The Solar Calendar
There are a few things connected with the solar system requiring consideration. We have to take into account the rotation of the earth which is of two kinds: (1) on its own axis in such a way as to produce day and night and (2) in an eliptical orbit round the sun giving rise to changes in seasons. One full rotation along this eliptical orbit is completed in 365/5/48/46 days, and the period is designated as the solar year. But it is not equally divisible into twelve months. The present-day solar calendar-the Gregorian-has been so divided that seven months consist of 31 days, four months of 30 days, and one month of 28 days. In order to account for the fractions, every fourth year a day is added to the month of February, called the leap-year. But consideration will show that even this division does not do away with the fraction. After every four hundred years seasonal changes occur and probably because of this fact the solar calendar requires constant modification. It is just not possible to remove this discrepancy.
The League of Nations had set up a Special Committee at Geneva in 1923 charged with the formulation of a calendar that would be universally acceptable and would be reconcilable with seasonal changes. One of the recommendations of this Committee was that the year was to be divided into 13 months. However, such a calendar would not be devised as the seasons in the hemispheres differ in their periodic occurrence. The proximity and the distance of the sun in the East and the West naturally give rise to substantial differences. Because of this inherent discrepancy, it was not possible for the solar calendar to gain universal acceptance.
The lunar calendar system, on the other hand, is free from most of these defects, and admits of broader acceptance. It is not connected with seasonal changes. The appearance and disappearance of the moon twelve times in a year can be easily observed. It revolves round the earth, and since its orbit is eliptical and not totally circular, it comes close to the earth and becomes distant from it. Its speed of rotation is also not the same; hence it completes its trajectory sometimes in 30 and at others in 29 days. The total period taken in its rotation round the earth is 354/48/34 days. It is not visible at any place on the thirteenth time in less than this period. This, then is the basis of the lunar system.
We have now to consider what the Qur'an has to say about the computation of months and years. It is true that, having given man a code of conduct, it has given full thought and rational freedom to man but has circumscribed these limits. Insofar as the computation of months and years is concerned, the Qur'an has provided a guideline in one of the verses which is as follows:
He it is who appointed the sun a splendour and the moon a light and measured for her stages, that ye might know the number of the years, and the reckoning. (10:5)
The following verse directs us regarding the number of months:
Lo! the number of the months with Allah is twelve months by Allah's ordinance in the day that He created the heavens and the earth... (9: 36)
The purport of these Qur'anic verses is that we must take the moon to be the source of the calendar, and any other system that would be unnatural will not succeed, being non-natural and, therefore, it is that the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar system. Its beginnings can be traced to the Prophet, but, as a regular feature, it came into its own during the time of the second Caliph 'Umar I. Ahmad ibn Hanbal and al-Bukhari report through Maymun ibn Mihran that "an I.O.U. payable in Sha'ban was presented to 'Umar I. Thereupon 'Umar asked which Sha'ban, last Sha'ban, or this one or the coming one? Give the people something that they can understand." (F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography, Leiden 1952, p.310). He then issued a regular directive and founded the present-day calendar in 16 A.H. from which time the practice is being followed. Al-Suyuti, in the chapter on "News and Ordinances" in his Ta'rikh al-Khulafa' (ed. Cairo 1351 A.H.) writes with reference to al-Musayyab that the second orthodox Caliph had the Hijra dates inserted in all administrative directives two and a half years after his assumption of the Caliphate on the advice of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, and this became the practice from 16 A.H. onwards.
Al-Tabari in his Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa'l Muluk gives the following exposition:
The Prophet on the occasion of the Hajjat al Wada' said:
O people! Time after undergoing a full revolution has returned to its original state; the day Allah created the heavens and the earth. (vol. iii, p.l50, Cairo 1969).
It will be essential to keep some historical facts about ourselves in order to understand the pre-Islamic calendar. The Arabs were seized by the fatal malady of idolatry three hundred years before the advent of the Prophet, the Hajj for them was nothing more than a big festival. Their calendar being lunar, this feast was sometimes held in seasons when the crops had not been harvested and were not yet ready for sale. They, therefore, devised the method of kabzsa, according to which a year sometimes consisted of 13 months. The period of the Hajj was also not specified. The responsibility for announcing the date of the Hajj was entrusted to a man from Banu Kinana named Qalammas, who was to announce on the occasion of the Hajj when the next pilgrimage was to be performed, and which month the thirteenth month was to follow. The first Qalammas was an individual, but then the name became specific to the announcer. We thus see a sizeable number of the Qalammasa. The Qalammasi calendar was based upon lunar computation, and another link in the historical chain is provided by the fact that among the Arabs the months of Rajab, Dhu'l-Qa'da, Dhu'l-Hijja, and Muharram were regarded as the months of peace and sanctity. But, with this calendar, these months also began to undergo changes, and it was one of the responsibilities of the Qalammasa to announce as to what months would be the sacred months in the following year. They are called al-nasi' in Arabic.
The custom of kabisa was current among the Beduins but not among the townsmen. The Arabs had, therefore, two calendars: one was with the kabisa, the other without it. The Prophet in his address, to which we have referred, announced the abrogation of both-i.e. the kabisa and nasi'. Thus the time for the pilgrimage was fixed and the lunar calendar was to be enforced without the kabisa.
The lunar calendar of the Muslims began with the Hijra of the Prophet. The first day of the month of Muharram of the year of the Hijra i.e. the migration of the Prophet, was the first day of this calendar. Despite its being known as the solar calendar beginning with the 20th of September 622 C.E., according to the Gregorian calendar, before that, the year of the Elephant was used by the Arabs as the epoch of their era. This previous lunar calendar of the Arabs was totally abrogated in the 10th year of the Hijra on the occasion of the Prophet's address at the Hajjat al-Wada'. The lunar calendar thus became current without any addition or modification.
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (vol. iii, p. 127) says that the Muslims have borrowed the concept of the week and the festivals from the Jews. As regards festivals, yawn al-nahr derives its importance from its association with the Prophet Abraham, from whom the Prophet was directly descended. According to Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, it is one of the attributes of the Prophet that this festival should have vouchsafed to the Muslims the best of religions. It is, therefore, out of the question that it should have been borrowed. The names of the Arabic months were retained by the Muslims with slight modifications because of their significance. The first month is al-Muharram and the last is Dhu'l-Hijja. The names of the months are consecutively as follows: Muharram al-Haram, ,Safar, Rabi' alAwwal, RabiC al-Thani, Jumada al-Awwal, Jumada al-Thani, Rajab, Sha'ban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhu'l-Qa'da and Dhu'l-Hijja.
The concept of the week in Islam derives from spiritual purgation and self-reform, while the name of the last day, al-Jum'a, is Qur'anic. The days have been serially named as yawm al-sabt, yawm al-a,had, yawm al-athnayn, yawm al-thalatha, yawm al-arba'a, yawm al-khamls, and yawm al-jum'a.
Bibliography
1. Al-Sakhawi, Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Rahman, al-I'lan bi'l-Tawbikh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawrikh, Damascus 1349 A.H., English trans. in F Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography, Leiden 1952, pp. 201-450. (Urdu transl.), Markazi Urdu Board, Lahore 1968.
2. Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa'l Muluk, Dar al-Ma'arif, Cairo, 2nd ed. 1969, iii. 150.
3. Al-Dinawari, Abu Hanifa, Al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, Cairo 1960, (Urdu transl.), Markazi Urdu Board, Lahore 1968.
4. Hashimi, 'Abd al-Quddus, Taqwim-i Tarikhi (in Urdu) Central Institute of Islamic Research, Karachi, 1965.
