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Muslim Calendar System Introduction: the Muslim Calendar System Comprises 12 Months1, Inasmuch As the Gregorian Calendar Also Comprises 12 Months

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Muslim Calendar System Introduction: the Muslim Calendar System Comprises 12 Months1, Inasmuch As the Gregorian Calendar Also Comprises 12 Months Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem Muslim Calendar System Introduction: The Muslim calendar system comprises 12 months1, inasmuch as the Gregorian calendar also comprises 12 months. The names and meanings2 of each of the Muslim 12 months has been explained below. The comparative equivalents between the Muslim calendar and the Gregorian 3 calendar in dates is not consistent each year since the Gregorian calendar is solar based on a cycle of 365/366 days and the Muslim calendar is lunar-based on a cycle of 354 days. The variation is 11-12 days considering the different planetary cycles’ measures and of course the periodic leap year. The Muslim calendaring system commenced as 1st Muharram in year 622AD when Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) relocated his closest followers from Mecca to Medina and set up the first Islamic state. The Gregorian calendar is the basic calendar used in most of the world. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582. The Gregorian calendar was a reform of the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was the 365-day calendar that Julius Caesar made official in 46 BC. It replaced a calendar based on lunar cycles. The Julian calendar provided for a leap year with an extra day every four years. Thus, the Julian calendar included an average of 365.25 days each year. The motivation for the adjustment was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of year in which it was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. The idea behind the change was for all Christians to celebrate Easter altogether on the same day. In many majority Muslim practising countries, New Year is 1st Muharram (which is also called as Al-Hijra) and the last month of the Muslim year is called Zul-Hijjah. Muslims must understand their own calendar system and its history of development. 1 This period of 12 months accounts for the cyclic revolution of the earth around the sun, which takes exactly 365.2422 days. In the solar system of calendars (Gregorian), months comprise 31, 30 and 28 days. Leap year takes an extra day as 29th February of that year. 2 The Second Muslim Caliphate Omar Bin Al-Khattab was the person responsible, who had set the Islamic Hijri Calendar starting its first year from the Year of Hijri (the migration of Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from Mecca to Medina). Each Muslim month begins fairly closely to the new moon. 3 The Gregorian calendar has three fewer days in every 400-year period than the Julian calendar. The time it takes Earth to complete one solar orbit is about 365.2422 days. With 365 days per year plus a leap day every four years, the average length of a year of the Julian calendar, which is the reform to the old Roman calendar sanctioned by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, is 365.25 days. The sole purpose behind the Gregorian calendar was to align Easter globally. The date of Easter is always set for the first Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, which is the first full Moon of Spring, occurring on or shortly after the Spring Equinox. March 22 is the earliest Easter can occur on any given year, and April 25 is the latest. When Jesus Christ was crucified, those were the circumstances of the moon phases. 1 Discussions on Muslim Calendar System: 1) At the outset, it is important to present a table of Muslim Calendar months and the reasons of those months given those names. They are: No Name of Muslim Meaning of the Month Calendar Month (Arabic Names) 1. Al-Muharram A sacred month, so called because battle and all kinds of fighting are forbidden (ḥarām) during this month. Muharram includes Ashura, the tenth day. 2. Safar Supposedly named this because pre-Islamic Arab houses were empty this time of year while their occupants went out and gathered food. 3. Rabīʿ al-ʾAwwal Also means to graze, because cattle were grazed during this month. Also a very holy month of celebration for many Muslims, as it was the month the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born. 4. Rabīʿ ath-Thānī, This is the Spring season. 5. Jumādā al-ʾAwwal Often considered the pre-Islamic Summer season. 6. Jumādā ath-Thāniyah The second of parched land/the last of parched land season and reminds Arabs to prepare for searching for food. 7. Rajab This is the second sacred month in which fighting is forbidden (Prophet’s (pbuh) Miraj occurred this month). 8. Shaʿbān Marked the time of year when Arab tribes dispersed to find water. Another account relates that it was called thus because the month lies between Rajab and Ramadan. 9. Ramadan Supposedly so called because of high temperatures caused by the excessive heat of the sun. Ramaḍān is the most venerated month of the Hijri calendar. During this time, Muslims must fast from pre-dawn until after sunset and should give charity to the poor and needy. 10. Shawwal Female camels would normally be in calf at this time of year. At the first day of this month, the Eid al-Fitr, "Festival of Breaking the Fast" begins, remarking the end of fasting and the end of Ramadan. 11. Zul al-Qadah This is a holy month during which war is banned. People are allowed to defend themselves if attacked. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) performed his first Hajj to Mecca. 12. Zul Hijjah During this month Muslim pilgrims from all around the world congregate at Mecca to visit the Kaaba. The Hajj is performed on the eighth, ninth and the tenth days of this month. Eid ul-Adha, the "Festival of the Sacrifice", begins on the tenth day and ends on sunset of the twelfth, and this is a fourth holy month during which war is banned. 2) The two Eids (Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha) are high-key events, which are marked with significant historical backgrounds. Eid ul-Fitr is the end of the period of 29-30 days of daylight fasting throughout the month of Ramadan. Eid ul-Adha is the performance of pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, 2 which coincides with two other historical events regarding Prophet Abraham (as), his second wife (Hazra or Hagar) and first born son Ishmael. 3) This was upon Divine directive around 4400 years previously, when in the first part, Prophet Abraham (as) had relocated his 2nd wife (Hazra or Hagar) with her infant baby and his first child Ishmael to Arabia. He was directed to leave them on the desert sand near the ancient ruins of the Kaaba. Then in the second part and 12 years later, when Prophet Abraham (as) was again given Divine directive to return to Mecca and retrieve his second wife Hazra and first-born son Ishmael and reinstate them into his family home in Mesopotamia. He did just that. Later Prophet Abraham (as) was divinely inspired in a dream to sacrifice his first and only child Ishmael – (who was then 12-yers old). Prophet Abraham (as) spoke to Ishmael and Ishmael agreed to be sacrificed. 4) Of course Prophet Abraham (as) was stopped and divinely ordered not to sacrifice his son Ishmael but substitute with the best fattened lamb in the paddock close by. 5) 1st Muharram however, is a Muslim low-key event and does not involve people taking to the streets and partying, in celebrating the new year as is common with 1st January, in many other parts of the world. 6) On the contrary, Muslims generally get together and have a discourse on the event of 1st Muharram or Al-Hijra. However, it is an important event to look back at the previous 12 months and proactively plan towards becoming improved persons for the next 12 months and that pattern becomes a continuum for Muslims. 7) Muslims note the date 13th Rabi-al-Awwal in 622AD (as 1AH) 4 as the anniversary and also marvel and appreciate that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) broke away from his own tribe in spearhead-driving the spread of Islam as a religion; and the correct recognition of One Almighty God as the Supreme Power, Who created everything from nothingness. 4 The year of commencement of the Muslim calendar system, referred to as year + AH meaning After Hijri. This date is equivalent to 24th September in year 622AD. The Muslim calendar of 12 lunar months with their present so-called "Muslim" names was in use by Arabs before Islam. But it appears that they sometimes added some days to make the lunar year tally with the solar one, as Jews still do. This was changed in Islam to a purely lunar calendar. It was Hazrat Umar, during his caliphate, who decided to call the year of the Hijrah of the Holy Prophet as year 1. It was Hazrat ‘Uthman who decided that the first month of the year should be Muharram. In principle, the same calendar continued after Islam as existed among Arabs before Islam, except that it became purely lunar, and year 1 was fixed as the year of the Hijrah. 3 8) In this regard Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) preached that Almighty God created the Earth and rest of the universe in six periods of His time from nothingness. Almighty God’s word is His power and He only says “Be” and it is – just as He required: This is stated in the Holy Qur’an at HQ2:117 “Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth! And when He decrees an affair, He says to it only, Be, and it is.” 9) 1st Muharram is also significant as another anniversary, when the people of Medina took a quantum leap in conversion to Islam, from their past practices of all forms of idolatry.
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