The fast of 'Ashura was
prescribed before the fasts of Ramadhan. The Jews observed it
and so did the people of Arabia before the dawn of Islam.
It is related by Imam Bukhari
on the authority of Ibn-i-Abbas that "when the Prophet came to
Medina he found that the Jews observed the fast of 'Ashura. He
enquired about it from them and was told that it was the day
on which God had delivered the Children of Israel from the
enemy and Moses used to keep a fast on it as an expression of
gratitude to the Almighty. The Prophet, thereupon, remarked
that 'Moses has a greater claim upon me than upon you,' and he
fasted on that day and instructed his followers to do the
same.
It is also mentioned in Muslim
that it is a most important day. On this day God had delivered
Moses and his followers and drowned Pharaoh and his men. Moses
fasted on it in thanksgiving. Imam Bukhari adds that it is
related by Abu Bishr that “we also keep fast as a token of
respect to Moses."
But the celebrated
mathematician, Abu Rehan Beruni, has challenged the veracity
of these reports on the basis of a comparative study of the
Jewish and Arabian Calendars. He writes: "It is said that 'Ashur
is a Hebrew word which has become 'Ashura in Arabic. It stands
for the tenth day of the Jewish month of Tisri. The fast
observed on this day is called Yom Kippur. It came to be
incorporated in the Arab Calendar and the name was given to
the tenth day of the first month of their year in the same way
in which it denoted the tenth day of the first month of the
Jewish Calendar. It was instituted as a fast-day among the
Muslims in the first year of Migration. Later, when fasting
was enjoined in the month of Ramadhan it was dropped. A
Tradition has it that when the Prophet came to Medina and saw
that the Jews observed the fast of 'Ashura he enquired about
it and was told that it was the day on which God had drowned
Pharaoh and his people and delivered Moses and his followers
from them, and Moses used to fast on it in thanksgiving. The
Prophet, then, remarked that Moses had a greater claim upon
him than upon them and he fasted on that day and instructed
his followers to do the same. When the fasts of Ramadhan were
prescribed, the Prophet neither enjoined the fast of 'Ashura
nor forbade it. But this report is fallacious and does not
stand the test of enquiry. The first day of the month of
Muharram in the first year of Hijrat (Migration) was Friday
which corresponds to the 16th of Tamuz, 933 (A.E.). As against
it, the first day of that year among the Jews was Sunday, the
12th of Awwal which corresponds to the 29th of Safar. Hence,
the fast of 1 Ashura should have fallen on Tuesday, the 9th of
Rabi-ul-Awwal, while the Migration had taken place during the
first half of that month. The two dates, at any rate, do not
correspond to each-other."
He adds: "The contention that
on this day God had drowned the Pharaoh, too, is not supported
by what is given in the Torah. The event of the drowning of
the Pharaoh had taken place, according to Torah, on the 21st
of Nisan which is the seventh day of the festival of
Pass-over. The first Jewish fast of Pass-over, after the
arrival of the Prophet in Medina, occurred on Tuesday, the
22nd of Azhar 933 which corresponds to the 17th of Ramadhan.
This report also is, therefore, without a foundation."
With due respect to the
scholarship of Beruni, it is clear that he has built his
thesis wholly on conjecture. He has, for instance, surmised
that the talk reported by Ibn-i-Abbas and other Companions had
taken place on the very first day of the Prophet's arrival in
Medina as is evident from his observation that "when the
sacred Prophet came to Medina or entered it."
This misconception is due to
the ignorance of the science of Traditions and of the holy
Companion's mode of narration, innumerable instances of which
are available in the Traditions. For example, it is related by
Anas bin Malik that:
"When the Prophet came to
Medina and (saw that) there were two days which the people of
that place celebrated as festivals he enquired about their
significance. (The people of Medina) told that, 'These were
our days of fun and entertainment during the days of
Paganism.' The Prophet, thereupon, observed, 'God has given
you two better days in their place, 'Id-ul-Fitr and 'Id-ul-Adha'."
Now, will it be proper for
anyone to infer from the above Tradition that the arrival of
the Prophet in Medina took place on the same day which was the
day of celebration in that town, and to proceed to question
the veracity of the Tradition on the ground that it could not
be chronometrically possible? Similar errors of interpretation
have been made in respect of other Traditions as well, like
the one relating to pollination in date-palms.
Commenting on the argument
advanced by Beruni, Allama Ibn-i-Hajr Asqallani says, "He
found it difficult to accept the Tradition due to the
misunderstanding that when the Prophet arrived in Medina he
saw the Jews in the state of keeping the fast of 'Ashura
while, in fact, it was in the month of Rabi-ul-Awwal that the
Prophet had come to Medina. The answer to it is that he has
erred in the interpretation of the Tradition. What the
Tradition actually means is that the Prophet came to know of
the fast of 'Ashura only when he had migrated to Medina and
made his enquiry, for the first time, after he had reached
there. In other words, the Prophet, when he came to Medina and
stayed there till 'Ashura, found that the Jews fasted on that
day."
There is left no chronological
contradiction after Allama Asqallani's explanation, in the
Tradition regarding the fast of 'Ashura.
The second misconception under
which Beruni labours is that the fast of 'Ashura mentioned in
the Tradition signifies the tenth day of the Jewish month of
Tisri which is also known as Yom Kippur or the Fast of
Atonement and is observed by them with greater ceremony than
any other fast. But there is nothing in the Tradition to
warrant such a conclusion, and it is also not supported by the
Torah because the Fast of Atonement was instituted in
expiation of a mortal sin and observed as a day of penance and
mourning.
The Day of Atonement, which is
the tenth day of the seventh month of Tisri, is referred to in
these words in the Third Book of Moses called, Leviticus:
"And this will be a statute for
ever unto you; that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of
the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all,
whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger who
sojourneth among you: for on that day shall the priest make an
atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from
all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest
unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for
ever” (Lev. 16:29-31)
At another place, in the same
Book, it is said that:
"And the Lord spoke unto Moses,
saying, also on the tenth day of this seventh month there
shall be a day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation
unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an
offering made by fire unto the lord. And ye shall do no work
in that same day; for it is a day of atonement to make an
atonement for you before the Lord your God." (Lev. 23:26-28)
Similarly, in the Book of
Numbers, it is set forth "And ye shall have on the tenth day
of this seventh month a holy convocation; and ye shall afflict
your souls; ye shall not do any work therein."
On the other hand, it
explicitly occurs in the Traditions that the day of 'Ashura
(on which the Muslims are enjoined to fast) was a day of
rejoicing among the Jews. As Imam Bukhari has related it on
the authority of Abu Musa Ashari, the Jews regarded it to be a
day of Eid and it was on seeing it that the holy Prophet
advised his Companions also to keep fast on it.
In Saheeh Muslim, also, it is
related from Qais bin Muslim that men of good-doing observed
the fast of Ashura and celebrated it as the day of Eid, with
their women wearing the best of clothes and ornaments. The
Prophet, on seeing it, said to us, "You should also fast on
this day."
It is, further, related by
Koraib bin S'ad from Omar bin el-Khattab that, "on the Day of
Judgement God will ask you only about two fasts, the fasts of
Ramadhan and the fast of the day of adornment (i.e., 'Ashura).
In the light of the facts given
above, it will be incorrect to say that 'Ashura is the Day of
Atonement. Were it so, it would have been a day of lamentation
and mortification while 'Ashura, as mentioned in the
Tradition, is a day of merriment and decoration.
The same fallacy is shared by a
number of Western scholars as well. As for instance, Abraham
Katish observes about the Day of Attonement in his book
entitled, 'Judaism in Islam,' that "Mohammad, in the
beginning, instituted it as a day of fasting for Muslims."
The assertion of the Jews
themselves about 'Ashura that it was the day on which God had
delivered the Israelites from their enemies is enough to set
at rest all doubts in this connection. In the Torah it has
been repeatedly mentioned as Abib which later came to be known
as Nisan. About Abib, we read in Dairatul M'aarif that "it is
a Hebraic word which means 'green'. It is the name of the
first month of the Hebraic year. This name was given to it by
Moses and it corresponds nearly to the month of April. When
the Jews were exiled in Babylon they changed its name to
Nisan, meaning 'the month of flowers.' Their 'Id-ul-Fateer
(Pass-over) is also held in the middle of it."
Beruni, also, has admitted that
it is wrong to suppose that the Day of Atonement signified the
day on which God had drowned Pharaoh and his men. He says,
"Their contention that on this day God had drowned Pharaoh is
opposed to what is stated in the Torah because the event of
drowning took place on the 21st of Nisan which is the seventh
day of Ayam-ul-Fateer (Pass-over). It is set forth in Torah
(Ex. 12: 18) that 'In the first month, on the fourteenth day
of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the
one and twentieth day of the month at even'."
We, therefore, conclude that 'Ashura,
which is mentioned in the Traditions related by Ibn-i-Abbas
and others and on which day the Muslims have been exhorted to
fast and was included among the near-obligatory duties in
Islam before the fasts of Ramadhan were prescribed,
corresponds, in the largest measure, to the day which falls in
the middle of the Hebraic month of Abib, whose name was
changed to Nisan by the Jews during the period of their exile
in Babylon and was celebrated by them as an 'Id and an event
of fasting and entertainment. It was on this day that the
Israelites had come out of Egypt and the Pharaoh was drowned.
In the second Book of Moses it is related that: "And Moses
said unto the people, Remember this day in which ye came out
from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of
hand the Lord brought you out from this place; there shall no
leavened bread be eaten. This day came ye out in the month of
Abib." (Ex. 13: 3-4)
In sum, the general consensus
among Muslim theologians and religious scholars is that 'Ashura
fell on the tenth day of the Arab month of Muharram in the
second year of Migration and that it was later annulled by
Ramadhan.
Besides, any attempt to make
the Lunar Arabian Calendar correspond to the Solar Jewish
Calendar can, at the best, be only hypothetical. The ancient
custom of Nasi has also taken a hand in adding to the
confusion. This practice was quite common in Arabia, both
before and after the advent of Islam, till it was prohibited
by the Quranic injunction which reads : Postponement of a
month is only an excess of disbelief, whereby those who
disbelieve are misled. (ix: 37)
On the occasion of the Farewell
Haj, the holy Prophet had declared, "Time has returned to the
original state that obtained when the heavens and the earth
were created". These words were of Divine Inspiration for the
Arab arrangement of time into days, weeks, months and years
had been changed so frequently that it could not be relied
upon nor restored to its original form through mathematical
calculation. It is, therefore, incorrect to question the
authenticity of successive Traditions merely on the basis of
an erratic and inconstant Calendar.
It is also possible that the
Jews of Medina were different from the other Jewish
communities where the fast of 'Ashura was concerned and
observed it with greater enthusiasm and regularity, and, in
this respect, they were similar to the Arabs who, seeing that
so many important events had taken place on that day, fasted
on it out of reverence.
It is related by Hazt-at Ayesha
that, "the Quraish fasted on the day of 'Ashura during the
period of Ignorance and the sacred Prophet also kept it."
(Muslim) Further, the fast-days among the Jews living in
different countries differed from one another. We have seen
how in the Jewish Encyclopaedia it is indicated that apart
from the fixed fast-days many fasts of a local or national
character had become established among the Jews from the early
days which varied from place to place. Private fasts were also
common among the Jews and one could take it upon oneself to
fast on certain days in memory of certain events or at the
time of adversity to arouse God's mercy. In these
circumstances, it is quite possible that the fast of 'Ashura,
on the tenth day of the first month of the Arab Calendar, was
peculiar to the Jews living in Arabia alone. Perhaps, it is
for this reason that the Talmud and the Jewish Calendar are
silent on this score. Some historians have treated it as
identical to the Fast of Atonement which all the Jews,
wherever they be, consider obligatory. Thus, those who
subscribe to this view are inclined to doubt the veracity of
the afore-mentioned Traditions. But their judgement is
influenced by the ignorance of the habits and practices of the
Jews living in various parts of the world, specially in Arabia
where they had been settled for generations as a distinct
community, possessing their own beliefs and customs and
receiving local impressions in the historical course of
things.
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