Rehmat
13-01-06, 03:17 PM
In 638 CE, the Second Khalifa, Hazrat Umar (as), introduced the ‘Hijri Calendar’. He found it a military and civilian necessity – as the new Muslim domains – Persia, Syria and Egypt – each used different calendars. The Sasanids, the ruling dynasty of Persia, used June 16, 632 CE, the date of accession of the last Sasanid monarch, Yszdagrid III – Syria, a part of Byzantine empire, used ‘Roman Julian calendar’ with an epoch of October 1, 312 BC – Egypt used the Coptic calendar, with an epoch of August 29, 284 CE. Although all were solar, and hence geared to the seasons and containing 365 days, each also had a different system for periodically adding days to compensate for the fact that the true length of the solar year is not 365 but 565.2422 days.
However, there were two other reasons the Khalifa rejected existing solar calendar. Holy Qur’an (10:5) states that time should be reckoned by the moon – plus all existing calendars were identified with non-Islamic religions. Therefore, he decided to create a calendar specifically for Muslim Ummah – it was lunar and had 12 months, each with 29 or 30 days.
Here is the formula to convert ‘Gregorian year’ into ‘Hijri year’:
Gregorian year = [(32 x Hijri year) /33] + 622
Hijri year = [(Gregorian year – 622) x 33]/32
http://www.rabiah.com/convert/introduction.html
However, there were two other reasons the Khalifa rejected existing solar calendar. Holy Qur’an (10:5) states that time should be reckoned by the moon – plus all existing calendars were identified with non-Islamic religions. Therefore, he decided to create a calendar specifically for Muslim Ummah – it was lunar and had 12 months, each with 29 or 30 days.
Here is the formula to convert ‘Gregorian year’ into ‘Hijri year’:
Gregorian year = [(32 x Hijri year) /33] + 622
Hijri year = [(Gregorian year – 622) x 33]/32
http://www.rabiah.com/convert/introduction.html