| Calendar: | Islamic calendar |
| Num: | 10 |
| Days: | 29-30 (depends on actual observation of the moon's crescent) |
| Holidays: | Eid al-Fitr |
| Prev Month: | Ramadan |
| Next Month: | Dhu al-Qadah |
Shawwal (Arabic: شَوَّال|translit=Shawwāl) is the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. It comes after Ramadan and before Dhu al-Qa'da.
Shawwāl stems from the Arabic verb shāla (Arabic: شَالَ), which means to 'lift or carry',[1] generally to take or move things from one place to another. The month was so named because a female camel would normally be carrying a fetus at this time of year in pre-Islamic Arabia.
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 ul-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.[2]
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.
The Islamic calendar is a purely lunar calendar, and its months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, Shawwāl migrates throughout the seasons. The estimated start and end dates for Shawwāl, based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia, are:[3]
| AH | First day (CE/AD) | Last day (CE/AD) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1443 | 2 May 2022 | 30 May 2022 | |
| 1444 | 21 April 2023 | 20 May 2023 | |
| 1445 | 10 April 2024 | 8 May 2024 | |
| 1446 | 30 March 2025 | 28 April 2025 | |
| 1447 | 20 March 2026 | 17 April 2026 |