The
Calendar

You know

one of the things that tied the muslim world together throughout

history

was the fact that they shared a calendar.

Now there are an assortment of different calendars

out there in the world,

there's a Chinese one, a Jewish one,

an Ancient Egyptian one,

a Mayan one,

and lots of others,

and they all measure time

by using the sun or the moon

or some combination of both.

From midwinter to midwinter,

midsummer to midsummer,

through regular seasons

the sun and the earth do a slow dance together,

and the rhythm of the years remains the same.

Meanwhile, from day to day

the face of the moon changes,

and moving tides show how the moon dances with the sun.

From moon to moon, one moonday, one moonth, one month.

Measuring a year by the earth's relationship to the sun

means that you have a year with regular seasons,

but if you break it up into twelve months

they don't have much to do with what is going on with the moon,

which has a different rhythm entirely.

But measuring the year in months by following

the earth's relationship with the moon,

means that the months always follow the phases of the moon,

and the days and weeks are marked in the sky

by the moon's changing face.

But here's the thing,

twelve of those moon months don't quite add up to a year,

which means that the moon months keep moving

backwards through the seasons.

Now it's important to be able to fix the seasons,

so that farmers can know when to plant their crops

and when to pick them.

One way to deal with this problem

is to have a calendar that follows the moon

but adds on an extra month every few years,

to keep the months more or less in season,

and that was the approach of an ancient Arab version of the lunar calendar

that was in use when the Messenger was born.

Markers in time,

such as the Year of the Elephant

were used as reference points,

to which other events could be related,

and from the time that the Messenger arrived in Madinah

he used the year of the Hijra

as his reference point.

Then, six years after the death of the Messenger,

and sixteen years after the Hijra,

the Caliph, Umar, declared that from then on,

the year of the Hijra was always to be used as the first year

of the calendar that was to mark the history of the world of Islam.

But that calendar had changed in another crucial way from the one that had been used in Jahiliyya.

In the year of the farewell pilgrimage

a verse of the Message was revealed that required the muslims

to terminate the practice of adding that extra month

to keep the lunar calendar pulled back toward the solar year.

It is really quite extraordinary

that the Message should specify that the two calendars

should be treated independently from that point forward.

So the months once more began to move back through the seasons.

But this was the only thing that was changed,

and the months still kept their original names,

with the strange result that months named after seasons can actually be in any season of the year,

so spring can be in autumn,

and the month of great heat can be in the middle of winter.

And those ancient Arabic names for the months of a year

are still used throughout the world of Islam today.

so we have

Muharram The sacred month

Safar The month which is void

Rabi' al-Awwal The first spring

Rabi' al-Thani The second spring

Jumada-ul-Ula The first month of dryness

Jumada-Thaniyyah The second month of dryness

Rajab The revered month

Sha'ban The month of division

Ramadhan The month of great heat

Shawwal The month of hunting

Dhu l-Qa'dah The month of rest

Dhu l-Hijjah The month of pilgrimage

In a world where the precision and predictability of solar years

can seem to have overwhelmed the liquid edges

of months that depend for their start on a glimpse of moonlight,

months that wander through the seasons,

it is important to understand that

remembering the rhythm of how the moon affects our lives

gives us something extra,

a deeper understanding,

a more subtle view.

Because it is not just the tides that are affected

by the phases of the moon.

Humans are almost entirely made of water,

and the moon exerts its pull on us also.

Its rhythm has a profound effect on all kinds of bodily functions,

and it affects us physically and emotionally,

so it is a useful thing to be aware of.

Its effect on us is a reminder of just how much we are a part of

the same thing that is everywhere around us.

And no matter how insistent the needs of agriculture and commerce for seasonal precision,

the Deen keeps muslims around the world in touch with that lunar rhythm,

moving backwards through the seasons

while moving forwards in time,

and with an annual marker in the Hajj

and in the fasting month of Ramadhan,

first sighting to first sighting of the moon,

just like all the muslims in history

all the way back to the Messenger.