Towards An Islamic Lunisolar Calendar

The Calendar was invented in ancient times to allow nations to pace their economic and social activities with climatic seasons. Throughout the history of civilizations, much depended on organizing and administering an accurate calendar. Hunter-gatherers needed the calendar to predict the migrations of herds of wild animals. As humanity advanced, farming communities required calendars to predict the coming of rain or the time of the flooding of rivers. Traders and seafaring communities needed to map the best time of the year to tackle the dangers of seas when sailing far from home. In contemporary times of globalization, calendars have become even more critical in optimizing the complex supply chains of local and global production cycles. Oral traditions ascertain that the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula used a rudimentary lunisolar calendar, called in the literature the “Arabian Calendar.” Like with all nations, the lunisolar Arabian Calendar helped the Arabs organize their meager resources in the best ways possible. For example, research showed that the Ḥajj season and its pan-Arabian markets were scheduled to coincide with the date harvesting season peaking from July to September. The abundance of the date harvest available in this period, along with assigning the concept of inviolability to the Arabian months spanning this season, allowed them to travel across Arabia to Mecca to trade in the pan-Arabian markets and to participate in the religious rituals of their pilgrimage (the Ḥajj). It is asserted in this book that Prophet Muḥammad followed the lunisolar Arabian Calendar all his life. At the end of the tenth year after he migrated from Mecca to Medīna, and during his Farewell Pilgrimage, the Qurʾān sternly abolished the process of intercalation, i.e., the Nasīʾ, the very process which allowed the Arabs to organize their various economic and religious activities. When Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb initiated the Hijri Calendar seven years after Prophet Muḥammad death, i.e., in 17 AH, he founded it as “purely lunar,” which meant its months were allowed to float within the solar year. Caliph ʿUmar is famous for his zeal in protecting the fundamental Islamic principle of monotheism. This, I show, was the reason for introducing the Hijri Calendar as purely lunar, because “Nasīʾ,” i.e., Quraysh’s method of intercalation was hopelessly entangled with the polytheistic religion of Quraysh, the Prophet’s tribe, and the guardian of the holy places in Mecca and its environs. The harmful effects of following the purely lunar Hijri Calendar were realized from early on. But the prohibition of Nasīʾ inhibited the early Islamic caliphs from reforming the Hijri Calendar. This book explores the history of the Arabian Calendar and its intimate connection with the Hijri Calendar. The main findings of this book are as follows: 1- The main Ḥajj shrines in Macca are aligned in the direction of sunrises and sunsets of the Summer Solstice day. 2- Quraysh intercalated its Arabian Calendar by forcing the Summer Solstice (SS) Day to occur within the 11th month of the Arabian Calendar, Shawwāl. The Nasīʾ month was added when the onset of the SS was about to transfer to into the 11th month Dhū’l Qaʿda. 3- The onset of the SS day was determined through the sunset alignment along the line joining the posts of “al-Wosṭā and al-ʿAqaba Jamarāt, and also by observing the sun rising from behind the peak of mount Thabīr from the location of the sacrificial altar of pre-Islamic Mina. 4- The Prophet arrived in his migration from Mecca to Medīna on the Days of ʿĀshūrāʾ which corresponded to the dates of 8th of Rabīʿ-I, the 10th of the Hebrew month Tishri, and to the 23rd of September 632. 5- The epoch of the Hijri Calendar must be adjusted back by two days from the epoch used so far. 6- The Farewell Pilgrimage occurred in autumn on September 4, 632 CE, not in spring on March 11, 632 CE.

This book shows that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ used and taught a lunisolar calendar in which the month of Ramadan always contained the southward equinox and the Hajj was always at the winter solstice. The evidence for this comes from the Holy Qur'an, the hadith and the sirah. The strictly lunar calendar currently in use, with months that drift through the seasons, was instituted during the time of the second caliph 'Umar ibn al-Khattab. The nasi' of verse 9:37 in the Qur'an referred not to a postponed month, but to the head of the supreme rabbinical council who controlled the starts of months and years in the Jewish calendar. The book describes the well-known synchronization of the lunar and solar cycles every nineteen years, while also explaining for the first time how a tabular calendar like the Jewish calendar gradually goes out of season by omitting necessary shifts in the order of leap years every 341 years on average. The book features: - primary source passages in Arabic and Hebrew with English translation - a table with Julian dates of major events in the Prophet's life - lunar month tables for the present day and during Muhammad's prophethood - an enumerated list of Qur'an verses containing the words yaum (day), shahr (month) and sanah (year), indicating the Qur'an's numerological endorsement of the lunisolar calendar - illustrations of the 19-year cycle and the celestial year-clock - diagram showing leap-year shifts over a period of 6479 years - a proposal for keeping the slowly drifting Jewish calendar in season from now on - glossary of relevant calendrical and Islamic terms - bibliography - indexes of Qur'an verses cited and of personal names mentioned

The fullest account ever written of the fascinating nexus between Islam and Time, this is a major contribution to the wider history of ideas and religion. Night and day, and the twelve lunar months of the year, are'appointed times for the believing people'. Reading the sky for the prayers of the hour has thus for Muslims been a constant reminder of God's providence and power. In her absorbing and illuminating new book, the late Barbara Freyer Stowasser examines the various ways in which Islam has structured, ordered and measured Time. Drawing on examples from Judaism and Christianity, as well as the ancient world, the author shows that while systems of time facilitate the orderly function of vastly different civilizations, in Islam they have always been fundamental. Among other topics, she discusses the Muslim lunar calendar; the rise of the science of astronomy; the remarkable career of al-Biruni, greatest authority in Muslim perceptions of Time; and the impact of technologies like the astrolabe, Indian numerals and paper. The fullest account ever written of the fascinating nexus between Islam and Time, this is a major contribution to the wider history of ideas and religion.

It has been said that "a modern arrogance has blocked our access to the history of the Muslim calendar in Southeast Asia". Without at least the outlines of that history, we simply do not understand the basis of dates found in Malay sources. Also, without a history of Malay calendars we are denied an understanding of the context from which the Javanese Muslim calendar arose. This volume, the result of combining empirical evidence with a sound understanding of the structural requirements of calendar-making, and of the mechanisms through which these needs could be met, for the first time explains how these old octaval calendars actually worked. It traces the history of Muslim calendars in Southeast Asia, and attempts to put them into their historical and cultural context. Understanding the old calendars will at last throw light on a number of essential aspects of older Malay science and culture. An accompanying interactive CD-ROM presents the reader with a tool for converting Malay and Javanese dates, with access to the range of variant calendars.

The prophet Muhammad and the early Islamic community radically redefined the concept of time that they had inherited from earlier religions' beliefs and practices. This new temporal system, based on a lunar calendar and era, was complex and required sophistication and accuracy. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, it was the Muslim astronomers of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires who were responsible for the major advances in mathematics, astronomy and astrology. This fascinating study compares the Islamic concept of time, and its historical and cultural significance, across these three great empires. Each empire, while mindful of earlier models, created a new temporal system, fashioning a new solar calendar and era and a new round of rituals and ceremonies from the cultural resources at hand. This book contributes to our understanding of the Muslim temporal system and our appreciation of the influence of Islamic science on the Western world.