I am not an economist but "recession" is scary for me as it means a collective hard time, a time when one sees worrying faces become the dominant species and people with smiley faces go to the verge of extinction. It is Christmas season and also the biggest shopping season in Western world where usually sales go higher from 30 to 40% than other months of year. The end of shopping season is the beginning of new year so economists look to sale season as a determinant of a "good" or "bad" year for economy. Big sales will stimulate the economy in a new year and small sale will slow down economy in new year. So it is why Christmas became almost a corporate Christmas... Whether it is ethical or not, is another issue but Christmas is the biggest turnover in economy, that is a fact....
Muharram is the first month in Islamic calender and also the beginning of Ashora festivals that lasts almost 48 days but the peak days of festivals are from 1st to 10th Muharram. There is no study in overall impact of Muharram on economy of Muslim world but Geo TV made an interesting report on impact of Muharram on Pakistan's economy that was almost unbelievable for me at first glance..... According to this report Muharram festivals stimulate the economy with 125 billion Rupees that is almost equals 1/4th (22.1%) of country's annual budget (Pakistan federal budget for 2011-2012 is " 2767 billion" rupees. That seems the biggest turnover in the country's economy and works like that of Christmas season in the Western world...
According to Wikipedia, there are 30 million Shia Muslims which is 16.1% of total population (180 million). The size of economic turnover indicates a large participation of Sunni Muslims in Ashora festivals and that is a positive indicator of religious harmony between these two big sects of Islam at grass roots level which needs to be tighten in order to prevent country from sectarian chaos.
Of course some people do not like (It may be even offensive for some) to look at it economically and also there might be some people who think more individualistically to this large expenditure as somewhat waste of money (Perhaps they are thinking of other social aspects like education, health and so on). I am not discarding their points of views but by thinking in a bigger picture, the overall economy of country matters to all and affects everything from per person income to employment to social developments. If the economy of a country goes to recession then budget cuts, downsizing, flight of capital/investments and general tendency of people to limit their expenditure will shrink the size of smiley faces irrespective of their faith or ideologies...
I think, I have mentioned that it is going to be offensive to a lot of people to talk about any other aspect of Muharram except in religious aspect... I think, it is a noble position and I respect that but when it comes to social/economic studies whether academic or or non-academic people look at it from secular perspective because knowledge is secular in nature and it can't be tied to a culture or religion... No doubt there is no comparison between Muharram and Christmas as they are originated and celebrated for different causes...but having said that comparison of their economic impacts have no link with their original causes...
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