New Year’s is the holiday most often called “purely secular”, and that is partly true: the date belongs to a civil calendar, and most people who mark it are not thinking of any god. This page sets out what historians say about where 1 January and its customs came from, which popular claims are false or overstated (many of them are repeated in magazines and news stories), what the customs and characters are tied to, and what Muslim scholars have said. It is education, not an attack on anyone, and we do not question the intentions of those who celebrate. None of the rulings below is about using the Gregorian calendar to date a letter, a meeting or a school term. The question is only whether a Muslim marks the day as a festival, and on that point we say plainly where scholars differ.
What it is
New Year’s Day is 1 January, the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, and New Year’s Eve is the night before. It is a civil holiday in most of the world and has no founding religious event. It does have a long history: the Roman Kalends of January, the Christian feast held on the same date, and a large set of customs from Roman, Scottish, Spanish, American and other sources. The cards below separate those layers and sort each claim by how well it holds up.
The history: what holds up
Eight strands are usually given for the date and its customs. Each card carries a verdict tag, the facts as the sources give them, and a note where the sources say a claim needs correcting or caution.
1. The Babylonian Akitu
Mesopotamia, 3rd to 1st millennium BCE
Akitu was a Mesopotamian festival attested from the third millennium BCE, with most of the detail coming from first-millennium tablets. In the first millennium it was held twice a year: in spring in the month Nisannu (March–April, which corresponds to the spring equinox) and in autumn in Tashritu. The texts for the spring festival in Babylon prescribe 11 or 12 days. On the fourth day the creation epic Enuma Elish was recited. On the fifth day the king was brought before Marduk’s image, and the high priest removed his insignia, struck his cheek, pulled his ears and made him kneel, while the king declared that he had not sinned. The insignia were returned and the cheek was struck again, and if tears flowed Marduk was content. A procession to the akitu house followed, and the images returned on day 11.
These details come from late ritual texts, and the evidence is fragmentary. Mirelman notes that an acting out of Marduk’s fight with Tiamat is only indirectly attested.
Accuracy note
Popular accounts say the Babylonians held a 12-day festival in about 2000 BCE, with the king stripped and slapped, and call it the ancestor of 1 January. The sources do not make that link. The festival was in another calendar, in another season, for another god. The detailed ritual texts are late (Debourse reads them as priestly literature of the Seleucid age), so we cannot say the same rites were done in 2000 BCE. We say only that Akitu is an older new-year festival, not the source of 1 January.
2. The Egyptian Wep Ronpet
Egypt, civil calendar
Wep Ronpet, “opening of the year”, was the Egyptian new year on the first day of the first month, Thoth, at the start of the Nile flood season. The year was tied to the rising of the star Sirius at dawn and to the flood. The civil calendar had 365 days and no leap day, so it slipped against the solar year by about one day every four years and took about 1,460 years to come round again.
Accuracy note
This new year was fixed by the river and the stars in a calendar that drifted, so it has no fixed Gregorian date and no link to 1 January. Popular lists sometimes give a single date for it, which the drift rules out; we give none. The details here come from the Metropolitan Museum essay as seen in a search summary and from Wikipedia.
3. Rome: the Kalends of January, Janus and the Julian calendar
Rome, 153 BC and 45 BC
The old Roman year began in March, which is why September, October, November and December are named for the seventh to tenth months. From 153 BC the consuls took office on 1 January, a change that the sources connect with the war in Spain, so that the new consul could reach the army sooner. The Julian calendar, reformed by Julius Caesar, took effect on 1 January 45 BC, after 46 BC had been lengthened to 445 days to bring the calendar back in line with the seasons.
January is named for Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings. In Ovid’s Fasti Janus is the first god invoked and the opener of the year, and Ovid describes the sacrifices and the new magistrates taking office on the Kalends of January.
Accuracy note
A common claim is that Julius Caesar chose January to honor Janus. None of the sources says so. The January start for consuls is over a century older than Caesar, and Caesar’s reform dealt with the length of the year and leap days. The Catholic Encyclopedia says Caesar “made January the first month”, which is a simplification of the change of 153 BC. January’s name for Janus is documented, but it is a separate matter.
4. The strenae and the customs of the Kalends
Rome, as Ovid describes them
Ovid asks Janus why people speak good words and give gifts on the first day. Janus answers that omens wait on beginnings: “At the first word ye prick up anxious ears.” Gifts of dates, figs and honey, he says, are given “for the sake of the omen… that the whole course of the years may be sweet, like its beginning”, and money gifts followed. These New Year gifts were called strenae, a word the Catholic Encyclopedia connects with the goddess Strenia. Ovid also has Janus say that the first day is given to business “lest from the auspice idleness infects the whole” year.
The Roman Kalends therefore carried the same belief that later folk customs carry: that the first words, gifts and acts of the year set the luck of the rest. Tertullian (about 200) complained that Christians treated the gifts of this season as harmless exchanges between friends.
Accuracy note
This is the strongest link between New Year customs and religion, and it is in a Roman author’s own words. It does not follow that every modern custom descends from it. Each needs its own evidence, and the customs section below says where that evidence is thin.
5. The early Church and the Kalends
Late Roman and early medieval Christianity
Christian writers objected to the customs of the Kalends. Augustine preached a sermon (Sermon 198) titled “On the Kalends of January, Against the Pagans”. In the modern English rendering we read, it speaks of the day’s “worldly and carnal joy” and urges Christians to set themselves apart in conduct. The Council of Auxerre (late 6th century), canon 1, forbade observing “strenas diabolicas”, devilish New Year gifts. The Second Council of Tours (567), canon 17, prescribes prayers and a Mass for the start of the year. The Council in Trullo (692), canon 62, says: “The so-called Calends, and the so-called Vota, and the so-called Brumalia, and the festival held on the first day of the month of March, we wish to be removed once and for all from the way of life of the faithful.” Clergy who persisted were to be deposed and laymen excommunicated.
Accuracy note
What the Church objected to was the customs, not the date. In the Catholic Encyclopedia’s words, “Christian nations did not agree in the date of New Year’s Day. They were not opposed to 1 January as the beginning of the year, but rather to the pagan extravagances which accompanied it.” So “the medieval Church rejected 1 January as pagan” is too strong. The Augustine quotation comes from a third-party English rendering; we have not checked it against the Latin line by line.
6. The Feast of the Circumcision and the medieval year
Western Christendom, 6th to 16th centuries
Once Christmas was kept on 25 December, 1 January fell on the eighth day, and in many places it was kept as the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus. The Catholic Encyclopedia says Christians did not wish to make the feast very solemn, lest they seem to approve the pagan extravagance of the year’s opening. Meanwhile the year itself began on different days in different places: 25 March, Christmas, Easter, and 1 March in Venice. France fixed 1 January by the Edict of Roussillon (1564, in force from 1567). Scotland made the change in 1600. England and its colonies began the legal year on 25 March until 1752.
7. The Gregorian calendar and Britain in 1752
Rome, 1582; Britain, 1752
Pope Gregory XIII’s bull Inter gravissimas (1582) changed the leap-year rule, removed ten days and set the method for finding Easter. It did not fix the first day of the year, which each state decided for itself. In Britain the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 (24 Geo. II c. 23) made 1 January the first day of the legal year from 1752 and removed eleven days, so that 2 September 1752 was followed by 14 September.
Accuracy note
The idea that Gregory “made 1 January the New Year” is a simplification. The leap-year correction and the choice of the year’s first day were separate changes, made at different times in different countries.
Name documented, origin uncertain Hogmanay is the Scots name for New Year’s Eve and its gift-asking customs. The Dictionary of the Scots Language gives the earliest Scots form in 1604 and says the origin is uncertain, the best-supported route being a northern French form of aguillanneuf, a New Year gift or the cry used to ask for one, borrowed around 1560. The older explanation from au gui l’an neuf, “to the mistletoe, the new year”, and so from the druids, has been rejected. Its best-known custom, first-footing, is covered under the customs below.
Myths, misconceptions and partial truths
Six popular claims, checked against the sources. The first is partly true, and we say which part.
9. “New Year’s is purely secular”
The most common description
The date is a civil one. 1 January was fixed as the start of the consular and later of the legal year for administrative reasons, and states use the calendar for work, school and law. Most people who celebrate it have no thought of any god.
Where the claim falls short is the customs. The Romans marked the day with sacrifices, omens and gifts (cards 3 and 4), the Church treated the day’s feasting as pagan and gave the date a Christian feast (cards 5 and 6), and several customs today, such as first-footing and lucky foods, carry the same belief that the start of the year decides the luck of the rest.
Accuracy note
Our wording is “civil in date, mixed in customs”. For a Muslim the second half is the point, because it concerns a day with its own festivities and luck beliefs whatever the intention of the people keeping it.
10. “Caesar chose January for Janus, and the Church rejected it as pagan”
Two claims often given together
Both halves are overstated. The consuls began taking office on 1 January in 153 BC, over a century before the Julian calendar, and the sources tie this to the war in Spain (card 3). The Church objected to the Kalends customs and kept the date as a feast, while different regions began the year on 25 March, Christmas or Easter for centuries (cards 5 and 6).
Accuracy note
January is named for Janus, and the Church did object to pagan New Year practices. Those two facts are true. The story that Caesar picked the month for Janus, and that medieval Christians therefore refused the date, is not in the sources.
11. “Janus has two faces to look at the past and the future”
Popular gloss
Popular accounts say the god had two faces to look back at the old year and forward to the new. Ovid’s own explanation is different. His Janus says that every door has two fronts, “this way and that”, and that as porter of the heavenly court he beholds “at once both East and West”. The sources we read do not give the past and future reading. The month name January does come from Janus.
Accuracy note
We have not found the past and future reading in Ovid and cannot say where it began, so we call it a popular gloss, not a documented meaning. Janus is a Roman god of doors and beginnings, and he is the pagan figure behind the month name.
12. “Resolutions are 4,000 years old”
Babylonians and Romans
Magazines and news pieces repeat that the Babylonians made New Year promises such as returning borrowed farm tools and paying debts. NPR’s 2025 explainer gives the date as about 2000 BC and credits the claim to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. It also quotes a historian who suggests that the Roman offerings and promises to Janus are the origin of the resolution, and she calls that her own view.
The documented history is later. Anne Halkett wrote a list headed “Resolutions” on 2 January 1671, and the phrase “new year resolutions” appears in a Boston newspaper in 1813, according to Merriam-Webster as NPR reports.
Accuracy note
We found no tablet, text or scholarly source for the Babylonian tools and debts claim, and none in the Akitu accounts (card 1). It rests on an almanac. Romans did make offerings and exchange gifts on 1 January, but calling that the origin of resolutions is one historian’s interpretation, not a record.
13. “The ball drop is an ancient ritual”
Times Square, 1907
Time balls were signals that let ships set their chronometers. Greenwich’s ball began in 1833 and drops at 1:00 pm. New York had a Western Union time ball that dropped at noon on weekdays. The New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs held fireworks from his tower for the three years before 1907, until the city banned them for 1908 because of falling hot ash. On 31 December 1907 he lowered a ball of wood and iron, with 100 light bulbs and weighing 700 pounds, by ropes and pulleys. Unlike a time ball, which marked the hour at the start of its drop, the Times ball marked the new year when it finished descending.
Accuracy note
No source ties the ball to any religion or older rite. It is a modern spectacle borrowed from navigation. For a Muslim the question is the festival it announces, not the ball.
14. “Auld Lang Syne is an ancient New Year hymn”
Scotland, 1568 to 1929
The phrase is old: it appears in a 16th-century ballad in the Bannatyne Manuscript (1568), “Auld Kyndnes Foryett”, about fickle friends. The tune and the text were joined only in 1799. Robert Burns’s version was first published in 1796. Its use as the song of New Year’s Eve is usually credited to Guy Lombardo’s broadcasts, which began in 1929.
Accuracy note
The song is a secular song about friendship and not a hymn or a rite. It is not ancient in its present form. The Lombardo date comes from a report we saw only through search, so treat it as likely rather than certain.
The customs and what they are tied to
1.
Fireworks and noise
Midnight fireworks are a modern show. The Times Tower held fireworks for three years before the 1907 ball (card 13). Driving off bad spirits with noise is a popular explanation for fireworks, but we found no source that ties Western New Year fireworks to such a rite.
2.
The countdown
The crowd counting down as the ball falls grew out of the time-ball and broadcast tradition (card 13). We found no religious source for it.
3.
Resolutions
The Babylonian origin is unsupported (card 12). Resolving to do better is an Islamic idea in its own right (see the last section), but tying it to this date is a custom.
4.
The kiss at midnight
No origin is proven. The earliest clear American account we found is a New York Times report of 3 January 1863 that describes Germans embracing and kissing as the clocks struck midnight. Proposed links to Roman or Scottish customs are guesses.
5.
Drinking and toasting
Toasts and heavy drinking are common on the night. Intoxicants are forbidden in Islam on every day, and the verse is quoted under the Islamic position below (
Quran 5:90–91).
6.
First-footing and Hogmanay
In Scotland and northern England the first person to enter a house after midnight is believed to bring luck for the year. Customary gifts include coal, shortbread, salt, a coin and whisky, and some places prefer a tall dark man. The details vary by region, and the popular explanation for the dark-haired preference is not proven. It is a belief that the first person across the threshold sets the year’s fortune. The name Hogmanay is covered in card 8.
7.
Superstitions and lucky foods
In Spain, twelve grapes are eaten at midnight, one for each stroke of the clock. ABC (Spain) says the familiar story of a grape surplus in Alicante in 1909 is not the origin: the custom appears in the press by 1897, and the likely start is Madrid in 1882 as a satirical imitation of the elite. Red underwear is another Spanish luck custom that NPR describes. The Romans gave dates, figs and honey “for the sake of the omen” (card 4). These are all omen beliefs, the subject of the hadith on tiyarah below. Eating grapes is not the problem. The problem is the belief that doing it decides the year’s fortune.
The Islamic position
Quran quotations are the Sahih International translation. Hadith are quoted in English as shown on sunnah.com, with the grading given there. Where a ruling is disputed, we say so.
1.
Say, “Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, Lord of the worlds. No partner has He. And this I have been commanded, and I am the first [among you] of the Muslims.”
A believer’s prayer, rites, living and dying belong to Allah alone. It is the basis for asking whether a day or rite has been set aside for something else. It is a statement of tawhid, not a ruling on New Year’s Day.
2.
Anas ibn Malik: “When the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) came to Medina, the people had two days on which they engaged in games. He asked: What are these two days? They said: We used to engage ourselves on them in the pre-Islamic period. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Allah has substituted for them something better than them, the day of sacrifice and the day of the breaking of the fast.”
The Prophet replaced inherited festival days with the two Eids. A Muslim already has his own festivals.
3.
Ibn Umar: the Prophet (ﷺ) said, “He who copies any people is one of them.”
Graded Hasan Sahih by Al-Albani on sunnah.com. Earlier scholars differed on the chain: Ibn Taymiyyah called it good, Ibn Hajar graded it hasan, and al-Sakhawi called it weak but supported by other reports. Scholars also differ on how far “copying” extends, from religious practice only to all customs. We cite it for religious festivals and rites.
4.
And [they are] those who do not testify to falsehood, and when they pass near ill speech, they pass by with dignity.
The word translated “falsehood” (zur) is explained in several ways by the early commentators. Ibn Kathir reports that Abu al-Aliyah, Tawus, Ibn Sirin, al-Dahhak, al-Rabi‘ ibn Anas and others said it means the festivals of the polytheists. He lists other views too (idol worship, lying, sinful gatherings) and says the plain meaning is that they do not attend falsehood. Al-Qurtubi reports the festivals view from Ibn Abbas in one narration. So this is one early view among several, not a ruling.
5.
Anas bin Malik: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “No ‘Adwa nor Tiyara; but I like Fal.” They said, “What is the Fal?” He said, “A good word.”
Tiyarah is taking omens, originally from the flight of birds. The same hadith says a good word (fal) is liked, so a kind greeting is not omen-taking. The issue is the belief that the first acts or foods of the year decide luck, as in the customs above.
6.
Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Taking omens is polytheism; taking omens is polytheism. He said it three times. Every one of us has some, but Allah removes it by trust (in Him).
Graded Sahih by Al-Albani on sunnah.com. The hadith names the feeling and gives the remedy, which is tawakkul, trust in Allah. The next verse says the same.
7.
Say, “Never will we be struck except by what Allah has decreed for us; He is our protector.” And upon Allah let the believers rely.
Fortune for the year is Allah’s decree, not a food, a first visitor or a custom of the night.
8.
O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone alters [to other than Allah], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful. Satan only wants to cause between you animosity and hatred through intoxicants and gambling and to avert you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. So will you not desist?
Intoxicants are forbidden at all times. New Year’s Eve is one of the nights on which drinking is most promoted, but the ruling does not depend on the date.
9.
Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve [lunar] months in the register of Allah [from] the day He created the heavens and the earth; of these, four are sacred. That is the correct religion, so do not wrong yourselves during them. And fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively. And know that Allah is with the righteous [who fear Him].
The Quran counts the months by the moon and names the sacred months. This is the calendar for Islam’s own times: Ramadan, Hajj and the Eids. It is not a ruling against using the Gregorian calendar for dates.
10.
They ask you, [O Muhammad], about the new moons. Say, “They are measurements of time for the people and for Hajj.” And it is not righteousness to enter houses from the back, but righteousness is [in] one who fears Allah. And enter houses from their doors. And fear Allah that you may succeed.
The new moons are the measure of time for people and for Hajj.
11.
Sahl bin Sa‘d: The Prophet’s companions did not take as a starting date for the Muslim calendar, the day, the Prophet (ﷺ) had been sent as an Apostle or the day of his death, but the day of his arrival at Medina.
This is the origin of the Hijri calendar. Its first day, 1 Muharram, is the start of a year but is not an Eid. Ibn Uthaymeen (below) says it is better not to exchange greetings for it, and the Permanent Committee says Islam has only two festivals.
12.
Aisha: Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “If somebody innovates something which is not in harmony with the principles of our religion, that thing is rejected.”
IslamQA (answer 113064) applies this principle to chain messages that urge Muslims to pray two rak‘ahs, read Quran or make dhikr at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and calls it an innovation to hold to such acts of worship on that occasion. The intention may be good, it says, but worship must follow the Sharia in its reason, type, quantity, manner, time and place. Scholars apply this principle to customs in different ways, and here it is cited for worship.
Taken together: Allah alone is worshipped, the believer keeps his own two festivals, the Prophet (ﷺ) replaced inherited festival days with them, omens are met with trust in Allah, and intoxicants are forbidden on every night. The Muslim has his own calendar and uses the civil one for dates. That is why the conservative position is not to mark New Year’s as a festival.
Where scholars differ
Scholars give different answers, mostly on two narrow questions: whether a Muslim may celebrate the night, and whether he may greet others with “Happy New Year”. We set out both views as the sources give them. Several fatwa pages we read are machine translations of the Arabic, and we mark them as such.
The cautious view: do not celebrate or greet
1.
Asked about several days that include New Year’s Day, the Committee answered: “All of these are religious innovations (bid‘ah); it is not permissible to celebrate them or to adopt them as festivals. In Islam, there are only two festivals: the festival at the end of Ramadan (‘Id al-Fitr) and the festival of sacrifice (‘Id al-Adha).”
Quoted from the English text on al-fatawa.com, which is a machine translation of the Arabic.
2.
Asked whether Muslims may exchange greetings and du‘a on the Gregorian New Year without intending to celebrate it, the answer is: “It is not permissible for the Muslims to exchange greetings on the occasion of the Gregorian New Year, and it is not permissible for them to celebrate it.” It cites Abu Dawud 4031 and says that offering greetings on a day that returns each year comes under celebrating it and taking it as a festival.
The answer cites the hadith as sahih per Al-Albani, while sunnah.com shows Hasan Sahih.
3.
He said that congratulating on a new year is not known among the Salaf and that leaving it is better; for the Hijri year, if a person does it, he commits no sin. “As for the beginning of the Gregorian year, it is not permissible to congratulate it, because it is not a religious year.” He warns that congratulating disbelievers on their festivals risks approving them.
Quoted from al-fatawa.com’s English text, a machine translation. Note that his reason for the Gregorian year is that it is not a religious year, which is a different point from the Roman history above.
4.
In an answer on congratulating others on festivals, Ibn Baz is reported as saying: “This is not permissible,” and that congratulating disbelievers on their festivals is blameworthy because it is “assisting in falsehood”.
Machine-translated English text on al-fatawa.com; we have not seen the Arabic original.
A contemporary view that allows a greeting, not rites
5.
Asked about greeting non-Muslims on the Gregorian New Year, the Mufti, Dr. Shawqi Allam, answered that greeting non-Muslim fellow citizens on what they celebrate, on this occasion or others, is not prohibited by the Sharia, especially if they greet Muslims on Islamic festivals. It cites Quran 4:86 and 60:8 and says the greeting is not an approval of beliefs that differ from Islam but good character and neighborliness, “as long as that does not bind him to religious rites or acts of worship contrary to the creed of Islam”.
Our English rendering of the Arabic, which is the primary text. CNN Arabic reported on 31 December 2024 that the same office again permitted such greetings, with the same condition, which we saw only in a search summary. This fatwa concerns the greeting. It does not permit religious rites.
Where this page stands: the cautious view is the safer course. The date carries its own festivities and luck beliefs, the Prophet (ﷺ) replaced inherited festival days with Islam’s two Eids, and the scholars who permit a greeting still exclude religious rites. We do not claim the cautious view is the majority view, and we have not surveyed scholars. Scholars differ on whether the civil celebration without rites is permitted and on whether a greeting is allowed. For a specific case, such as a work party or a neighbor’s greeting, ask a scholar you trust.
Other monotheists
A short note on how other communities that hold to God’s law treat the day. We report what their own sources say, only where a reliable source exists, and we do not adopt their reasons. We found no reliable source on the Samaritans or the Mandaeans and do not guess.
Judaism
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year
The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1) lists four new years, and the first of Tishrei is the new year for years. 1 January is not a Jewish new year. Rabbi Yosef Bitton’s survey reports that the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rama (Yoreh De‘ah 148:12) treated 1 January as a gentile religious holiday, “the eighth day of Christmas”. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, in Igrot Moshe (Even HaEzer 2:13), ruled that the civil new year is not prohibited by law, but that pious people (ba‘alei nefesh) should be stricter. Bitton adds that most community rabbis discourage celebrating it but do not preach against private observance.
Jewish law has no single answer here, so we say only that it is discouraged and that the authorities differ.
Christianity
Most Christians keep the civil holiday; some do not
The Church Fathers and councils. As card 5 shows, Augustine, the councils of Auxerre and Trullo and others objected to the customs of the Kalends, such as the gifts, feasting and revelry. They did not reject 1 January itself, and the Church kept the date as a feast.
Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their magazine Awake! of 8 January 2002 argues that New Year’s celebrations have pagan and superstitious origins and often involve excess, and says Christians should not take part. It makes claims about Babylon, Julius Caesar and Janus.
Accuracy note
The article’s historical claims go further than the sources we could verify (see cards 1, 3 and 10). We cite it only as the Witnesses’ position.
Abstaining or advising caution is not unique to Muslims: other communities that hold to God’s law also weigh this day, each by its own reasoning.
For Muslims: what to do instead
1.
Know your own calendar.
Allah fixed the months (
Quran 9:36) and the new moons are the measure of time for people and for Hajj (
Quran 2:189). The Companions dated the calendar from the Hijra (Bukhari 3934). Learn the Hijri months and the dates of Ramadan, the Eids and Ashura. None of the fatwas above forbids using the Gregorian date for work, school or contracts.
2.
Take stock of yourself on any day, then rely on Allah.
Allah says, in
Quran 59:18: “O you who have believed, fear Allah. And let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow - and fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do.” A Muslim can review his year at any time, and no date gives it special weight. Then, in
Quran 3:159: “And when you have decided, then rely upon Allah. Indeed, Allah loves those who rely [upon Him].” And in
Quran 65:3: “And whoever relies upon Allah - then He is sufficient for him. Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose. Allah has already set for everything a [decreed] extent.”
3.
Do not invent a New Year’s Eve act of worship.
IslamQA (answer 113064) says it is an innovation to hold to a special prayer, dhikr or Quran gathering at midnight on New Year’s Eve, even with a good intention. Pray, read and remember Allah as the Prophet (ﷺ) taught, at the times he taught.
4.
Fast Ashura.
Ibn Abbas reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) came to Medina and saw the Jews fasting on Ashura, said “We have more claim over Moses than you,” and fasted it and ordered the Muslims to fast it (Bukhari 2004). The first of Muharram has no festival of its own.
5.
Keep your two Eids joyful.
Make Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha full of food, family, new clothes, visits and giving, as in the hadith of Abu Dawud 1134 above.
6.
Be gracious, not hostile.
Allah says, in
Quran 60:8: “Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes - from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.” Be kind to neighbors and colleagues who celebrate, and if one asks why you do not, explain politely, without mockery.
7.
Ask a qualified scholar about specific cases.
Work parties, school events, family invitations and replying to a greeting raise real questions on which scholars differ. This page gives the reasoning and the range of views, not a ruling for each case.
Sources
History of the date and customs
- Mirelman, “The Ritual Humiliation of the King” (ANE Today)
- Debourse, Of Priests and Kings: The Babylonian New Year Festival in the Last Age of Cuneiform Culture (Brill, 2022), seen via search
- Metropolitan Museum: Telling Time in Ancient Egypt (seen via search)
- Wikipedia: Egyptian calendar
- Ovid, Fasti Book 1 (Frazer translation), on Theoi
- Encyclopaedia Romana (Penelope): the consuls
- Encyclopaedia Romana (Penelope): the Celtiberian War
- Attalus: events of 153 BC
- Livy, Periochae 46–50 (Livius.org)
- Wikipedia: 46 BC (the year of confusion)
- Wikipedia: Julian calendar
- Catholic Encyclopedia: New Year’s Day
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Feast of the Circumcision
- Tertullian, On Idolatry, ch. 14
- Council in Trullo (692), canon 62, in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
- Council in Trullo, canon 62 (philokalia.casa)
- Augustine, Sermon 198, modern English rendering (HistoricalChristian.Faith)
- Augustine, Sermo 198, Latin text (augustinus.it)
- Roger Pearse: canon 17 of the Second Council of Tours (567)
- Wikipedia: Old Style and New Style dates
- Wikipedia: Inter gravissimas
- Wikipedia: Edict of Roussillon
- Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 (legislation.gov.uk)
- ScotlandsPeople: dates, numbers and sums
- National Records of Scotland: change in calendar dates in the old parish registers
- Dictionary of the Scots Language: Hogmanay
Myths and later history
Figures
Islamic texts and rulings
Other communities
Quran
- Quran verses link to quran.com; English text is Sahih International.