COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Philippines Muslims will celebrate New Year’s Day on Tuesday but unlike their Christian brethren, they will not light firecrackers or set off fireworks displays to celebrate because during the month of Muharram.
Instead, Amon Jaded, the first day of the lunar Hijra month of Muharam, will be observed worldwide in Sunni Muslim areas through giving of alms to the needy.
There will be the optional food offering but tables will be without the expensive food regularly seen in Christian New Year’s Day celebration.
In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Acting Governor Ansaruddin Adiong merely declared Amon Jaded as official non-working holiday.
There will be no special prayers too during the observation of the event.
Normally, Muslims stay home on Amon Jaded and on the succeeding nine days of Muharram, during which they reflect on their blessings and give alms out of their income earned during the previous year, according to Ustadz Jaafar Ali of the National Ulama Conference of the Philippines (NUCP).
On the 10th day of the Muharram, or Ashura, Muslims hold thanksgiving prayers. Sunni Muslims believe that in Biblical times, the deluge during Noah’s time subsided during the Ashura; that Abraham survived the odds of his life; that Joseph came up alive from his ordeal beneath the well; that the people of Moses were saved by crossing a wedged Red Sea from Egypt; and that Jesus was lifted up to heaven to escape persecution by the Roman authorities, all during the Ashura.
For the Shiites, Ashura means the day of mourning.
The Shiites believe that the Umayyad mutiny (L.A) brutally killed Imam Hussain and his companions (pbuh) on Ashura in Karbala (Iraq) in 680 A.D.
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