How The World Cup Made Us Forget Muharaam

Muharram in Arabic literally means the prohibited, the protected, the sacred.

But these names of months did not come with the arrival of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the Arabian Peninsula.

No.

The names of these months were known to the Arabs for centuries.

They knew about Muharram.

They knew about Safar.

They knew about Rabi'ul Awwal.

They had given these names to these months for centuries.

But it's when the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came, he showed them that the calendar is not just a calendar.

It's not just something you track every morning, what date is it? No.

It means something, because your calendar is your history.

I'll never forget, I was in the sixth grade, and I sat down, and my math teacher came up, and he asked everybody in the room, what is the date in the Hijri calendar today? Silence.

We knew it was the 2nd of February, and Allah knows what year, but we didn't know what was the Hijri date.

And he looked at us and he said, this is the sign of a colonized people.

You don't even know the date in your own calendar.

You have been made to forget your calendar.

You've been made to forget your role models.

You've been made to forget your language.

You've been erased.

You've been wiped.

What's left? You've come like a formatted hard drive.

You've come like an empty, illiterate person, and a software has been installed into you, and everything that Allah sent down is not in that software.

You don't even know.

If you don't know the date, how do you know what happened in history? How do you know what today means, and how do you know where you came from? On the 31st of December every year, you see huge celebrations.