The Thirteen Days of Dhul Hijjah: What Each One Asks of You at Home

Ask what to do in “the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah” and almost anywhere you ask will hand you the same list: fast, recite takbīr, don’t cut your hair or nails, pray ʿEid, sacrifice if you can, keep dhikr going. All of it is real. None of it, handed over as one undated list, tells you when. A reader who isn’t making the journey this year — no flight booked, no iḥrām packed — ends up trying to apply ten days’ worth of instructions to a single undifferentiated block, which is exactly how a fast meant for one specific day gets attempted on a day fasting is actually forbidden, or a rule meant only for the person paying for a sacrifice gets applied to an entire household.

This lays the same season out as a calendar instead of a list: thirteen entries, the first through the thirteenth of Dhul Hijjah, each one carrying only what a source actually assigns to it. Where the evidence supports nothing more specific than “somewhere in these ten days,” that is exactly what gets written here — not a date invented so the structure comes out tidy.

Before assigning anything to a date, it is worth seeing where “the ten days” and “the three days after” come from as fixed units at all. Al-Bukhārī opens his chapter on the virtue of deeds in these days with a citation from Ibn ʿAbbās, tying two separate Qurʾānic phrases to two separate stretches of the calendar:

بَابُ فَضْلِ الْعَمَلِ فِي أَيَّامِ التَّشْرِيقِ وَقَالَ ابْنُ عَبَّاسٍ: وَاذْكُرُوا اللهَ فِي أَيَّامٍ مَعْلُومَاتٍ: أَيَّامُ الْعَشْرِ، وَالْأَيَّامُ الْمَعْدُودَاتُ: أَيَّامُ التَّشْرِيقِ

Chapter: the virtue of deeds in the days of tashrīq. Ibn ʿAbbās said: “And remember Allah in days well known” — that is the ten days; and “the numbered days” — that is the days of tashrīq.

— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 2/20 of .

The two verses, each in full:

لِّيَشْهَدُوا۟ مَنَـٰفِعَ لَهُمْ وَيَذْكُرُوا۟ ٱسْمَ ٱللَّهِ فِىٓ أَيَّامٍ مَّعْلُومَـٰتٍ عَلَىٰ مَا رَزَقَهُم مِّنۢ بَهِيمَةِ ٱلْأَنْعَـٰمِ ۖ فَكُلُوا۟ مِنْهَا وَأَطْعِمُوا۟ ٱلْبَآئِسَ ٱلْفَقِيرَ

…that they may witness benefits for themselves and mention the name of Allah on known days over what He has provided for them of sacrificial animals. So eat of them and feed the miserable, the poor.

— Sūrat al-Ḥajj, 22:28

۞ وَٱذْكُرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ فِىٓ أَيَّامٍ مَّعْدُودَٰتٍ ۚ فَمَن تَعَجَّلَ فِى يَوْمَيْنِ فَلَآ إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ وَمَن تَأَخَّرَ فَلَآ إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ لِمَنِ ٱتَّقَىٰ ۗ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ

And remember Allah during days that are numbered. Whoever hurries on in two days — no sin on him; and whoever delays — no sin on him, for whoever is mindful of Allah. So be mindful of Allah, and know that to Him you will be gathered.

— Sūrat al-Baqarah, 2:203

The same chapter heading does not stop at naming. Immediately after Ibn ʿAbbās’s gloss, al-Bukhārī records — without a connected chain of his own — a habit of two of the Companions:

وَكَانَ ابْنُ عُمَرَ وَأَبُو هُرَيْرَةَ يَخْرُجَانِ إِلَى السُّوقِ فِي أَيَّامِ الْعَشْرِ يُكَبِّرَانِ وَيُكَبِّرُ النَّاسُ بِتَكْبِيرِهِمَا

Ibn ʿUmar and Abū Hurayrah would go out to the marketplace during the ten days reciting takbīr, and the people would take up the takbīr from theirs.

— Same page, printed 2/20 of . Al-Bukhārī presents this as a report without an isnād of his own attached to it in the heading — later scholars who trace it back describe it as connectable and sound, but the wording sitting in this chapter title carries no chain a reader can check on the spot.

The hadith the chapter heading is introducing sits on the very next leaf of the same printed page:

مَا الْعَمَلُ فِي أَيَّامِ الْعَشْرِ أَفْضَلَ مِنَ الْعَمَلِ فِي هَذِهِ. قَالُوا: وَلَا الْجِهَادُ؟ قَالَ: وَلَا الْجِهَادُ، إِلَّا رَجُلٌ خَرَجَ يُخَاطِرُ بِنَفْسِهِ وَمَالِهِ فَلَمْ يَرْجِعْ بِشَيْءٍ

No deed done in other days is better than a deed done in these. They asked, “Not even jihād in the way of Allah?” He said, “Not even jihād — except a man who went out risking his life and his wealth, and came back with none of it.”

— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 2/20 of , hadith 969, narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās.

That is the ground everything below stands on: ten days named by one verse, three more days named by another, and a single hadith setting a ceiling on how good any deed inside either stretch can be. Nothing here is a schedule yet — the schedule is what the rest of the sources supply, some of them tightly and some only loosely, and it matters which is which.

Everything above is general encouragement, open to anyone keeping these days. This next one is a specific instruction, and it begins the moment the ten days begin — not on the day of the sacrifice itself. Umm Salamah reports that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

إِذَا دَخَلَتِ الْعَشْرُ، وَأَرَادَ أَحَدُكُمْ أَنْ يُضَحِّيَ، فَلَا يَمَسَّ مِنْ شَعَرِهِ وَبَشَرِهِ شَيْئًا

When the ten days begin, and one of you intends to offer a sacrifice, let him not touch anything of his hair or his skin.

— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 3/1565 of , hadith 1977, narrated from Umm Salamah.

Al-Nawawī’s note on this page glosses “his hair or his skin” broadly: it covers trimming the nails by any method, and removing hair by cutting, shaving, plucking, or burning, from anywhere on the body — not the scalp alone. Whether the restriction is binding or merely disliked is itself a point the schools that hold it applies at all do not agree on: some treat it as obligatory on the person offering the sacrifice, others as recommended to avoid rather than forbidden outright. Either way, it concerns only the person actually paying for and offering the sacrifice, not everyone in the household observing these days, and it runs from the first of the ten until the sacrifice is made — not from the ninth, and not from the tenth.

The deeds already named above — dhikr, tahlīl, taḥmīd, takbīr — aren’t pinned to any single date; they are simply what “these ten days” in Ibn ʿAbbās’s naming was already describing, and they apply across the whole stretch, these first eight days included.

Fasting the first eight days is a different claim, and it is worth being exact about why. Every version of “the Prophet fasted the nine days of Dhul Hijjah” traces back to one narrator, Hunaydah ibn Khālid, reporting from his wife, who reports it from an unnamed wife of the Prophet. Read as Abū Dāwūd’s editors print it:

كان رسولُ الله يَصُوُم تسعَ ذي الحجة، ويَوْمَ عاشوراء، وثلاثةَ أيامٍ من كُلِّ شهرٍ…

The Messenger of Allah used to fast the nine days of Dhul Hijjah, the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, and three days of every month…

— Sunan Abī Dāwūd, printed page 4/101 of , hadith 2437, narrated from one of the Prophet’s wives.

This edition’s editors grade the report ḍaʿīf — weak — because the chain is unstable: Hunaydah is reported elsewhere naming Ḥafṣah as the source instead, and elsewhere again giving a shorter version through his mother from Umm Salamah. In the same note, they add that the general reward of fasting in these days is not in doubt — sounder, broader reports carry that — but that this specific wording, “he fasted nine,” is the part that does not hold together. Fasting some or all of the first eight days remains something many scholars still actively recommend on that wider ground. It just does not rest on the sound-chain evidence a claim that specific would need, and saying otherwise would misrepresent what the source itself says about its own report.

One day inside this stretch deserves a note of its own only because it is easy to assume otherwise: the eighth of Dhul Hijjah, the Day of Tarwiyah, is the day pilgrims travel from Makkah to Minā and enter iḥrām for Hajj. For a reader who isn’t making that journey this year, no source assigns any deed to the eighth over any other day in this block — it is one more day inside the general “throughout,” no more and no less. The date earns its name from pilgrims filling their water skins at Minā, not from anything asked of someone who has stayed in their own city.

Unlike the first eight days, the ninth has its own hadith, naming its own reward, on a chain none of the collections that carry it dispute. Abū Qatādah reports that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked how he fasted, and among what he answered was this:

صِيَامُ يَوْمِ عَرَفَةَ، أَحْتَسِبُ عَلَى اللَّهِ أَنْ يُكَفِّرَ السَّنَةَ الَّتِي قَبْلَهُ. وَالسَّنَةَ الَّتِي بَعْدَهُ

Fasting the Day of ʿArafah — I reckon upon Allah that it expiates the year before it and the year after it.

— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 2/818 of , hadith 1162, narrated from Abū Qatādah.

That promise is not for everyone alike, and it matters who it excludes. If you are the one actually standing at ʿArafah this year rather than reading this at home, it is not meant for you at all. Maymūnah, one of the Prophet’s wives, reports what happened when people at the standing itself began to wonder whether he was fasting:

إِنَّ النَّاسَ شَكُّوا فِي صِيَامِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ عَرَفَةَ. فَأَرْسَلَتْ إِلَيْهِ مَيْمُونَةُ بِحِلَابِ اللَّبَنِ. وَهُوَ وَاقِفٌ فِي الْمَوْقِفِ. فَشَرِبَ مِنْهُ. وَالنَّاسُ يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَيْهِ

The people had doubts about whether the Messenger of Allah was fasting on the Day of ʿArafah, so Maymūnah sent him a vessel of milk while he was standing at the place of standing, and he drank from it while the people watched.

— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 2/791 of , hadith 1124, narrated from Maymūnah. The chapter title Muslim gives this report says plainly: it is recommended for the pilgrim to break the fast on this day.

The distinction is the entire point of writing this from outside the pilgrimage. Two people can be marking the same date, and one of them is asked to fast while the other is shown, by the Prophet’s own example, not to. If you are reading this from your own city this year, the fast — and the reward attached to it — is yours to take. Whatever else this day promises the people actually standing there belongs to a different account than this one.

This is also, on the majority position, the day the restricted takbīr begins: recited once immediately after each obligatory prayer, rather than freely at any moment. Exactly when it starts and ends is one of the points the schools do not settle the same way — some tie the start to the dawn of this ninth day, others to the day of sacrifice itself — agreeing only that it runs at least through ʿaṣr of the thirteenth. Whichever start a reader follows, the unrestricted takbīr already named — recited walking to the market, at home, whenever it comes to mind — continues underneath it the whole time.

However this day reaches the pilgrims — the stoning, the sacrifice, the shaving of the head — one instruction on it reaches everyone equally, pilgrim and non-pilgrim alike, and it is a prohibition rather than an obligation. Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī reports:

نَهَى النَّبِيُّ عَنْ صَوْمِ يَوْمِ الْفِطْرِ وَالنَّحْرِ

The Prophet forbade fasting on the day of Fiṭr and the day of Naḥr.

— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 3/42 of , hadith 1991, narrated from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī.

If you kept the ninth’s fast, the tenth is the day it ends, and it ends by design rather than by accident. Past that boundary, this day’s remaining acts for a reader at home are the ʿEid prayer — on which the schools differ over whether attendance is obligatory or a strongly confirmed sunnah — and, for anyone who has arranged one, a sacrifice being carried out in their name, most likely somewhere they are not standing to watch. Both of those are substantial enough to deserve their own treatment rather than a paragraph borrowed here; what belongs in this calendar is only the line every reader shares regardless of where they stand: no fasting, on this day, whoever and wherever you are.

The fast forbidden on the tenth stays forbidden for three more days, and this time the sources give a reason instead of leaving it implicit. Nubayshah al-Hudhalī reports that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

أَيَّامُ التَّشْرِيقِ أَيَّامُ أَكْلٍ وَشُرْبٍ

The days of tashrīq are days of eating and drinking.

— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 2/800 of , hadith 1141, narrated from Nubayshah al-Hudhalī, under a chapter Muslim titles “the prohibition of fasting the days of tashrīq.”

Set this beside the naming from the opening section — the numbered days of Sūrat al-Baqarah are these three, and Ibn ʿAbbās’s gloss called them exactly that — and the ban stops looking incidental. The days a fast is forbidden on are the same days the Qurʾān names for remembrance rather than restraint. The takbīr that began no later than the ninth continues through all three: the majority position closes it after ʿaṣr on the thirteenth, which is also, fittingly, the last of these thirteen days as a whole.

Laid flat: the first eight days carry unlimited dhikr and a fast resting on weaker ground, plus one binding rule for anyone who has committed to a sacrifice, starting on day one. The ninth carries a fast with its own sound evidence — unless you are standing at ʿArafah, in which case the same evidence tells you not to fast. The tenth forbids fasting outright and hands the rite itself to people elsewhere. The eleventh through thirteenth forbid fasting again, for a stated reason, while the remembrance that was always the point of the whole season keeps going underneath it.

Thirteen days, and not one deed above was placed on a date because the structure needed filling. Where the sources gave a date, it is here. Where they gave only “throughout,” that is what is written, even though a tidier list would have been easier to make.

If anything here is wrong — a translation drifting from the Arabic, a grading stated that the source itself did not state, a day carrying more than its evidence actually supports — say so. Every citation above opens onto the printed page it came from precisely so that it can be checked, not taken on trust.

May Allah ﷻ accept whatever is offered across these thirteen days, wherever it is offered from, and forgive what has been claimed here beyond what the evidence can carry.