Shawwal
10th month of the Islamic calendar
Shawwal (Arabic: شَوَّال, romanized: Shawwāl) is the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. It comes after Ramadan and before Dhu'l-Qa'da.
Shawwāl stems from the Arabic verb shāla (شَالَ), which means to 'lift or carry', generally to take or move things from one place to another.
Fasting during Shawwāl
The first day of Shawwāl is Eid al-Fitr; fasting is prohibited. Some Muslims observe six days of optional fasting during Shawwāl beginning the day after Eid al-Fitr since fasting is prohibited on this day. These six days of fasting together with the Ramadan fasts are equivalent to fasting all year round. The reasoning behind this tradition is that a good deed in Islam is rewarded 10 times, hence fasting 30 days during Ramadan and 6 days during Shawwāl is equivalent to fasting the whole year in fulfillment of this obligation.
The Shia scholars of the Ja'fari school do not place any emphasis on the six days being consecutive, while among the Sunnis, the majority of Shafi`i scholars consider it recommended to fast these days consecutively. They based this on a hadith related by Tabarani and others, wherein Muhammad is reported to have said, "Fasting six consecutive days after Eid al-Fitr is like fasting the entire year." Other traditional scholarly sources among the Hanafiyya and Hanbaliyya do not place an emphasis on consecutive days, while the strongest opinion of the Malikiyya prefers any six days of the month, consecutively or otherwise.
Timing
The Islamic calendar is a purely lunar calendar, and its months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted.
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