To that end, we note that the Islamic calendar has three integral elements.įirst, there are twelve lunar months in which every month is determined by the arrival of the new moon. In order to gain a better understanding, it is helpful to understand the structure of the calendar and what distinguishes it from other calendars in use throughout history. How did the land where the Islamic calendar was first established and remained in use for more than fourteen centuries come to such a decision? Why have so many Muslims become unaware of the months and years of the Islamic calendar? The purpose of this article will be to examine the history of the Islamic calendar, and to understand how its role as a marker of Islamic identity has diminished.Īs we will see in more detail below, the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar that plays an important role in the sanctification of time for Muslims. 2 Other countries have followed suit and have begun to relegate the Islamic calendar to religious matters, detaching it from civil life. The Kingdom has used the Islamic calendar ever since the country was founded in 1932, but as part of Vision 2030 switched to the Gregorian calendar for determining the pay schedules of public sector employees in 2016, effectively increasing the workload by eleven days per year. Recently, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, chose to call his transformation plan for the country Vision 2030 rather than Vision 1451 (the corresponding Islamic year), which was surprising given the Kingdom’s long history of adhering to the Islamic calendar for both civil and religious matters.
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