Calendar and Dates of Islamic Holidays

The Holy Quran (Al Hussainy Mohamed / CC-by)

Islam is a religion founded in the 7th century by Muhammad¹. Practitioners strive to follow the five pillars established in the Qur'an¹. While it is largely unclear when Islam first arrived in the country, there are approximately 3.3 million Muslims currently living in the United States². This accounts for only 1% of the population³. The US includes one of the most diverse Islamic populations worldwide⁴. Because of the large amounts of immigration from around the world, there are many various Muslim communities from different countries and schools of thought⁴. For the most part, they are fully integrated, middle-class citizens⁵. However, the terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001 by Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda has caused a shift in the political landscape with special attention toward Muslim groups⁵. For the most part, Muslims remain a small yet important group in the US⁵.

Muslims celebrate Islamic holidays in the US in the same way as they are observed throughout the world⁶. There is two official, major holidays and a few other holy days⁷. The significance of each holy day varies between individuals, families, and communities⁸. Besides Christmas, there are no public religious holidays, but there has been a push in recent years for public school systems to recognize Muslim holidays as they would with Catholic or Jewish holidays⁸.