Blog

When taking a holiday at Sharm its always great to be involved with the local customs and feel as if you were a part of this town. Sharm is indeed a very popular holiday destination that is accessible by air. You can book your flights to Sharm if you want to attend the Islamic New Year here and explore how they celebrate it.

Like several countries of Africa there are numerous celebrations, events and festivals that are celebrated in Sharm. Some festivals have been created recently. But the Islamic New Year is an important and elaborate festival that you will enjoy while on holiday at this time of the year.

Celebrations for the Islamic New Year are organized nationwide. One thing that you can do to your hearts content here is shopping. Al Hijra is what people of Sharm call the Islamic New Year. It falls on the first day in the month of Muharram. It also marks the Hegira in 622 CE. On this day Prophet Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Medina. He also established an Islamic state for the first time. Its not a very elaborate event in terms of being as extravagant as Eid ul Adha and Eid ul Fitr. Compared to these two events the New Year has rather low key celebrations.

Muslims, consider the first 10 days of the Muharrah as a time for mourning. This is carried out by those Muslims that belong to the Shiah sect. The mourning is to honor the memory of the 680 AD incident. This was when the tragedy of Hazrat Imam Hussains death occurred. He was the grandson of Muhammad and was killed in the battle named Karbala. Muharram is named on the basis of the month after which this happened.

On the first 9 days of the month, people get together to honor and remember the sacrifice Imam and his family members made to protect Islam from majlish, meaning corruption. There are no specific rituals required to be done on Muharram, but the way people remember this incident is really interesting to experience. Most Muslims find this an ideal time for making some Resolutions for the New Year.

The Quran has the word Hijra. It means shifting from a bad places or conditions to good ones. A lot of Muslims, at this time in Sharm are seen leaving their bad habits and adopting the good ones. This transformation is indicative of their faith and the way they take a religious festival to heart in order to change for the better rather than just celebrating it.