When is Ashura 2026?

Ashura 2026 falls on the 10th of Muharram 1448 AH, expected around 26 June 2026. The countdown above confirms the date for you. Muharram is the first month of the Islamic year, so Ashura arrives early in the new Hijri year. Like every Islamic date, the exact day waits on the moon. The month of Muharram begins only when the new crescent is sighted at the end of Dhul Hijjah, so Ashura can land a day either side of the estimate depending on where you are.

That uncertainty is normal and worth planning around. If you intend to fast, keep an eye on your local sighting announcement in the last days of Dhul Hijjah rather than locking the date weeks ahead. The countdown updates itself once the month is confirmed.

What is Ashura?

Ashura is the tenth day of Muharram, and it carries weight for reasons that stretch back long before Islam itself. The word comes from ashara, the Arabic for ten.

Its central meaning in the Sunni tradition is tied to Prophet Musa (Moses). This is the day Allah saved Musa and the Children of Israel from Pharaoh, parting the sea so they could cross while Pharaoh’s army drowned behind them. When the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ came to Madinah, he found the Jewish community fasting on this day in gratitude for that rescue. He said the Muslims had more right to Musa than they did, and he fasted it and told his companions to fast it too.

So at its heart, Ashura is a day of gratitude and remembrance, a marker that Allah delivers the oppressed and that tyranny does not get the last word. That theme runs through everything the day stands for.

The virtue of fasting on Ashura

The reward attached to fasting Ashura is large for a single day. The Prophet ﷺ said that fasting it wipes away the sins of the previous year, as the hadith above records. One day of fasting, a year of minor sins forgiven. Few acts of worship offer that ratio.

It’s worth being clear about what this covers. Scholars explain that this expiation applies to minor sins. Major sins need sincere repentance (tawbah) in their own right. But that doesn’t shrink the value of the day, it’s an open door that the Prophet ﷺ pointed his community toward, and turning away from it would be a real loss.

Fasting on Ashura was actually obligatory for the early Muslims, before the fasting of Ramadan was prescribed. Once Ramadan became the obligatory fast, Ashura became voluntary, a Sunnah the Prophet ﷺ kept and encouraged, but not a duty. So no one carries the sin of missing it, yet anyone who fasts it gains from it.

How to fast on Ashura

Fasting Ashura works like any other fast. You make the intention beforehand, abstain from food, drink, and intimacy from Fajr to Maghrib, and break the fast at sunset. There’s no separate ritual, no special prayer attached to it. The fast itself is the act.

There’s one detail the Prophet ﷺ added near the end of his life. In his final years he said that if he lived to the next year, he would fast the 9th of Muharram as well, the day called Tasua. The reason was to be distinct from the practice of the Jewish community, who fasted only the 10th. From this, scholars draw the preferred pattern:

• Best: fast the 9th and the 10th of Muharram together.
• Also good: fast the 10th and the 11th, if you missed the 9th.
• Still valid: fast the 10th alone, which carries the reward described in the hadith.

If you can only manage one day, make it the 10th. If you can pair it, the 9th and 10th is the stronger Sunnah. Either way the door is open.

Ashura and the events at Karbala

Ashura holds a second, deeply solemn meaning, and it would be incomplete to leave it out. On the 10th of Muharram in the year 61 AH (680 CE), Imam Hussain ibn Ali (ra), the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ and the son of Ali and Fatima, was martyred at Karbala in present-day Iraq.

Hussain (ra) had refused to give allegiance to the Umayyad ruler Yazid, whom he saw as unjust. With a small group of family and companions, around 72 people, he was surrounded by a large army, cut off from water, and killed along with most of those with him. The event left a permanent mark on Muslim memory as a stand of principle against tyranny, a refusal to legitimise oppression even at the cost of one’s life.

For Shia Muslims, Ashura is above all a day of mourning for this martyrdom, observed with gatherings (majalis), elegies, and processions that recount the events of Karbala. For Sunni Muslims, the martyrdom of Hussain (ra) is mourned as a great tragedy and an injustice, while the day’s primary observance remains the fast connected to Musa. Both honour Hussain (ra); they differ in how the day is centred. The shared ground is real: the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ stood for justice and was killed for it, and that is grieved across the Muslim world.

What to do on the day

Beyond the fast, Ashura is a good day to lean into the worship that fits its spirit. That means extra Quran recitation, sincere duʿa, and charity to those in need, echoing the gratitude that the day is built on. Many families also use it to teach children the story of Musa and the meaning of standing firm against wrong.

A word of balance, since this is a day people sometimes overload with practices. The authentic core of Ashura is simple: fast, give thanks, and do good. Some customs that have grown around the day, particular foods, specific rituals, or treating it as a festival, don’t have a clear basis in the Sunnah, and scholars have long cautioned against adding to what was actually taught. Keeping it simple keeps it sincere.

Why Muharram matters

Ashura sits inside Muharram, one of the four sacred months in Islam, named in the Quran. The Prophet ﷺ called Muharram “the month of Allah” and said the best fasting after Ramadan is in it. So the whole month, not just the 10th, is a window for voluntary fasting and turning back to Allah.

It also opens the Islamic year. The Hijri calendar starts with the 1st of Muharram, so Ashura comes just ten days into the new year, a fitting early reminder of gratitude and resolve as the year begins. You can track the start of the year on our Islamic New Year countdown, and see which month it is right now on the Islamic month today page.