Why These Are The Greatest 10 Days Of The Year?

Why These Are The Greatest 10 Days Of The Year?

We are on the cusp of the best 10 days of the year. The 10 days which the Prophet ﷺ described and he said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 5446)

"There are no days on earth where good deeds are more beloved to Allah than these 10 days. So when you reach these 10 days, you should frequently praise Allah and thank Him and say takbeer and say لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ."

What Makes These 10 Days Special?

Now the question comes — why are these 10 days the greatest 10 days of the year? What makes them special? Okay, it's the time of Hajj — good, what else? Okay, but Ramadan is also one of the pillars of Islam. So why aren't the days of Ramadan greater than this? And Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was revealed — the Quran wasn't revealed in the month of Hajj — so why?

Because it's more than that. It's more than just that these 10 days coincide with one of the pillars of Islam. There's more.

The Sacred Months — الأشهر الحرم

We have 12 months in the Islamic calendar. Are all of these 12 months the same? Are there any special months? What are these months? What are they called? Even in English — yes, the Sacred Months, الأشهر الحرم.

How many are there? That's right — there's four. There are four months in the year, and these are called الأشهر الحرم — the Sacred Months. What's so special about them? What's so holy and sacred about them? What are we not allowed to do in these four months?

Yes — we're not allowed to go to war. Before Islam, in pre-Islamic Arabia, one of the most favorite hobbies of the Arabs was war. Someone comes to your tribe, they steal your horse — you send a whole army in to give a nice response. And so one of the agreements between the people of Arabia was: there are four months in the year, we're not going to have any war. Just like, you know, even married couples — even married couples, they fight all year, but in Ramadan they say, "You know what? We're not going to argue with each other." Sacred month.

So there are four sacred months in the calendar — before Islam — in which they would not fight. Blood would not be spilled in these four months.

Which Are the Four Sacred Months?

No, Ramadan is not one of the sacred months — and this is why this month is very special. Muharram is one of the sacred months. So three of them come one after the other, in a row. And there is one month separate from them. The Prophet ﷺ says Rajab is on its own — it's a loner. The other three are in a row.

These four months — the Arabs would not declare war on each other. Imagine: their greatest pastime was killing each other, yet they would not declare war on each other in these four months.

What Allah Says About the Sacred Months

Allah said something about them in the Quran:

"Indeed, the number of months in the sight of Allah is 12 months — amongst them, four are sacred." When Allah created the heavens and the earth, He instituted that there would be 12 months in the calendar. The Greeks came later and copied it — January, February, March — but that's another story for another day. Four months, Allah says, are sacred. And then He gives us a commandment.