The Muslim faith is one of the largest faith groups in the world especially with it having many sub sects. The Muslim faith is built off 5 pillars of beliefs including fasting during Ramadan, praying 5 times each day, donating a certain percentage of your own wealth, professing one’s faith, and making a pilgrimage once to Mecca.  Outside of the 5 pillars Muslims believe that all the holy books sent by God to the prophets (ex: the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an) are true and all of the prophets as well from all three of the Abrahamic faiths are also all true. They also believe that Allah gave humans free will to decide to do good or bad and that eventually judgement will come on how everyone lived. 

Image from Pexels Photo by Mona Termos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-quran-beside-lighted-candle-3074209/

In the Muslim faith they believe in Allah who is God. Which is also where Muslim faith links into being one of the Abrahamic faiths with tracing their history back to Abraham . Though in the Muslim faith they believe in the last prophet being Muhammad. “There are two basic groups of Islam: the Sunnis (about 80% of the world’s Muslims) and the Shi’ites (about 20% of the world’s Muslims)”. These two sects agree on a majority of their beliefs aside from who was the leader of Islam after the death of Muhammad. 

Holidays for Muslim faiths Include:

Id ul-Fitr- end of Ramadan, visits to friends and family and gifts/cards are exchanged. Special feasts are held. 

Hajj- This is the pilgrimage to Mecca. Everyone dresses similarly to show how all are equal to Allah. They also follow many other symbolic acts such as walking to Mount Arafat where Muhammad gave his last sermon, and throwing stones at thee pillars which represent Satan.  

Id ul-Adha- Involves a sacrifice of a goat as a reminder of Abraham and how he was asked to sacrifice his son but was then told to sacrifice a goat instead in his son’s place. 

Id Ul-Ghadir- celebrated by the Shia as the anniversary of Muhammad’s message of his succession. 

Milad an-Nabi- Celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

Lailat al-Qadr- Celebration of when Muhammad first started hearing from Allah. 

Ramadan– A month in the Islamic Calander, a month were healthy adult Muslims fast from dawn until dusk ranging from 29 to 30 days.

From the research involved I have learned that the spellings of some of these holidays do vary from source to source such as from URI and Islamic Relief Canada. The holidays also will change days from year to year due to the Islamic calendar following a lunar calendar, there for unlike with the Christian holidays I will not be adding dates for these holidays due to the variation each year. 

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