Fasting on Ashura
And is imitating others haram?
TLDR;
Fasting on the 10th of Muharram is recommended, and if possible, also on the 9th or 11th to differentiate from the People of the Book. The Prophet ﷺ emphasised religious practices should not imitate those of other faiths in a way that signifies belonging to them.
Cultural practices that do not symbolise religious beliefs are permissible. The Prophet ﷺ adopted beneficial practices from other cultures without religious connotations, such as using a seal for letters.
Imitating good people or practices from Islamic tradition is encouraged out of love for the Prophet ﷺ.
Join us in fasting on Monday and Tuesday, or Tuesday and Wednesday, or at least on Tuesday.
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back to Be Quranic. Today is Sunday the 8th of Muharram 1446 alhamdulillah. We're now in an Islamic New Year 1446 Hijra 1446 years from the migration of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ from Makkah to Medina.
The month of Muharram is a significant month in Islam because Rasulullah ﷺ and when hadith he mentioned about the virtues of the month of Muharram it is known as Shahrullah al -Muharram, the month of Allah, the month of Muharram and he said that there is no month where fasting is more rewarded apart from Ramadan than the month of Muharram.
So one of the best good deeds that we can do in this blessed month of Muharram is doing sunnah fasting. The best days for us to do fasting is on the 10th of Muharram which is going to be on Tuesday and the 10th of Muharram is significant because it is the day that Allah saved Prophet Musa from the tyranny of Firaoun and we make dua, we ask Allah just as he saved Musa from Firaoun he would save the Palestinians from the tyranny and the genocide by Israel.
So fasting on the 10th of Muharram is a practice according to some historians that started before Islam even the Quraysh in Makkah would fast on the 10th of Muharram. It was not known why they fasted on the 10th but it was just a practice.
So the Prophet ﷺ he would adopt the good practices of the culture that he was living in and this fasting was one good practice. So he fasted on the 10th of Muharram and he made the companions fast on the 10th of Muharram and later on the fasting of Ramadan was legislated so fasting in the month of Muharram was no longer practiced until the final year of Rasulullah wa alayhi wa sallam's life the 10th year of Hijra and on the 10th year of Hijra the Islamic calendar aligned with the Jewish calendar the first day of the first year of the Jewish calendar was also the first day of the first year of the Muslim calendar so Rasulullah wa alayhi wa sallam found that the Jews were fasting on the 10th of Muharram which was the 10th of their first month and he asked them why are you fasting and they mentioned that we're fasting because Allah saved Musa on this day and the Prophet ﷺ said we have more rights over Musa than you that means we are closer to Musa than you so he then fasted and he commanded the companions to fast as well and he said that if I want to be alive next year I'm going to fast on the 9th and the 10th,
to make sure that our practice, our religious practice, differs from the Alul Kitab, from the people of the book. But unfortunately, the Prophet ﷺ did not live to see the next 10th of Muharram. So the sudna is to fast on the 10th, and then if you can fast on the 9th.
If you can't fast on the 9th and 10th, then fast on the 10th, and 11 Khilaf Alul Kitab to make different, to make our practice different from the people of the book. But if you can't fast two days, then at least fast on the 10th of Muharram.
Herein lies a very important point when it comes to Islamic practices, and similarities to other religion. Do we need to be different in every single matter? Because of ﷺ, those who imitate a group of people, then they are like them.
Does that mean that we cannot look like the people of the book in every single matter? Does that mean that because the people of the book, the Jews and the Christians today, they eat with, let's say, for instance, the Western society, they eat with fork and spoon.
Does that mean that eating with fork and knife, spoon, cutleries, is haram, is prohibited? Because we know that the Prophet ate with his fingers, rather than using cutleries. So does that mean eating with cutleries falls under imitating the people of the book?
Does that mean also that anything that comes from the Western civilization, that doesn't belong to what we call today the Islamic culture, Islamic civilization, as automatically being haram? No, that's not the case.
Why so? Because we see that the Prophet ﷺ would defer only to matters when it comes to religious practices. So if you see that there certain religious practices of other religion and when you adopt it, it would make people think that you are part of them.
This forms the shi 'ar or the symbol of that religion, then it becomes haram for you to adopt. For example, the letter T, lowercase t. The lowercase t, it looks like a cross. So if you were to make a lowercase t, jewelry and wear it as a necklace, then it becomes haram because it imitates the shi 'ar, the symbol of another religion.
If you were to wear, for instance, a haram. A haram is part of the hajj garment for the men. You've got that wide two pieces of cloth that you wear on your body. If you were to dye it orange, looking and imitating a Buddhist monk, then that is haram, but otherwise if there are things that are not directly related to religion, it is not haram.
How do we know this? The Prophet ﷺ, who wanted to send letters to leaders around the world, the companions told him that those leaders will not accept letters unless they are sealed with the seal of whoever the descendant is.
So the Prophet ﷺ instructed that a ring be fashioned with a seal, that he wore that seal to seal those letters. So he was adopting the culture of a different civilization of non -believers, non -Muslims.
Just because you were to use a seal in your letter, people wouldn't think that you belong to a certain group or a certain religion. It is not imitating the symbol of a particular group. So it's the same with everything else in our daily lives.
If we were to imitate a certain hairstyle that would make us belong to a certain religious group, then if other than Islam, religious group other than Islam, then it is haram. But if it's not, then there is nothing wrong.
You would like to imitate, for instance, the haircut of a certain character, figure that has no religious bearing. You just like his story, just like him as a person, then there's nothing wrong with that.
And also this hadith is neutral. You follow a group, you imitate a group, you're from them. That means imitating good people also makes you being part of them. Dressing like the good people, the scholars, the awliya, the salihin makes you like them.
And this is why we see the companions, although following certain types of sunnah in terms of religious requirement, not everything that the Prophet did is we are required to follow. But the companions would follow the way the Prophet dressed, the way the Prophet said, the way the Prophet slept and so on.
Why? Because they love the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So they're doing it out of love for the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to imitate the Prophet so that they will be in the group with the Prophet.
So that's just a little bit sharing, nothing to do with Surat al -Baqarah yet. But the story of Prophet Musa and Firaoun and Banu al -Sra 'il is something that we're going to read very, very soon. The ayah 40 and onwards we'll start talking about the Israelites.
Alright, so hope to see you fasting on Monday and Tuesday or Tuesday and Wednesday or if you can then at least on Tuesday. Asalaamu Alaikum