by Dr. Ildus Rafikov
Time – it’s a part and parcel of our journey in this world. We divide it into moments and epochs, seconds, days, weeks, months, and so forth. It can be painfully slow or fleetingly fast. It is one of the mysteries of creation that we can’t fully grasp. We can describe it, experience it, but we can never catch or stop its flow. We create clocks to keep track of it but we cannot control it. In the Islamic tradition, time, just like certain places, the Revelation, properties, and created beings, has the element of sacredness. Consequently, in the unfolding rhythm of time in the form of the lunar year, four months flow with a distinct sacred resonance: Muḥarram, Rajab, Dhu al-Qa‘dah, and Dhu al-Ḥijjah. Allah, in His eternal wisdom, has designated these months as sacred—”Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve [in a year] in the register of Allah the day He created the heavens and the earth; of these, four are sacred.” (Qur’an 9:36). Yet what makes these months sacred? And more deeply, what do they mean for us as human beings seeking to live lives of purpose, clarity, and peace in the unstoppable passage of time?
Sacredness is not merely a legal or ritual designation; it is a call to recalibration of our worldview. When Allah calls a period of time sacred, He is offering humanity an opportunity to return—not just ritually, but existentially. The sacred months are not just for ceasing warfare or performing Hajj or offering a sacrifice. They are an invitation to reflect on how far we have drifted from the divine order, and a gentle but urgent call to realign our worldview with the divine balance, as time continues to flow like a river, carrying us ever onward.
The sacred months, scattered throughout the year, serve as waypoints on the spiritual journey of life. They function as divine reminders that time itself is not empty or profane. Rather, time is a vessel filled with meaning, with signs, with chances to draw closer to the Creator of time. In the Qur’an, Allah swears by the passage of time, “By time, indeed mankind is in loss” (Qur’an 103:1-2), signaling that the human being is perpetually in a state of losing unless he reorients himself within the sacred rhythm of life itself. Such reorientation occurs through belief, righteous actions, and mutual support in truth and patience. The sacred months remind us of that reorientation.
The linguistic meaning of these months is noteworthy. Dhu al-Qa‘dah (“the one of sitting”), Dhu al-Ḥijjah (“the one of pilgrimage”), Muḥarram (“the forbidden one”), and Rajab (“the revered one”)—carry linguistic meanings that reflect their pre-Islamic Arabian origins as periods when warfare was prohibited. Three names explicitly reference peace and sanctity (sitting/resting, forbidden, honored), while Dhu al-Ḥijjah focuses on pilgrimage. These months were already considered sacred before Islam, known as al-Ashhur al-Ḥurum, allowing safe passage for trade and religious travel. Islam preserved these names and their sacred status, demonstrating the religion’s approach of reforming rather than replacing existing Arabian traditions. The linguistic preservation shows how temporal sanctity was embedded in language itself, with these months retaining heightened spiritual significance for increased rewards for good deeds and greater consequences for sins.
Interestingly, three of these sacred months—Dhu al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Ḥijjah, and Muḥarram—are sequential, forming a sacred triad at the end and beginning of the lunar year. Rajab, by contrast, stands alone in the middle of the year like a spiritual island, reminding us mid-journey to pause, reflect, and reconnect. This divine arrangement creates a cyclical structure of sacredness, anchoring the believer at both ends of the year and renewing the soul’s commitment in the middle.
But why four months? Why one-third of the year? There is wisdom in the ratio. One-third is enough to allow for real inner transformation without disrupting the necessary flows of everyday life. One-third of our temporal space is devoted to sacred purpose, calling us to heightened awareness and conscious living throughout the rest of the year. This sanctification of time awakens a deeper sense of responsibility, not through passive stillness but through active belief, righteous deeds, and collective striving toward truth and patience. If sacred time were only one month a year, it would be too easy to ignore. If it were six or more, it might become monotonous or burdensome. But four months, interspersed throughout the year, create a rhythm—a pulse of spiritual awakening that keeps the heart alive.
This rhythm mirrors the natural world, and it is one of Allah’s universal laws. The changing of seasons, the phases of the moon, the cycles of growth and decay—all speak to a divine rhythm. Human beings, too, live in cycles. We are not machines that move in a straight line, but souls with hearts that have the capacity to alter their state, or turn up or down. The sacred months provide an opportunity for believers to pause, reflect, and redirect themselves before they stray too far. These months are spiritual checkpoints embedded into the calendar, urging us to pause, reflect, purify, and begin anew.
In this light, the sacred months are deeply tied to the Qur’anic command of not wronging oneself during them: “So do not wrong yourselves during them” (Qur’an 9:36). This wronging is not limited to external conflict or injustice. It includes the subtle violences we commit against our own souls—neglect, arrogance, greed, heedlessness. The sacred months ask us to return to our primordial state of harmony with the Divine, with others, and with ourselves.
One cannot speak of sacred time without addressing the modern condition: the commercialization of everything, even the sacred. We witness how prices of animals for sacrifice rise as Eid approaches, how transportation companies hike their fees, and how companies capitalize on the people’s desire to fulfill rituals. What should be a moment of spiritual generosity and collective remembrance becomes entangled in inflated transactions and opportunism. In such environments, the rizq-infāq balance is disrupted. Rizq, or provision from Allah, is turned into an object of hoarding or manipulation. Infāq, or the divine command to give freely and generously, becomes an afterthought.
This commercialization is not new. Every era has witnessed some form of it. But what makes it more dangerous today is the systemic and normalized nature of it. Those who raise prices may defend their actions as market logic: supply and demand. Yet the Qur’an warns us of a mindset that equates permissible trade with the forbidden act of usury: “They say: Trade is like ribā. But Allah has permitted trade and forbidden ribā” (Qur’an 2:275). When economic behavior is no longer governed by ethics but by profit maximization, even sacred moments become commodified.
To re-center ourselves, we must return to the concept of rizq as a divine trust, not a personal entitlement. Allah is al-Razzāq, the Sustainer, who provides without limit and without our control. When we hoard, manipulate, or exploit the needs of others for gain—especially during sacred times—we deny this reality. We forget that what we hold is not truly ours but a means of purification and test. Infaq, then, is not charity in the modern sense. It is a spiritual necessity. It is how rizq fulfills its purpose.
This brings us to the concept of the ‘rizq-infāq ecosystem’ that is embedded in the Qur’anic worldview. In this ecosystem, provision is not a private resource but part of a communal trust. Allah gives to whom He wills as a test and as a means to benefit others. Wealth circulates, not stagnates. The sacred months, then, are not separate from this economic-spiritual order. They are periods where the flow of rizq and infāq is supposed to be purified, reset, and sanctified.
Dhu al-Ḥijjah, the month of Hajj and sacrifice, exemplifies this most profoundly. The sacrifice of an animal is not merely about slaughter. It is a reenactment of Ibrahim’s submission, a return to the principle that nothing we own is ours—not even our own child, let alone our wealth. Allah tells us, “It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah, but your piety” (Qur’an 22:37). The act of giving is not valued by its quantity, but by the state of the heart. Thus, inflating prices during this time, or exploiting people’s need to perform sacrifice, not only violates social ethics but also desecrates the spiritual meaning of the act.
The sacred months are also meant to restore peace. Not just the absence of war, but the presence of justice, inner calm, and social balance (mīzān). Without internal peace, no external peace can take root. And without accepting Allah as the true Source of sustenance, human beings fall into fear, greed, heedlessness, and endless striving. The sacred months call us to re-establish the inner balance and peace. They are divine training grounds for the soul and for society.
In our age, perhaps more than ever, the wisdom of the sacred months needs to be revived. They are not merely old rituals or historical realities. They are part of a divinely designed civilizational framework—a system that balances worship, ethics, economy, and time. They are signposts in the journey of life, offering us opportunities to clean our hearts, reset our priorities, and restore justice.
The 1/3 proportion is not merely a mathematical curiosity—it is a recurring pattern of balance and sanctity embedded in the human condition. A third of our time, as marked by the sacred months, is divinely allocated for spiritual renewal, so that the remaining two-thirds of the year may be infused with purpose rather than lost to heedlessness. A third of the day, in natural cycles of rest, protects the soul and body from burnout. In Islamic inheritance law, a third of one’s wealth may be freely bequeathed, reflecting divine justice that allows individual discretion while safeguarding family rights. Across domains, this one-third functions as a divine threshold—between excess and moderation, forgetfulness and remembrance, and chaos and harmony.
The Qur’an teaches us that Allah has created everything in due proportion. “And We have created all things with qadar (measure).” (Qur’an 54:49). Sacred months are measured intervals to remind us of that cosmic order. When we honor them, we are not merely preserving tradition; we are aligning ourselves with the fiṭrah—the innate, divinely implanted nature within every human being.
We are not owners of time, wealth, or even our own lives. We are trustees, stewards, and servants. Sacred time returns us to that role, not through guilt, but through grace. It offers us space to repent without shame, to give without fear, and to live without arrogance.
In summary, the sacred months are not only about rituals; they are an essential part of a worldview. A lens through which to see time as meaningful, provision as trust, and society as a moral community. To honor them is to live with presence, with humility, and with compassion. To neglect them is not only to forget a calendar date, but to drift from the very rhythm that sustains human dignity and divine presence. I pray that we all understand the essence of time and the sacred months, act upon such understanding with patience, and eventually attain the pleasure of the Creator of time.
Dr. Ildus Rafikov
MI Vice President – Research