Muharram 2025: When are schools, colleges and offices shut - July 6 or 7?
Muharram is followed by the lunar months of Safar, Rabi-al-Thani, Jumada al-Awwal, Jumada ath-Thaniyah, Rajab, Shaban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Zu al-Qadah (or Dhul Qadah) and Zu al-Hijjah (or Zil Hijjah/Dhul Hijjah).
On 10 June 2025, Muharram began for the Muslims globally, and as per details, the 10th day of Muharram is observed as Ashura. This year, the Ashura falls on Sunday, 6 July.
According to the Masjid-e-Nakhoda Markazi Rooyat-e-Hilal Committee, as quoted by the Hindustan Times, the crescent Moon was sighted in India on 26 June. So, the first day of Muharram-Ul-Haram began on 27 June and with Ashura falling on Sunday, all public and private sector banks and offices will remain closed on this day.
Though this is not confirmed as of yet, states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, and West Bengal may announce an official holiday if Muharram is observed on 7 July. This would be done depending on religious and administrative coordination.
Parents and students are advised to take updates from the schools, as the decision would be taken by them only after the moon is sighted.
Also called Al Hijri or the Arabic New Year, the Islamic New Year starts on the first day of Muharram. The 10th day — Ashura — is observed with mourning by many Muslims in memory of the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussain Ibn Ali, in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE. The battle battle holds immense religious and political significance in Islamic history.
For both Sunni and Shia Muslims, Muharram has historical importance. The battle took place during the caliphate of Yazid I. Imam Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, refused to pledge allegiance due to Yazid's unjust rule. En route to Kufa, Hussein and his small group were intercepted at Karbala. On Ashura, vastly outnumbered, they were denied water and brutally killed, with Imam Hussein martyred for standing up for justice and Islamic values.
With Muharram being the first month of the Islamic year, it is considered a sacred time of prayer and reflection. During this time, warfare is forbidden. The month also marks mourning for Imam Hussein's martyrdom, symbolising justice, sacrifice, and resistance against oppression—core values upheld by Muslims during this spiritually significant period.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Gazette
an hour ago
- India Gazette
Muharram procession: Detailed arrangements have been made for traffic, says police
New Delhi [India], July 5 (ANI): Ahead of the upcoming Muharram procession, the Delhi Police has made detailed traffic arrangements across the national capital to ensure smooth vehicular movement and public safety, a senior officer said. Muharram will be observed in the capital on June 6, he said. Speaking to ANI, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Dinesh Kumar Gupta said, ' As Muharram is on June 6 in Delhi, we have set up detailed arrangements for traffic. It will be our job to provide diversions to the traffic, and the public should feel minimal inconvenience. When the procession is underway, we will provide some diversion for it. Detailed arrangements have been issued, and we will remain in the fields to closely monitor the Muharram procession...' Regarding the Kanwar Yatra, a major annual religious event that draws lakhs of devotees, Gupta said preparations are well underway. 'We have made preparations for this from 12 July to 22 July. We have identified all the routes of the Kanwar Yatra and have tried to barricade the route so the Kanwar yatris do not come on the main route,' he said. He further added, 'On the last two days of the Kanwar Yatra, our traffic police will be deployed on the field and will do the needed diversion.' Muharram holds significant religious importance for Shia Muslims. In India, the 7-8 crore Shia Muslim community, along with people of different religions, participate in large processions and tazias. While in the Kanwar Yatra procession, Kanwariyas collect water from a river and carry it hundreds of kilometres to offer it to the shrines of Lord Shiva. According to Hindu beliefs, Parshuram, a devotee of Shiva and Lord Vishnu's avatar participated in the initial procession. Devotees across the country perform worship, fasting and pilgrimage dedicated to the Lord Shiva. (ANI)
Scroll.in
2 hours ago
- Scroll.in
‘The Hyderabadis': Displacement, broken geographies, and evolving identities in the city's history
In his literary debut, The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present Day, writer and researcher Daneesh Majid curates stories of ten distinctive lives shaped by the cruelties of police action in 1948. Some of his older subjects were witnesses as well as targets of violence and displacement across what is now Maharashtra's Marathwada region and northeast Karnataka. The Nizam state's Telugu-speaking districts had not been spared of the bloodshed before and after Hyderabad's accession to a newly independent India. He chronicles their trajectories with dignity while constructing meaningful identities that evolved as a result of upheavals from Police Action to the present day. The lives are not just casual selections. Rather, they are aggressive assertions about the authentic Hyderabad experience, deliberately challenging stereotypical hedonistic depictions of Deccani Muslims. The book also traces varied migratory patterns. Some subjects travelled to the Gulf for economic opportunity, others resettled in Karachi or Canada, while many sought refuge within Hyderabad city itself, arriving from places like Latur and Gulbarga. Filling the gap When it comes to showcasing these varied histories in an accessible manner, it is often the prodigal and adopted children of Hyderabad who tend to step up. In the vein of Majid's returns from the Middle East and North America, many of us who return to Hyderabad after time away find that distance can paradoxically deepen our attachment, those who migrated from Hyderabad often become its most fervent custodians, perhaps more Hyderabadi in their exile than those who never left, driven by an emigrant's compensatory performance to both explore and preserve what physical separation threatens to dissolve. The book's exploration of displacement resembles partition literature's central themes: broken geographies, reconstructed belonging, and constantly evolving notions of identity. However, while extensive scholarship has focused on Punjab, Bengal, North India, and Sindh, Hyderabad's particular trauma has been largely unexplored until recently. University of Pennsylvania professor Afsar Mohammad's Remaking History examined how Hyderabadi writers processed the 1948 state violence through literary responses. His focus was 'Muslimness' during the 1947–50 era, before and after the Police Action. Where Mohammad's academic approach emphasised memory-keeping through Urdu and Telugu literature, Majid tackles a more compelling question: how did ordinary people actually rebuild their lives after such profound disruption? Through this, Majid doesn't attempt a common minimum definition of what constitutes a Hyderabadi. Instead, his selections implicitly argue: negotiate this difficult version of Hyderabadi identity first, and the rest will follow. Remarkably, it is not the Charminar on the book's cover but the modest literary institution Idara-e-Adabiyat-e-Urdu near the Irrum Manzil station that perfectly illustrates the author's underlying emotional current. During countless commutes, I caught fleeting glimpses of this building, but never investigated its significance. Through Mejid's reverent telling and imagery, we learn of Idara founder Professor Zor's dream to transform this library-cum-learning centre into a premier Urdu university. Zor's persistence and love for Urdu pushed him to manifest a fragment of his vision, while Majid's drove him to document this partial realisation. This pattern echoes Hyderabad's story itself. Conceived as the preeminent city in the modern Islamic world, diminished by historical forces, yet sustained in fragments through successive acts of intellectual commitment. What moved me in this chain of devotion is how an enduring love for abstractions (language, city) becomes concrete through those who refuse to let dreams disappear. Works like this transform readers into chroniclers themselves, ensuring that the real Hyderabad passes forward, with fragments becoming seeds of possibility. Alongside the Idara, the narrative's expanse encompasses overlooked geographies within the erstwhile Hyderabad state, like Latur, Kohir, and Basavakalyan. And this canvas includes localities within the present-day city itself, like Falaknuma, Doodhbowli, Gowliguda, Haribowli, and Mughalpura. Even if they appear as casual name-drops at times, their specificity evokes the same curiosity I feel when riding a bus as the conductor calls out an unfamiliar stop like 'Ghode-ka-khabar!' And that immediate urge to discover the origins behind such intriguing names is exactly what makes Majid's geographic sensibility so endearing! 'Hyderabadis still kept their heads down no matter the exploitation in the Gulf [...] The economic power that came about because of Gulf money has also made it possible for us to take the othering happening in present-day India somewhat in our stride.' — ~ Chapter 3 of the book. The survival lens The prism of survival and breadwinning, however purposeful, creates systematic blind spots. All chapter titles belong to men, an inevitable consequence when examining resistance to Razakar attacks, earning abroad, communist politics, and academic pursuits within historical patriarchal structures. Women appear as supporting characters (Halima Bi, Oudesh Rani Bawa, Amena Begum, Shruthi Apparasu), but their narratives remain peripheral. Given this gap, I recommend readers supplement The Hyderabadis with Professor Nazia Akhtar's Bibi's Room, which centres around three women of 20th-century Hyderabad. The survival framework also obscures the aesthetic dimensions that animate Hyderabadi life. While Majid identifies Hyderabad as the 'humour capital', we encounter neither examples of this wit nor critical examination of the occasionally misogynist mizahiya mushaira programs. Also absent are the entrepreneurial innovations (Zinda Tilismath, the iconic medicinal products magnate), popular cinematic expressions (like The Angrez released in 2005), or matrimonial traditions (Dakhni Dholak Ke Geet or folk wedding songs). These omissions flatten Hyderabad – once considered the apex of the Muslim world – to gritty perseverance devoid of grandeur. Yet, there is much to relish in Majid's research process, revealed through little anecdotes about discovering fascinating primary and secondary sources via fellow Hyderabad enthusiasts. In Chapter 10, a bookstore recommendation leads to an unexpected narrative thread; a family friend connects him to Mr Saxena, whose late wife, Sheela Raj, turned out to be the very author of the material he had been studying. These serendipitous connections situate the academic fervour driving this work. The book also deftly navigates Andhra–Telangana tensions in the 1960s and 70s while examining caste associations, favouritism, water politics, and land disputes. Particularly illuminating is how committed Marxists Chukka Ramaiah (Chapter 7) and Raj Bahadur Gour (Chapter 9) wrestled with Mulki versus Andhra Telugu identities, especially when the centralising communist agenda called for 'Visalandhra', a project originally conceived in opposition to the Nizam. What remains conspicuously absent from the book is the Muslim voice during this tumultuous period. Did survival struggles suppress their assertiveness? Why did MIM maintain such dominance over democratic challengers like MBT (Majlis Bachao Tehreek), which broke away precisely to contest dynastic control and corruption? What wisdom might figures like Bahadur Yar Jung, one of the early MIM ideologues of the 1920s and 30s, offer for today's political calculations? The absence of these perspectives carries added weight given Majid's concluding calls for greater integration. With migration options to the Gulf and North America considerably narrowing, Hyderabad's Muslims must anchor themselves more firmly in soil that belongs as much to them as to anyone else. Perhaps the very resilience documented in these ten lives offers a foundation for more confident Muslim politics today. Surya Teja is a Researcher and Software Engineer at Avanti Fellows, a non-profit developing open-source tech for public schools.
The Hindu
5 hours ago
- The Hindu
Muharram, month of God
Muharram is the first month of the Islamic lunar Hijri calendar (Hijirah, because the Prophet began his migration on that day, thereby giving the name Hijri to the calendar), to the city of Yathrib, where the Prophet became the leader of the city, thereafter renamed Madinat Al Nawabi, or the City of the Prophet, said Syed Meeran. Muslims of both sects (Shia and Sunni) view and value the tenth of Muharram with considerable significance. For the Sunnis it is the day on which God saved Moses and his people from the Pharaoh and thus they demonstrate their gratitude by fasting. It also holds reverence because it is believed God created Adam and Eve on this day. Another significance of Ashura is the martyrdom of Iman Hussain, the son of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and the fourth Caliph of Islam and for the Shiite Muslims, the first Imam of the community. Hussain's martyrdom provides an example of selfless sacrifice in the cause of God's justice in the face of human oppression. This event took place around fifty years after the passing of the Prophet. Yazid, a tyrannical and by all accounts disreputable figure, was forcibly assuming leadership of the Muslim community and was demanding that Hussain swear allegiance to him. Hussain rejected the proposition seeing Yazid unfit for office. At the battlefield of Karbala, 5,000 of Yazid's forces stormed the Hussain's contingent of 80 people. What ensued was a massacre and nearly all the companions and family, including young children and a six-month old baby of Hussain, Ali Asghar, were slaughtered. The last one standing was Hussain himself. Thus the 'Month of God', of Prophets and celebrated heroes and martyrs, Muharram continues to be one of the most significant months, in terms of worship and the opportunities it affords to learn about the long history.
