Muharram Trivia
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39 free Muharram trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Muharram opens the Islamic year, and one day in it, Ashura, carries two very different memories: Sunni Muslims keep it with fasting and gratitude, while Shia Muslims mourn Husayn ibn Ali and the events at Karbala in 680. These 39 questions move from the calendar itself, the sacred months and the Hijri new year, to the people and places of the Karbala story, the majlis and procession traditions of Iran, Iraq and South Asia, and the ways the month travelled to Turkey, Sumatra and the Caribbean. Every answer is checked against a cited source, and the questions describe Sunni and Shia observances as each community keeps them. Play on your phone, or print the set for a classroom or community quiz night.
30 of 39 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Scholars trace the Ashura fast to which Jewish holy day, kept on the tenth day of the month of Tishri?
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur falls on the tenth day of the first month of the Jewish year, just as Ashura falls on the tenth day of the first Islamic month, and the early Muslims of Medina took up the fast.
Q 02Muharram means 'forbidden'; what has been banned during this month since before Islam?
Warfare
Warfare is the thing forbidden, and Muharram was one of four sacred months of truce even before Islam. The Quran later banned the old Arab habit of shifting those months around the calendar.
Q 03Refusing allegiance to Yazid in 680, Husayn ibn Ali left Medina for which city, where he stayed until September?
Mecca
Mecca was where Husayn waited for four months while letters from Iraq urged him to come and lead them. He left the sanctuary city in September with a party of about fifty.
Q 04The Arba'in pilgrimage, often called the largest annual gathering on earth, brings millions to Karbala how many days after Ashura?
Forty
Forty days after Ashura is the Arba'in, and most of the pilgrims reach Karbala on foot. Commemorating the dead on the fortieth day is an old Islamic custom.
Q 05On the last day of Trinidad's Hosay, what happens to the tadjah model tombs paraded through St James to tassa drumming?
Thrown into the sea
Thrown into the sea at sunset is how the tadjahs end the observance, which indentured labourers brought to Trinidad in the nineteenth century. The paper-and-tinsel tombs are rebuilt from scratch every year.
Q 06Aşure, a grain-and-fruit pudding cooked in Turkey during Muharram, is nicknamed after which prophet?
Noah
Noah's pudding is the nickname, from a tale that his family cooked the last grains, dried fruit and nuts aboard the Ark once it came to rest. In Turkey and the Balkans the pot is shared with neighbours of any faith.
Q 07Which month follows Muharram in the Islamic calendar?
Safar
Safar is the second month of the Islamic year, and for many Shia the mourning that begins in Muharram runs on through it, so the season of grief lasts two months.
Q 08Ramadan is not among Islam's four sacred months: three fall together around the pilgrimage, and which one stands alone?
Rajab
Rajab is the seventh month, set apart from Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram. A hadith calls it 'Rajab of Mudar', which Ibn Kathir read as backing that tribe against a rival that put Rajab where Ramadan now falls.
Q 09In Morocco and the wider Maghreb, Sunni Ashura customs include almsgiving, special dishes and jumping over what?
Bonfires
Bonfires are leapt over and carnivals fill the streets: Maghrebi Ashura is a festive day, far from the mourning kept on the same date in Karbala. Many families also honour their dead then.
Q 10Tasu'a, the eve of Ashura, is given in Iran to passion plays about which standard-bearer of Husayn?
Abbas ibn Ali
Abbas ibn Ali, Husayn's half-brother, is said in most traditions to have been killed fetching water from the Euphrates for the thirsting camp, and he is honoured as its water-carrier too.
Q 11In Sunni practice, what status does the Ashura fast hold?
Voluntary
Voluntary: the Ashura fast was the one Muslims were told to keep in Medina until the Ramadan fast replaced it about a year later, and Sunni jurists still recommend it, usually with the day before.
Q 12By one Shia tradition, the earliest mourning gathering for Karbala was held by bereaved women captive in which city?
Damascus
Damascus, the Umayyad capital, is where the captives are said to have recounted the tragedy and wept together, the model for every later majlis. Another account places that first gathering at Karbala itself.
Q 13The first public Karbala processions filled the streets of tenth-century Baghdad under the patronage of which Shia dynasty?
Buyids
Q 21Which Umayyad governor of Kufa sent Umar ibn Sa'd's army to Karbala and ordered the Euphrates closed to Husayn's camp?
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad ran Kufa for Yazid and had already crushed the city's pro-Husayn movement before the caravan arrived.
Q 22Al-Hurr ibn Yazid, whose thousand riders had intercepted Husayn's caravan near Kufa, did what on the morning of Ashura?
Changed sides
Hurr changed sides that morning and was killed fighting for Husayn. Only days earlier his riders had forced the caravan to camp in open desert, away from water.
Q 23Which sister of Husayn, taken captive after Karbala, is remembered for denouncing the caliph Yazid to his face?
Zaynab
The Buyids, Shia emirs who held Baghdad while the Abbasid caliphs reigned in name, had Ashura declared a day of public mourning: markets closed and shops were draped in black.
Q 14Iran's first husayniyyas, halls built to host Muharram mourning gatherings, date from the era of which dynasty?
Safavids
The Safavids made Twelver Shiism Iran's official religion, and under them the yearly gatherings for Husayn moved into halls built for the purpose. No such buildings are recorded in Iran before their time.
Q 15A husayniyya is an imambara in South Asia and a takyeh in Iran; what is it called in Bahrain and the Gulf?
Ma'tam
Ma'tam is the Gulf word, used in Bahrain, the UAE and neighbouring states for the same mourning hall. Iraqi Shia only began building husayniyyas in numbers in the later nineteenth century.
Q 16Ta'ziyeh, the Iranian passion play staged during Muharram, takes its name from an Arabic word meaning what?
Condolence
Condolence is the root sense, from the Arabic verb to console, and in Iran the word came to mean the staged re-enactment itself. In South Asia and the Caribbean the same word names a model tomb instead.
Q 17In Yazd, a huge cypress-shaped wooden frame is carried on Ashura in the nakhl-gardani ritual; what does it represent?
A coffin
A coffin is what the nakhl stands for, Husayn's bier, and the largest need several hundred men to lift. It is named for the date palm, though its lattice looks more like a cypress.
Q 18Banned under Saddam Hussein, the Arba'in walk to Karbala revived in 2003; its most popular route starts in which city?
Najaf
Najaf, where Ali is buried, lies about 80 km from Karbala, a walk of some three days. Along the road, local people put up tents offering pilgrims free food, water and a place to sleep.
Q 19Which son of Husayn ibn Ali survived Karbala because he was too ill to fight, later becoming the fourth Shia Imam?
Ali al-Sajjad
Ali al-Sajjad, also called Zayn al-Abidin, was spared after the battle, and his supplications are still read as al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya. His aunt is said to have shielded him from execution in Kufa.
Q 20The Tawwabin, Kufan supporters of Husayn who rose against the Umayyads in 685, bore a name meaning what?
The Penitents
The Penitents, led by Sulayman ibn Surad, were the Kufans who had invited Husayn and then left him to die. They sought to atone by marching against the Umayyads, and fell at Ayn al-Warda in January 685.
Zaynab spoke out at Kufa and again in the caliph's own court, and is said to have saved her sick nephew, the next Imam, by offering to be killed first.
Q 24Which elder brother of Husayn gave up the caliphate to Mu'awiya in 661, nineteen years before Karbala?
Hasan ibn Ali
Hasan ibn Ali was caliph for only a few months before he made peace with Mu'awiya and stepped aside. It was the succession of Mu'awiya's son Yazid that his brother Husayn later refused to accept.
Q 25Husayn's head, by Fatimid tradition, was carried in 1153 from Ashkelon to which city, ahead of the advancing Crusaders?
Cairo
Cairo's al-Hussein Mosque, beside the city's great bazaar, still holds the shrine where the head is said to rest. Ashkelon had kept it for roughly 250 years.
Q 26Which companion is credited with proposing, when the Hijri era was fixed in 17 AH, that the year open with Muharram?
Uthman
Uthman, by tradition, made the successful proposal, keeping the order of months Muhammad had already used, even though the Hijra itself fell two months later in the year. A complaint from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari had prompted the reform.
Q 27Because the Hijri year is purely lunar, Muharram drifts through all four seasons and back in about how many years?
33
33 solar years is about how long the lunar months take to slip right round the seasons, so a Muharram in midsummer falls in midwinter some 16 years later. No leap month exists to hold it in place.
Q 28The Quranic ban on nasi', the pre-Islamic shuffling of sacred months, was proclaimed by Muhammad on which occasion?
The Farewell Sermon
The Farewell Sermon, given on Mount Arafat on 9 Dhu al-Hijjah 10 AH, declared the postponing of months an increase in disbelief, ending a practice that could shift a truce month to suit a campaign.
Q 29Which community in Turkey keeps a twelve-day mourning fast in Muharram?
Alevis
Alevis fast through the first twelve days of Muharram in mourning for Husayn, then break the fast with aşure, a pudding they traditionally make from twelve ingredients and share with neighbours.
Q 30Which cousin did Husayn ibn Ali send ahead to Kufa to test the city's promised support before his own journey?
Muslim ibn Aqil
Muslim ibn Aqil's following melted away under the new governor's crackdown, and he was forced to declare the revolt early. He was executed, and Husayn learned of it only when he was already on the road.