Organizing Systems of a Calendar

Introduction

Despite having access to detailed astronomical data on the upcoming and future dates of the new moon and phases of the moon, up to the exact date and time, the Hijra Calendar has been the subject of uncertainty and inconsistency every year. Every year, Muslim nations from Indonesia to Morocco were unable to come to an agreement regarding religious holidays due to an antiquated moon sighting custom known as the falaq, which has been a subject of debate every year.

 

On the advice of their own clerics, Muslim nations separately determined when to mark holidays such as Eid al-Fitr and Ramadan. But when it came time to celebrate the Hajj, their choices amazingly aligned with the directive from Saudi Arabia. This highlights a problem with the calendar: it doesn't have a standard foundation that all Muslim countries can agree upon. 

 

Muslims who are living abroad or migrated to other countries are still divided and rely on religious laws from their home countries in order to observe Ramadan or Eid. 

The sectarian issue has spread its role in dividing the Muslims further, in this prolonged dispute as every Muslim nations tried to imposed an Arabic calendar into their native land.

 

The use of modern scientific methods with detailed astronomical data had not resolved this annual riddle as clerics insist on traditions or antiquated methods of celestial observation. As Muslim communities all over the world hijacked what was initially an Arabic Calendar, as Islamic, the discrepancies will not end for another 1400 year if no effort is made to standardize the calendar like the current internationally accepted Gregorian calendar.

Phases of the Moon – new moon is when the position of the moon is in conjunction with the Earth and the sun ( all three are in a straight line )

Unpacking the Hijra Calendar.

This blog post aims to dissect, examine, and challenge the mandate that has been imposed by this calendar for many centuries. The validity of the calendar will be a subject of concern for those who are aware of Allah. The clerics on the other hand, do not appear to be mindful of the problems or issues associated with the annual discrepancies.

 

The Hijra's problems right now aren't just ones with global synchronization; they have become impractical in performing its primary duty of telling time. The Gregorian calendar had to be consulted each time the Hijra month was mentioned in order for us to make sense when a particular date falls within the year. The Hijra calendar's months have evolved into arbitrary religious dates that have nothing to do with real-world occurrences. 

The History of Time

We must comprehend time in its entirety, not just in the context of the present.

The universe must be at least 13 billion years old, according to modern science, rendering the thousands of years of human civilization irrelevant and unimportant in the eyes of the universe's creator in determining which days or months are sacred or religious.

Our Solar System

To put things in perspective, even though there is night and day here on Earth, there is no such thing in the sun itself. Day and night is irrelevant beyond our skies.  The astronauts on the ISS that orbit the earth every 90 minutes can testify on this.

 

The day on Mars, known as a sol, lasted 37 minutes longer than the day here on Earth. On Mars, a year lasts for 687 days. If we perceive religion a something universal, will a holy site on Mars matters to God? Will there be a religious calendar to mark the blessed months or days when human settlement on Mars began? Or do they have to return to Earth to perform the annual Hajj?

Celestial Incidents

Many religious events were based on celestial incidents, but no one really ask what really happened to the celestial bodies, religiously? 

 

A new moon to mark the arrival of Ramadhan on Earth, is a non-event on the moon itself.  There is nothing auspicious happening on the moon. But on planet Earth, we can hear clerics stating many great things will happen in a particular months, or night or time of the day.  How true are these claims. Is God subscribing to these manmade calendars to grant His blessings or rewards? So who decided on this? 

Empirical Analysis

Organizing Systems of a Calendar

Before we explore further how the lunisolar calendar during Muhammad’s time was later turned into a purely lunar calendar, we should ponder on how the format of the days in a week had evolved. If we read the history of days and weeks, we know that human civilizations in the past experimented with various formats of days, weeks, months, and years. As civilizations evolved, they made improvements and corrections as they obtained a better understanding of the cosmos and the scheme of things.  

Ancient cultures had observed the Equinoxes and Solstices to determine the annual cycles and seasons.

Year

As far as the term year is concerned, it can only be determined by the earth's orbit around the sun. This can be observed generally in the sun's apparent position as the earth orbits around it, and the changing of seasons complete their full cycle. To be precise, we can observe this through the equinox and solstice phenomena, which mark the changing point of daylight hours, apart from the physical climate conditions of the season itself. 

 

Observable Solstice

June 21st marks the Summer/June Solstice, where the northern hemisphere receives the longest daylight hours. December 21st marks the Winter/December Solstice, where the northern hemisphere receives the shortest daylight hours. March and September Equinox are midpoints between the two solstices and also mark the changing of seasons, spring and autumn, respectively, for the northern hemisphere. 

 

We might wonder why the months' beginnings, or even the start of the year, were not set on these dates to mark the winter solstice, for example. It would have been meaningful or eventful, for instance, to set December 31 or January 1 to fall on the Winter Solstice day. But those in authority over the calendar have decided to fix it in a particular day based on the beliefs under the Roman Empire. 

Analemma – The Sun position of the same throughout the year, also marking the changing of seasons.

Months

Over the centuries, civilizations around the world observed the sun and the moon to measure time and developed their own calendars. The sun and the moon were two celestial references commonly used as the basis of an annual calendar. 

 

Most ancient calendars were lunar based, but the 12 lunar moon cycles were shorter by 10 or 11 days than the solar calendar. Civilizations initially used the lunisolar calendar to mark their year. Over centuries of observations, the Romans rationalized the calendar and developed 12 fixed months that are independent of the lunar cycle.  The year cycle became regular, predictable and practical based on the 30 / 31 day month.

 

Some cultures or religions still maintain the lunisolar for religious and cultural purposes. The moon, for example, symbolized certain things according to certain beliefs. A lot of pagan cultures or religions made reference to the moon, especially when the full moon played an important part in ancient cultures before the invention of electricity

Weeks

Ancient civilizations experimented with many configurations of counting days. The Romans used to observe an eight-day week. Judaism had been using the 7-day week, independent of the moon phases, since the 6th century BCE. The 7-day-week cycle was probably developed from the 4 moon phases, each taking approximately 7.4 days, and the complete lunar cycle in 29.53 days. 

 

Of course, the calendar weeks cannot match the phases of the moon diligently, but that is how we measure each phase of the moon as a week’s old. Both the Arabic and Gregorian weeks have a 7-day week. We know from history that ancient civilizations experimented with and developed various formats of timekeeping and counting days. All finally arrived at a 7-day-week system, which became widespread under the Roman Empire and the Christian domain. 

 

And the fixing of the days was definitely arbitrary. The Arabic seven days were obviously adapted from the Christian weekdays, which means they were similarly arbitrary and not determined by the Lord of the Universe. The Lord of the Universe did not hand this out to the Christians, the Jews, or the Muslims to follow. 

Days

By now, we can be sure that the names of the days, or how they were chosen to have particular names, were all fixed at some random point in time. We cannot say Monday or Sunday began at the beginning of time during the creation of the universe. So it is up to any civilization to fix its starting day for their calendar.  

 

The days of our calendar were based from the calendar we inherit from the Roman Empire.  The Romans determined the days and months over their empire which also covered the Arab regions. So the Arabic day were very much in tandem with the Roman calendar.

 

We also understand that each particular day cannot relate to something peculiar to the celestial bodies. There is nothing peculiar about Friday in that we can identify the characteristics of the day without referring to the calendar. Hypothetically, if we lost the calendar and all humans were unconscious for weeks or months, there is no way we could identify or distinguish such a day whether it is Friday or Sunday simply by observing our surroundings or the celestial bodies. 

 

The position of the days was based on an arbitrary point in time, and we do not know when first day was determined. It cannot be the birth date of Adam or Jesus. So there was not a reference point in time that we can determine its starting time, or a time sanctioned by God.

 

We can, however, identify the days of solstices and equinoxes based on earthly observation in relation to the sun. But there is nothing religious about these days. Historically, these days may have special significance for some pagan beliefs that may be connected to the worship of the sun. Thus, the days of the solstices and equinoxes can fall on any day of the week, year-round, from Monday to Sunday. 

 

This indicates that the seven days were merely a convenient unit of time.  Like a measuring ruler. Every day of the week is just an arbitrary sequence, unlike the solstice, which can be identified by the earth's orbital position in relation to the sun. 

 

We can therefore conclude that there is no basis at all for the notion that a specific or particular day (Monday through Sunday) is holy or blessed. So to support the idea of a particular day as holy is simply difficult based on a system that was developed by human. Unless the religion worships the sun or moon, it is possible to determine its own holy days based on the celestial position of the sun or moon. 

 

The Equinox and Solstice are both observable, and this was evident in many pagan structures or temples, such as the Stone Henge or the Egyptian temples. 

Stone Henge Solstice

Egyptian Sun Worship - Aton

	Name	Arabic	Meaning	Engish Equivalent	All the days in the week were simply arbitrary. No evident to prove that such days are holier than the other.
1	al-ʾAḥad	ٱلْأَحَد‎	the One	Sunday
2	al-Ithnayn	الاِثْنَيْن	the Second	Monday
3	ath-Thulāthā	ٱلثُّلَاثَاء‎	the Third	Tuesday
4	al-ʾArbiʿāʾ	ٱلْأَرْبِعَاء‎	the Fourth	Wednesday
5	al-Khamīs	ٱلْخَمِيس‎	the Fifth	Thursday
6	al-Jumʿah	ٱلْجُمْعَة‎	the Gathering	Friday
7	as-Sabt	ٱلسَّبْت‎	the Rest	Saturday

Naming of Days in Arabic were based on numeral sequence.

Types of Calendar

Pre-Islamic Calendars

Prophet Muhammad SAW had no knowledge of the current Hijra calendar. The Prophet did not start or introduce a new calendar. The Hijra calendar was developed during the times of Umar, years after the death of the Prophet. We can make a guess as to which calendar Prophet Muhammad followed based on the historical context of the communities around Makkah. 

 

There were three prevailing calendars used during his lifetime. 

i.	The Julian Christian Calendar (Solar) The Levant and surrounding Arab peninsular was under the influence of the Eastern Rome Empire, known as the Byzantine.  The administration of the region was obviously observing the empire’s calendar although local communities still follow their own calendar for religious purposes.
ii.	The Jewish Calendar (Lunisolar) The Jewish community were already widespread around the Arab lands and some of them had converted into Christianity just like Waraqah ibn Naufal. They were part of the Arab communities.
iii.	The Arab Jahili Calendar (Lunisolar) This was the basis of the Hijra calendar with Arabic names designated to the corresponding seasons and was still in use up to 11AH until Caliph Umar decided to rebrand the calendar as Islamic. Al-Biruni believed that this calendar was in used by the pre-Islamic Arabs for at least 200 years before Islam.

All these three calendars were practical and relate to the annual seasons, like the present Gregorian calendar, which was solar-based. 

Jewish Lunisolar Calendar correlates with annual seasons

Solar Calendar

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII, was developed with corrections to replace the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was configured during the reign of Julius Caesar in 46 BC, also as a replacement for the previous Roman calendar. The Gregorian calendar, being solar-based, had been proven to be practical and reliable, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the calendar had been widely accepted by all nations as the World Calendar as proposed in 1930, along with the International Date Line and the Standard Time. 

 

The Gregorian calendar was practical and predictable.  The fixed seasonal cycle can be determined throughout the year, that gives us summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Even the Arabs were using it. If the Arabs used the lunar calendar to record their age, their age would be a few years older than people from the rest of the world. 

 

Apart from the four seasons, the Gregorian calendar has been a reliable tool to determine many other seasons that repeat every year, such as monsoon or hurricane season, fruit and crop harvesting, the sailing of ships through trade winds, animal migration, and many other seasonal human activities. 

Lunisolar Calendar

Ancient Sumerian Lunisolar Calendar Chart

The lunisolar calendar follows the moon phases but is adjusted with intercalation to enable the named months to stay in the seasons they were named after. The moon phase was one of the ancient ways to mark and count the days into weeks and months. And the lunar cycle of the moon had been consistent, completing its phases in 29.5 days. 

 

It was adopted because it can be observed easily, and the phases represent equally in counted days. This was how the seven-day week was developed based on the number of days for each of the moon phases. This was not something that the Muslim Arabs invented but was already practiced by the Romans and later adopted by other religions and cultures.  

 

In comparison with the Gregorian calendar, the twelve months of the lunar calendar are shorter than the solar calendar by 10 or 11 days. So in order to ensure the lunar months stay in season, an intercalation month was introduced to correct the annual cycle so that the months were still within the right season. The Sumerians were probably the earliest civilization to develop the lunisolar calendar alongside the Hindu and Chinese calendars since the first millennium BC. 

 

It is not difficult to see the practicality of the lunisolar calendar being used in many ancient nations as the system related well to the annual seasons, weather, and various cycles of human activities. 

List of known Lunisolar calendar
Babylonian calendar Bengali calendar Chinese calendar Chula Sakarat Egyptian calendar Gaulish calendar Hebrew calendar	Hindu calendar Inca Empire Jain calendar Japanese calendar An Muisca calendar cient Macedonian calendar Nisga'a	Old Eastern Ojibwe calendar Burmese calendar Odia calendar Thai calendar Tibetan calendar Umma calendar Vikram Samvat

The Chinese Lunisolar Calendar

The Chinese New Year always falls between January and February to mark the end of winter and the beginning of the Spring Festival. The Chinese had been using the lunisolar calendar reliably for over two thousand years to mark their annual events and seasonal activities, such as trading shipments and harvesting. 

 

The Chinese calendar would be useless if it had remained purely lunar, like the Hijra calendar. If the Chinese calendar remained purely lunar, without intercalation, their celebration of the spring festival will only fall within the right season every 30 years or so. So the intercalation of their lunar months helps the Chinese celebrate spring. 

 

Also to note is that the Chinese and the Arabs have had trade relations by land and sea since the 7th century of the First Caliphate. Not to forget the ancient Silk Road across the continents that links China, Central Asia, Europe, and Africa. Whether they travel by caravans or sail the oceans, the solar or lunisolar calendar plays an important role in determining the time to travel or the arrivals of merchants. 

 

The timings of harvesting and weather seasons were all linked to the annual cycle, year after year. Even the pilgrimages of various ancient religions were still based on annual seasons, which can only be observed using the lunisolar calendar. 

Cherry Blossom Festival in early Spring, Shanghai, China

Intercalation of Lunisolar Calendar

Ancient communities lived their lives through the seasons, and it is only logical to identify the times of the season as they repeat the following year. So the concept of a month was something that had been developed based on observation of the moon in relation to the annual solar cycle. So months were named according to the season. 

 

If a certain month was mentioned in Pre-Islamic Arabia, one would know its time and expectations. When the month of pilgrimage is mentioned, one would know it would be during the cool winter season. And when Rabiul Awal is mentioned, the Arabs would know it was the early spring month. 

 

In western countries, the summer months are associated with long holidays. In Southeast Asia, December is expected to be a very wet month with heavy rain and potential flooding.  And we know this because the Gregorian calendar uses the solar format. 

 

A lunisolar calendar that retained the annual solar cycle to keep its lunar months in season had proven its practicality, perhaps not as efficient or precise as the solar calendar. But over time, communities and countries began to adopt the proven and practical Gregorian calendar over their lunar or lunisolar calendars. 

 

In order for the ancients to correlate the lunar months with the solar annual cycle, an intercalated month is usually inserted as a 13th month every few years to make the corrections. 

 

The present Hijra calendar would be useless in this respect, and for this reason, we question what calendar Prophet Muhammad did use during his lifetime, especially as a merchant who deals with other merchants from other regions. 

 

Even the solar calendar has its own intercalation, as the annual cycle is 365.2425 days. So an additional day is added in February every four years (leap year) to correct the annual cycle. 

A full year is defined by the complete cycle of the annual season. - a complete orbit around the Sun.

The monsoon, and the tradewinds, all repeat around the solar year cycle.  

The Age of the Universe

All calendars had an arbitrary beginning in the past. No one has kept track of anything religious for the last 13 billion years, or even a million years.  Although the Bible did mentioned that God created this universe in six days, we doubt that we can actually trace through the 7 day cycle to the first 6 days of the Big Bang, passing through the dinosaur era for example.  

 

Who keeps track of these days? There were no humans during the dinosaur era to keep track which day were Monday or Sunday.  And remember that you need the earth to rotate on its axis for day and night to happen. And our solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.  That was surely more than 7 days after the Big Bang.

Associating the Calendar with God

Did God have a favorite day that had been developed by human, historically?

 

Or a preference for a particular month, again, developed by human that God subscribe? 

 

What humans celebrated was determined by humans themselves, based on the calendar devised by humans. 

 

If we believe that God has a preferences a particular month, we will then begin to associate that particular month with God.

 

The term "shirik" refers to the practice of associating particular things with Allah. However, Muslims appear to be unaware that shirik can also occur outside of the realm of the physical, because associating particular times with Allah is no different. 

 

In the following posts, we shall analyze in detail the issues arising from the Islamic Hijra Calendar, which was based on a purely lunar system. 

 

The connection between the makhluk and Allah is always direct, without intermediaries. Therefore, not even the passage of time that separates a day or month from another should break that direct connection. This is where the majority of Muslims were unaware of the thin line between tawheed and shirik.  

Our deed is independent of a particular calendar time devised by human.

 

Our deed is dependent on a particular time in need of humanity.

This chapter generally provides an overview of the functional purpose, history, and workings of a calendar. We can conclude that all calendars were manmade based on celestial observations, and they all evolved into practical systems of organizing time for events and planning the year. 

 

Any religious observations of any particular day, week, or month are debatable and arbitrary, as one cannot make any tangible observations of holiness at a particular time.