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Muharram: what Wikipedia removed

Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar and includes Ashura, the Shia mourning of Husayn ibn Ali’s death at Karbala. Through 2020 the opening said Shia Muslims “mourn the martyrdom of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and his family, honouring the martyrs by prayer and abstinence from joyous events.” Today’s opening says Shia Muslims “commemorate the death of Husayn ibn Ali,” who “was killed,” without the word, though it survives four times in the body. A reader today does not learn that Shia tradition itself calls Husayn’s death a martyrdom.

The word “martyr” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 4. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”
word20052010201520206 October 20232025
martyr001200

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

Section titled “What was taken out”
  • The etymology of the word muharram itself, dropped from the opening.
  • The description of the sacred month, reworded without changing its meaning.
  • The statement that Shia Muslims mourn Husayn’s martyrdom specifically, replaced with a description of his death.

How it opened then, and now

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2005 (revision 16292643):

Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar . Since the Islamic calendar is lunar, Muharram moves from year to year when compared to the Gregorian calendar . The first day of Muharram is often celebrated in Sunni Muslim countries as the Islamic new year, while it starts a ten-day mourning period, called the Festival of Muharram , for Shi’a Muslims. Template:Months in the Islamic calender v t e

2025 (revision 1297932673):

First month of the Islamic calendar This article is about the first month of the Islamic calendar . For the annual commemoration of Husayn ibn Ali , see Mourning of Muharram . Al-Muharram ( Arabic : ٱلْمُحَرَّم , romanized : al-Muḥarram ) is the first month of the Islamic calendar . It is one of the four sacred months of the year when warfare is banned. It precedes the month of Safar . The tenth of Muharram is known as Ashura , an important day of commemoration in Islam . For Sunni Muslims , the day marks the parting of the Red Sea by Moses and the salvation of the Israelites , celebrated through supererogatory fasting and other acceptable expressions of joy. By contrast, Ashura is a day of …

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