷺ telling Abū Dharr: "if you want to fast at any time during the month, then fast on the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth."⁵³ These are the ayyām al-bīḍ, the "white days", named for the nights of the full moon. Al-Sīstānī's list of recommended fasts includes the 13th, 14th and 15th of every month, as well as the first and last Thursday and the first Wednesday after the tenth.¹¹

The calendars in use

All of this assumes you know what day of the month it is, and here the Muslim world has never had a single answer. The texts point to the eye. "When you see it, fast, and when you see it, stop fasting; and if it is hidden from you, then estimate for it," the Prophet ﷺ said of the new crescent, in Ibn ʿUmar's report in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.⁵⁴ A month begins on the evening a thin crescent is seen low in the west after sunset, and the Islamic day itself begins at sunset, so "the night of the 27th" is the night before the 27th's daylight. Three ways of turning that into a calendar are in use today, and a fourth idea, a single global calendar, has its advocates.⁵⁵

Local sighting

The oldest method is to go out on the evening of the 29th and look. If the crescent is seen, the new month starts the next day; if not, the month runs to thirty. The hard question has always been whose sighting counts. Kurayb, travelling back from Damascus, found that Ibn ʿAbbās in Medina had not accepted the Syrian sighting, and Muslim's chapter heading draws the rule that each land has its own sighting.⁵⁶ Twelver Shia jurists hold to sighting too. Al-Sīstānī accepts astronomical predictions only when they produce certainty, and treats a sighting in another city as valid where the two places share a horizon.⁵⁷⁵⁸

In Australia this is the largest single camp. When the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy surveyed 5,584 Australian Muslims in 2023, just over half named Moonsighting Australia, which waits for a naked-eye sighting within Australia, or online platforms as their main source for dates, and nearly 60 per cent preferred local sighting in principle.⁵⁹ The Ramadan page goes through the Australian bodies, their methods and the 2023 split in more detail.

The Umm al-Qurā calendar

Saudi Arabia's official calendar is calculated. Its current rule, in use since 1423 AH (2002), is that a month begins the day after the 29th if, on that evening at Mecca, the conjunction (the astronomical new moon) has already happened before sunset and the moon sets after the sun. Rob van Gent of Utrecht University, who has documented the calendar's rules, points out that on this criterion the crescent is actually invisible on roughly three-quarters of the first evenings.⁶⁰ So Umm al-Qurā is a civil calendar, used for government business, while the dates of Ramadan, the ʿĪds and the Hajj are still announced after a sighting committee has met, and can differ from it.⁶⁰⁶¹

Because it is published years in advance, Umm al-Qurā is the calendar you are most likely to see printed in a diary or shown by a phone. The table of 1448 below uses it.⁶²

The tabular calendar

The third calendar ignores the sky altogether. Medieval astronomers built an arithmetic calendar in which the months simply alternate between 30 and 29 days and Dhū al-Ḥijja gains a thirtieth day in eleven years out of every thirty.⁵ Over a thirty-year cycle that gives an average year of 354 11/30 days, very close to twelve real lunar months. The idea is old and so is the disagreement about details: Rob van Gent lists four different schemes for which years get the extra day, used by different astronomers and dynasties (the Fatimid and Ismāʿīlī calendar used one of its own), and two possible starting days, Thursday 15 July 622 (the "astronomical" epoch) and Friday 16 July (the "civil" one).¹⁴⁷

The tabular calendar is what most software means by "Hijri". The so-called Kuwaiti algorithm, used for Microsoft's Hijri date conversion, turns out on van Gent's analysis to be the second of those schemes with the astronomical epoch.¹⁴ It is convenient, it never needs an announcement, and it is regularly a day, sometimes two, away from what any real community does. That is why the converter below comes with a warning.

A single calendar for everyone?

The fourth idea is a calendar in which every month begins on the same day everywhere. In May 2016 Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs hosted an International Hijri Calendar Union Congress in Istanbul, with scholars from nearly fifty countries, and the congress voted for a single calendar so that, in the organisers' words, "Ramadan can start on the same day" around the world.⁶⁸ The Fiqh Council of North America argues on related grounds that a sighting anywhere should bind everyone.⁵⁵ Its critics point to Kurayb's report and the rule that each land has its own sighting,⁵⁶ and it has not settled the matter: Saudi Arabia still announces the ʿĪds after its own sighting committee meets,⁶¹ and the Australian bodies keep their own methods.

Date converter

The year 1448 at a glance

The Hijrī year 1448 began in June 2026. The dates below are from the Umm al-Qurā calendar.⁶² Each Islamic day begins at sunset on the evening before the Gregorian date shown, so the night of the 27th of Ramadan, for example, falls on the evening of Friday 5 March 2027. Australian communities will often be a day later than these dates, and the Ramadan page gives a separate forecast for Ramadan and ʿĪd al-Fiṭr 1448 in Australia, which on current calculations points to ʿĪd on Wednesday 10 March 2027 for the calculation-based Australian bodies, and possibly Thursday 11 March for groups that wait for a local sighting, rather than the Umm al-Qurā Tuesday 9 March. The actual dates are whatever your community announces.

1 Muḥarram 1449 falls on Sunday 6 June 2027, and ʿĀshūrāʾ 1449 on Tuesday 15 June 2027.⁶²

Look down the right-hand column and one pattern is obvious: the big days of the second half of 1448 all fall in the first half of the Gregorian year 2027, and next year they will all come about eleven days earlier. ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā, which fell in late May in 2026, will be in mid-May in 2027 and in April by 2029. Nothing in the Islamic calendar is tied to a season, and that was the point of 9:37.⁴

Glossary

AH

Anno Hegirae, "in the year of the Hijra": the Islamic count of years, starting from 1 Muḥarram of the year of the emigration to Medina (July 622).

ʿĀshūrāʾ

The tenth of Muḥarram. A voluntary fast for Sunni Muslims; for Shia Muslims, the anniversary of al-Ḥusayn's death at Karbala in 680.

Ayyām al-bīḍ

"The white days": the 13th, 14th and 15th of each lunar month, around the full moon, recommended for fasting.

Ḥilāl

The new crescent moon whose sighting begins a month.

Hijra

The Prophet's emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622, and the starting point of the Islamic era.

Ḥusayniyya

A Shia hall for gatherings of mourning and remembrance, especially in Muḥarram.

Laylat al-Qadr

Often translated "the Night of Decree" (Khattab: "the Night of Glory"), in the last ten nights of Ramadan, "better than a thousand months".

Majlis (pl. majālis)

A gathering; in Muḥarram, a gathering at which the story of Karbala is recited.

Mawlid

The Prophet's ﷺ birthday, and the celebrations held for it.

Nasīʾ

The pre-Islamic practice of postponing a sacred month, forbidden in Qur'an 9:37.

Al-ashhur al-ḥurum

The four sacred months: Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram and Rajab.

Tabular calendar

An arithmetic Islamic calendar with fixed month lengths and eleven leap years in thirty, used by most software.

Tashrīq

The three days after ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā (11th to 13th of Dhū al-Ḥijja), on which fasting is not allowed.

Umm al-Qurā

"Mother of Towns", a name for Mecca, and the name of Saudi Arabia's official calculated calendar.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. It reports what the Qur'an, the hadith and scholars of the different schools say about the calendar and its days, and how the calendars in use actually work. The dates of Ramadan, the ʿĪds and other occasions are set by your community's announcement, not by this page or its converter; for your own practice please ask a qualified scholar you trust.

Sources

These are the sources behind the numbered notes, in the order they are first cited. Qur'an references link to quran.com, and quotations follow Mustafa Khattab's translation there, with his added words shown in his half brackets ˹ ˺. Hadith references link to sunnah.com: reports in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ collections are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade shown on sunnah.com and who gave it. Calendar dates for 1448 were checked in September 2026.

1. Qur'an 10:5 (the sun and the moon, "so that you may know the number of years and calculation"): quran.com/10/5. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
2. Qur'an 2:189 (the new moons as markers of time): quran.com/2/189. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
3. Qur'an 9:36 (twelve months, four of them sacred): quran.com/9/36. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
4. Qur'an 9:37 (al-nasīʾ, the reallocation of the sacred months, "an increase in disbelief"): quran.com/9/37. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Islamic calendar" (354 or 355 days; months alternately 30 and 29 days except Dhū al-Ḥijja; eleven years in thirty with a 30-day Dhū al-Ḥijja; months retrogress through the seasons every 32.5 solar years): britannica.com/topic/Islamic-calendar
6. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4662: Abū Bakra: "Time has turned round"; twelve months, four sacred, "Rajab of Muḍar". sunnah.com/bukhari:4662. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
7. Reza Abdollahy, "Calendars ii. In the Islamic period", Encyclopaedia Iranica (the Hijrī calendar introduced by ʿUmar in 16, 17 or 18 AH, with evidence of earlier use; 1 Rabīʿ I of year 1 = 12 September 622; epoch 1 Muḥarram = 15 July 622; the thirty-year cycle; the solar Hijrī calendar made official by the Majles on 31 March 1925): iranicaonline.org
8. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2428: the man who wore himself out with fasting; "fast in the sacred months and leave off". sunnah.com/abudawud:2428. Graded ḍaʿīf (weak) by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
9. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1163a: Abū Hurayra: the best fast after Ramadan is in God's month, al-Muḥarram. sunnah.com/muslim:1163a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
10. Sunan Ibn Mājah 1743: Ibn ʿAbbās: the Prophet forbade fasting Rajab. sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1743. Graded ḍaʿīf (weak) by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
11. Office of Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, official English edition, ruling 1716, "Recommended (mustaḥabb) fasts" (the first and last Thursday and the first Wednesday after the 10th of each month; the 13th, 14th and 15th; the whole of Rajab and Shaʿbān; 1st to 9th Dhū al-Ḥijja; 18th and 24th Dhū al-Ḥijja; 17th Rabīʿ al-Awwal; 27th Rajab; and others): sistani.org/english/book/48/2299
12. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hijrah" (the era set by ʿUmar I from 1 Muḥarram, 16 July 622): britannica.com/topic/Hijrah-Islam
13. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3934: Sahl ibn Saʿd: the Companions counted the calendar from the Prophet's arrival in Medina, not from his call or his death. sunnah.com/bukhari:3934. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
14. R. H. van Gent, "Islamic-Western Calendar Converter: variants", Utrecht University (the astronomical epoch Thursday 15 July 622 and civil epoch Friday 16 July 622; four intercalation schemes; the "Kuwaiti algorithm" of Microsoft's Hijri conversion based on scheme II): webspace.science.uu.nl
15. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1162e: fasting on Monday: "the day on which I was born, and on which revelation came to me". sunnah.com/muslim:1162e. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
16. IslamQA, answer 147601, "What is the date of Prophet Muhammad's birth and death?" (views on 2, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 17 Rabīʿ al-Awwal; death on a Monday in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 11 AH): islamqa.info/en/answers/147601
17. WikiShia, "Demise of the Prophet (s)" (al-Mufīd in al-Irshād and al-Ṭūsī in Tahdhīb al-aḥkām: 28 Ṣafar; al-Kulaynī: 12 Rabīʿ al-Awwal): en.wikishia.net
18. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mawlid" ("not popularly celebrated until the 13th century, although the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt observed the festival by the end of the 11th century"): britannica.com/topic/mawlid
19. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Miʿrāj" (celebrated "with readings of the legend on the 27th day of Rajab, called Laylat al-Miʿrāj"): britannica.com/topic/Miraj-Islam
20. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1969: ʿĀʾisha: he fasted no complete month except Ramadan, and fasted most in Shaʿbān. sunnah.com/bukhari:1969. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
21. Sunan al-Nasāʾī 2357: Usāma ibn Zayd: Shaʿbān, "a month to which people do not pay much attention, between Rajab and Ramadan", in which deeds are taken up to the Lord of the worlds. sunnah.com/nasai:2357. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
22. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 739: ʿĀʾisha: the night of the middle of Shaʿbān; al-Tirmidhī reports al-Bukhārī's criticism of the chain. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:739. Graded ḍaʿīf (weak) by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
23. Sunan Ibn Mājah 1388: ʿAlī: "stand in prayer at night and fast the day" of mid-Shaʿbān; chain through Ibn Abī Sabra. sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1388. Graded mawḍūʿ (fabricated) by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
24. Qur'an 97:1–5 (Laylat al-Qadr): quran.com/97. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
25. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2017: "Seek Laylat al-Qadr in the odd nights of the last ten". sunnah.com/bukhari:2017. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
26. WikiShia, "Laylat al-Qadr" (the 19th, 21st and 23rd nights; the 23rd held most likely; the anniversary of Imam ʿAlī's martyrdom on the 21st; the common acts of the three nights): en.wikishia.net
27. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1134: Anas: two pre-Islamic festival days replaced by the two ʿĪds. sunnah.com/abudawud:1134. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (as shown on sunnah.com).
28. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1991–1992: the prohibition of fasting the two ʿĪds. sunnah.com/bukhari:1991. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
29. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1164a: Abū Ayyūb: six days of Shawwāl. sunnah.com/muslim:1164a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
30. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 969: Ibn ʿAbbās: no good deeds on other days are better than those done on these days (the first ten of Dhū al-Ḥijja). sunnah.com/bukhari:969. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
31. Qur'an 89:1–3 ("By the dawn, and the ten nights"): quran.com/89/1-3. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
32. Qur'an 5:3 ("Today I have perfected your faith for you"): quran.com/5/3. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
33. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 45: ʿUmar: Qur'an 5:3 was revealed on a Friday while the Prophet stood at ʿArafa. sunnah.com/bukhari:45. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
34. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1162b: Abū Qatāda: fasting ʿArafa expiates the sins of the preceding and the coming year; fasting ʿĀshūrāʾ those of the preceding year. sunnah.com/muslim:1162b. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
35. Office of Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, official English edition, rulings 1707–1715, "Unlawful and disapproved fasts" (ruling 1715: fasting is disapproved on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ and on a day one doubts is ʿArafa or ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā): sistani.org/english/book/48/2298
36. Qur'an 37:107 ("And We ransomed his son with a great sacrifice"): quran.com/37/107. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
37. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Eid al-Adha" (commemorates "the ransom with a ram of the biblical patriarch Abraham's son Ishmael"): britannica.com/topic/Eid-al-Adha
38. Qur'an 22:28 (the Name of Allah on appointed days over the sacrificial animals): quran.com/22/28. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
39. Qur'an 2:203 (remembering Allah during the appointed days): quran.com/2/203. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
40. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1141a: Nubaysha al-Hudhalī: "The days of tashrīq are the days of eating and drinking". sunnah.com/muslim:1141a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
41. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3713: "For whomever I am his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2002: ʿĀʾisha: Quraysh fasted ʿĀshūrāʾ before Islam; it became optional once Ramadan was prescribed. sunnah.com/bukhari:2002. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
43. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2004: Ibn ʿAbbās: the Jews of Medina fasting for Moses; "We have more claim over Moses than you". sunnah.com/bukhari:2004. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
44. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1130a: Ibn ʿAbbās: the day God gave Moses and the Israelites victory over Pharaoh. sunnah.com/muslim:1130a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
45. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2006: Ibn ʿAbbās: he never saw the Prophet seek out the virtue of a day's fast as he did ʿĀshūrāʾ, or of a month as Ramadan. sunnah.com/bukhari:2006. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
46. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1134a: Ibn ʿAbbās: "next year we will fast on the ninth"; he died before it came. sunnah.com/muslim:1134a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
47. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Battle of Karbala" (10 October 680, 10 Muḥarram 61; "commemorated annually in a holy day of public mourning by Shiʿi Muslims"): britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Karbala
48. WikiShia, "Mourning of Muharram" (elegies recited daily, each day dedicated to particular martyrs; mourning processions; chest-beating; Tāsūʿāʾ and ʿĀshūrāʾ): en.wikishia.net
49. I.M.A.M. (Imam Mahdi Association of Marjaeya), "Fasting on the Day of Ashura", 28 September 2017 (a response by Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Saeed al-Hakeem, quoting Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq that "such a day is not a day for fasting"): imam-us.org
50. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2565a: the gates of Paradise are opened on Mondays and Thursdays. sunnah.com/muslim:2565a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
51. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1144b: do not single out Friday for fasting unless it falls within a fast one keeps. sunnah.com/muslim:1144b. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
52. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1981: Abū Hurayra: advised to fast three days a month; chapter "To fast the 13th, 14th and 15th of the lunar months". sunnah.com/bukhari:1981. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
53. Sunan al-Nasāʾī 2424: to Abū Dharr: fast the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth. sunnah.com/nasai:2424. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
54. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1906: Ibn ʿUmar: "if it is hidden from you, estimate for it" (fa-qdurū lahu). sunnah.com/bukhari:1906. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
55. Fiqh Council of North America, "Four Imams and Global Moon Sighting", 3 December 2021: fiqhcouncil.org
56. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1087: Kurayb, Muʿāwiya's sighting in Syria and Ibn ʿAbbās in Medina; chapter: "each land has its own sighting". sunnah.com/muslim:1087. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
57. Al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, older English edition, "Fasting (Part II of II)", issues 1667–1675 (kaffāra), 1712–1718 (delayed make-up), 1723–1732 (the traveller), 1739–1744 (establishing the first of the month; astronomical predictions only where they yield certainty; shared horizons), Al-Islam.org: al-islam.org
58. Office of al-Sīstānī, Question and Answer, "Moon Sighting": sistani.org/english/qa/01266
59. Ikramullah Ahmed, Mehmet Ozalp and Suleyman Sertkaya, The Practice of Australian Muslims on Moonsighting (Islamic Sciences and Research Academy, June 2023), survey of 5,584 respondents: isra.org.au
60. R. H. van Gent, "The Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia: astronomical rules", Utrecht University: webspace.science.uu.nl
61. "Saudi Arabia announces first day of Eid Al Fitr 2026", Gulf News, 18 March 2026: gulfnews.com
62. Umm al-Qurā dates for 1448 and 1449 AH as tabulated in the hijridate library, which reproduces the official Umm al-Qurā tables, cross-checked against the Unicode ICU "islamic-umalqura" calendar: pypi.org/project/hijridate.
63. WikiShia, "Arbaʿīn of Imam al-Ḥusayn (a)" (the 20th of Ṣafar, the fortieth day after Karbala; the procession to Karbala on the day): en.wikishia.net
64. WikiShia, "Mid-Shaʿbān" (the birth of Imam al-Mahdī on 15 Shaʿbān 255/869 or 256/870, citing al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī 1:514, and al-Mufīd, al-Irshād, p. 339): en.wikishia.net
65. WikiShia, "Event of Mubāhala" (24 Dhū al-Ḥijja 9 AH, with reports of the 21st and 25th; al-Shaykh al-Anṣārī: the 24th is the better-known report): en.wikishia.net
66. Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya, fatwa 4824, "Celebrating the various religious occasions", 21 July 2013 ("a matter to be desired unless it involves anything prohibited"): dar-alifta.org
67. IslamQA, answer 60288, "Can Muslims celebrate al-Isrāʾ and al-Miʿrāj?" (quoting Ibn Bāz: nothing in the authentic hadith fixes the date; celebrating it is an innovation): islamqa.info
68. "Islamic scholars agree on a shared lunar calendar for Muslim world", Daily Sabah, 31 May 2016 (the International Hijri Calendar Union Congress in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs, scholars from nearly 50 countries): dailysabah.com
69. Islam Question & Answer, answer 4033, "Is It Permissible to Celebrate Ashura?", 11 November 2013, quoting Ibn Taymiyya's fatwa (no sound or weak report for kohl, bathing, henna or special food on ʿĀshūrāʾ; the report on generosity to the family called fabricated): islamqa.info
70. Jamiatul Ulama KZN, "Spending on the Family on Ashura 10 Muharram: Academic Research" (four views on the report: ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan with al-ʿIrāqī and those who followed him, weak or defective with Muḥammad Yūnus Jownpūrī, and fabricated): jamiat.org.za
71. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1977c: Umm Salama: one intending to sacrifice should not cut his hair or nails once Dhū al-Ḥijja begins; Sufyān on whether it is the Prophet's words. sunnah.com/muslim:1977c. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
72. Qur'an 108:2 ("So pray and sacrifice to your Lord ˹alone˺"): quran.com/108/2. Translation quoted: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com.
73. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5545: al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib: first the ʿĪd prayer, then the sacrifice, "according to our Sunna"; slaughter before the prayer is only meat for the family. sunnah.com/bukhari:5545. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
74. Badr al-Dīn al-ʿAynī, al-Bināya sharḥ al-Hidāya, vol. 12, p. 4, Kitāb al-uḍḥiya: al-Marghīnānī's text "the sacrifice is wājib on every free, resident Muslim of means on the Day of Sacrifice, for himself and his young children", with al-ʿAynī on who held it wājib and the report from Abū Yūsuf that it is a sunna: shamela.ws/book/427/5946 (Arabic).
75. Sunan Ibn Mājah 3123: Abū Hurayra, "Whoever can afford it, but does not offer a sacrifice, let him not come near our prayer place". sunnah.com/ibnmajah:3123. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
76. Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, ed. al-Turkī, vol. 13, p. 360, masʾala 1748: "most scholars hold the sacrifice a confirmed sunna, not obligatory"; those who called it obligatory, and the report of Abū Hurayra cited for them: shamela.ws/book/6910/7048 (Arabic).
77. Islamweb fatwa 144265, "Aqwāl al-ʿulamāʾ fī ḥukm al-uḍḥiya", 7 December 2010: al-Nawawī's statement of the Shāfiʿī position, and the gradings of "man wajada saʿa wa-lam yuḍaḥḥi", including the view that the version stopping at Abū Hurayra is the sounder: islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/144265 (Arabic).
78. al-Mawsūʿa al-fiqhiyya (Dorar al-Saniyya fiqh encyclopaedia), "Ḥukm al-uḍḥiya", a confirmed sunna for the majority, citing Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Kāfī, and al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhib al-Jalīl (Mālikī), al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ (Shāfiʿī), and Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, and al-Buhūtī, Kashshāf al-qināʿ (Ḥanbalī), with the argument from Umm Salama's report: dorar.net/feqhia/3074 (Arabic; school positions cited there to the standard manuals).
79. Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, ed. al-Turkī, vol. 13, pp. 362–363, masʾala 1749: cutting hair or nails by one intending to sacrifice, forbidden on the plain sense of the text (reported from Aḥmad), disliked for al-Qāḍī and others of the school and for Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī, not disliked for Abū Ḥanīfa; no expiation by consensus: shamela.ws/book/6910/7050 and /7051 (Arabic).
80. al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, vol. 13, pp. 119–120, on Muslim 1977: forbidden for Aḥmad, Isḥāq and others, disliked (karāhat tanzīh) for al-Shāfiʿī and his school, not disliked for Abū Ḥanīfa, three reports from Mālik; ʿĀʾisha's report as the counter-evidence: islamweb.net/ar/library/content/53/5951 (Arabic).
81. Islam Question & Answer, answer 227931, "Ḥukm al-qitāl fī al-ashhur al-ḥurum" (the ruling on fighting in the sacred months), 18 May 2015 (the majority: the prohibition of starting to fight in them is abrogated; others: not abrogated; citing Ibn Kathīr, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Ālūsī and al-Saʿdī): islamqa.info/ar/answers/227931 (Arabic)