Reflections on the Hijri Calendar

In the Hamdulillah, the Buddha who was there in oneness the Pharaoh would look we knew we hit the worker lolly. When only we left him in Cerulean fusina women see Dr. Marlena Miyagi healer who for them with the love when they usually look for the hottie that my brother

called Allahu taala, Guardian Majeed, Bardo to be lurking in a sheet on rajim Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem in the shahada in the law is an ASHA Sharon peaky tabula Yamaha la casa to Mina Alba to home.

Valley Kadena. Okay, yeah. What's your handle? The data tells us in cura Adobo verse number 36, that the number of months in the sight of Allah 12

are washable Hanna WADA decree, this the day he created the heavens and earth and out of these 12 months for a sacred, this is the correct religion.

Hamdulillah we are at the beginning of year 1444 After hijab and we ask Allah to make this a productive and beneficial and blessed do for the entire Ummah, we ask Allah to make this a year in which this ummah returns to its glory, and where the oppression and the tyranny and the poverty found in many parts of the Muslim world is overcome. We ask Allah to put Baraka in this year.

But so many of us we don't really pay attention to the Hebrew calendar as much as we should, as we should. Unfortunately, we live in a time where for many Muslims, unless it's Ramadan, or it will add Ha, we may be completely oblivious to what the date is on the history calendar. So today, I want to perhaps reviving us the interest in this calendar by discussing its history, and its significance, and perhaps some ways in which we can revive the practice of using this calendar. And I want to start with the history of the calendar because this is some information that many Muslims are unaware of the history of how the Muslim calendar came to be and why it came to be. And the lessons

we can draw from that.

We begin with a misconception. There is a misconception amongst many Muslims, that our calendar as a whole was divinely revealed. That it was Allah subhanaw taala, who gave us his calendar starting in Muharram, on the first, the first of Muharram, on the year of the Hijra. And part of this is true, and part of this is not true. What is true is that in the verse that I just mentioned, ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala revealed that the calendar is 12 months, right? And the Hadith explains the named of these months Muharram suffering, we know the rest, right, and that they are in that specific order. And then out of those 12 months, four of them are sacred, those sacred months being so called hijab,

Muharram and Rajab, that these are the four sacred months in which Jihad was, was not allowed in certain circumstances, right. So they were, they were sacred months, because they have certain virtues to them. And so in certain circumstances, Muslims weren't even allowed to fight during those months, unless it was completely necessary. So ALLAH SubhanA, Allah did reveal a lunar calendar based on 12 months system, and he put it in this specific order. And what we see is that the Arabs before Islam, they were aware of these 12 months, and they follow these 12 months. But what they will do sometimes is they will flip it around. So for example, if a holy month is coming up, like if

Roger was coming up, and they wanted to fight someone, they will say, Oh, next month's not Rajam next month, sure. Well, we'll do Raj up later in the year, right, they will actually do this. So this verse is revealed to prohibit that, that the calendar is set, you can look the months around. And this is what was done in the life of Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam, that the calendar was set to 12 months in a specific order. But the years and the starting date was not set. Rather, what what what it was, was that people would just go through a cycle month after month without any real awareness of when does the year beginning. When does the year end? They will calculate the

like, you know, it's been 12 months since this event has been 15 months since that event. That's why when we talk about the year in which Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi salam was born, we say the year of the elephant, right, because that's how they calculated years. So to understand this point, you have to understand that there were two ways of calculating calendars throughout history, there was the way of the major civilizations and the way of smaller communities. And Makkah at that time where the small community, major civilizations would have calendars with specific year numbers. Going back to a major event in the history, like we have the Gregorian calendar, which is an offshoot of the

Julian calendar, which is the opposite of the Roman calendar. And these calendars they follow a 12 month solar system and the Gregorian calendar goes back 2022 years to the time of Jesus peace be upon him, right so they have a specific year of history.

civic event that's important to them. And they've been following, you know, 12 month cycles from there. So in the time of Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam, there was the Julian calendar that the Romans were following, and the Persians had their own calendar as well. And these calendars had specific years and numbers, right. And that's why when we go back to our history, we can see in which year of the Gregorian calendar Rasulullah slotum was born and passed away because those numbers were already set. But the Arabs were smaller communities, they were not a civilization. They were small towns and tribes. So they didn't have numbers to the years. They had events. They would

say it's the year of the elephant. They say it's the year of the flood. It's the Year of the child, whoever was like the main thing that happened that year, that will be their way of working things out. And this remained the system throughout the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam and the collaborative Abu Bakr RadiAllahu all the way into the falafel Umar, Radi Allahu Anhu. Now what happens in the Philippines of Omar Abdullah onehope, the Beloved of Omar regular one who is the fastest expansion of this ummah in history, the fastest expansion of this ummah in history takes place in the life of Omar RadiAllahu. The next fastest comes almost like 90 years later, in the time

of Waleed, the first, but in the time of Omar Muslims, destroyed the Persian Empire and take over all the lands, and the Muslims take over Syria and Palestine and Egypt. So now it's gone from a small community in Arabia to this massive Empire spanning many countries, right. And so what happens now, they have to start changing the way they rule, they have to now develop a government system that can work across many countries and cultures. And one of the things that becomes a problem very early on is calendars. How do we figure out the date? So during the reign of Omar Abdel Fattah, two people came to the judge with a dispute? The The split was that they had a contract, the contract

said that one person was going to pay the other person in short while the dispute was one person is saying you're supposed to pay me this partial while the other person say no, it's the upcoming Shaohua. And so when this dispute happened, and he couldn't solve it, Ahmad Rajon who said, you know if we had numbers in our calendar, if we had something like Shaohua, seven, eight and so on, ah, then we wouldn't have disputes like this. So let's settle all the other civilizations and look at this look at how the Sahaba thought because this is a way of thinking that's missing in the OMA today. They said the other civilizations, they have calendars with specific numbers, going back to

important events in the history, let us do the same. Let us do the same. So he gathered together a committee and this committee was made up primarily of three people OMA revenue hardab or smart even our van and Ali bin Abi Taalib. Three out of the four of the qualified Rushdi Abu Bakr had already passed away, right three out of the four of the fallout five or she didn't they got together, they got ideas from others as well. But they were the main which their heads working on this. And I wanted to take a step back and understand a few things about 50. All right, understand that. Not everything when it comes to how the Muslim world runs in a civilization was revealed in the Quran

and Sunnah. The Quran and Sunnah gave us our Sharia, it gave us our Aqeedah it gave us our how to practice our religion. But a lot of the civilizational aspects of Islam developed later on in history, you know, the administration of the government, the taxations, the divisions of the Army, the culture, the flag, the currencies, the calendars, all of this came later in history. And Islam left a lot of flexibility in each the hardiness area. So this is what the Sahaba get together, and they do that they decide we need a calendar. Now, they already knew from the Quran, that these are the 12 months. They are the lunar months. Right? So this is the calendar, you're going to stick to a

12 month calendar that is lunar, but they had to decide on two things. What year do we start the calendar from? And we back project history from that year onwards? And what month do we start the calendar from? And these are two separate decisions made on two different important issues, right. One is which year do we start the calendar of them, and the other is which month because neither of these things were revealed. So they had to do he had they had to figure it out. So when it comes to which year to start the calendar, they didn't just automatically jump to the hitch, they actually discussed a few different possibilities. The urinal pseudolus Awesome was born, the year he passed

away the year of the conquest of Makkah. These are all major events. But eventually they settled in our calendar begins on the year of the Hijra. Why? Because that was the year that the civilization of Islam was born. Right. Islam was born 30 years before that. But for those 13 years, the Muslims were a oppressed minority in Makkah, the year of the hijra, they moved to Medina, they establish Medina as an Islamic society and he grows from debut civilization. So the civilization of Islam begins with the atria. That was the turning point in political history for Islam. So that was the most important event in political history for Islam. So said that's the year that

Our history begins with the hatred. And so the year of the hijra, was declared one age and the year after two h n. Our history is written like that. Then they have to decide. They have to decide which month do we start the calendar word. And again, many opinions we started with Ramadan is the most important month of the year. We started with Rob, you will Oh will you? Oh, that's the month of the hijra, right this is actually the again this is another misconception. Many of us because our calendar starts in mojarra. We think the prophets law is not made the Hadrian Mahara. He actually made that he joined Rabelo. Right. And that's why some of the latest scholars, they have the

opinion, the calendar should have started from probably lower, right, because the year of the hijab should have started when the heat year happened. So why did the harbor choose Mahara? And by the way, whatever decision the Sahaba major became, they became masters of Iijima of consensus, meaning the entire Ummah agreed upon it and follow through until Until today, right? But why did they choose Muharram?

Two reasons. Number one, to make sure the year ended with something special. And number two to make sure the year begins to something special. Because what month comes before Mahara will hija so what was happening remember Jean Medina was Muslims were going for Hajj and in those days it will take two to three weeks to get back to Medina for Hajj. So by the time people came back to Medina from Hajj, it was the first of Mahara, so the hajis were returning with their sins wiped out with a clean slate a clean slate to the deeds. Clean Slate New Year is like we start out here with a clean slate. So the Hajj would mark the end of the Muslim calendar. This was the idea of the Sahaba that the Hajj

would mark the end of the Muslim calendar for the year and we start a new with Mahara. The other reason why they went in Muharram for starting the year, it because Muharram itself is blessing. Remember we said Allah says in the Quran, they are for holy months, right? And the books of the FSI list ml zu cada Zul Hijjah, Muharram, and Raja, many of us make the mistake of thinking of Ramadan. Ramadan is separate in its virtues. Right Ramadan, the most blessed month of the year is separate in its virtues from the four holy months mentioned in this verse. But in this verse Muharram is one of those verses one of those months Allah is talking about what makes Muharram virtuous. Before I get

into that, just to conclude that part of the discussion, the Sahaba settled on Muharram they settled on the of the hijra, and that's how the calendar was formed. From that point onwards from the time of Omar revenue hottub. Until today, Muslims use this calendar of going back without being 1444 years to the year of the hijab, and starting with Mahara but why Mahara? And I want to end this with just a brief reminder to us about the importance of Muharram and some of the good deeds we need to do next week. Muharram is one of the four holy months and the tent of Muharram is specifically significant and virtuous in our Sharia. It is known as the day of Ashura. It is the day that Allah

save Musa alayhis salam from the Pharaoh. And it is a day in which there are many, many virtues. There are two good deeds specifically that we should be doing on the 10th of Muharram. One of them is agreed upon, right? It comes from a hadith and everyone says the hadith is authentic, everyone agrees upon it. The other one is disputed. The other one comes from a hadith, but some people say the hadith is authentic, or they say the hadith is not authentic, and they fight over that, right. I believe the hadith is authentic, nobody mentioned it. So what are these two good deeds you should do on the 10th of Muharram? Number one is fast, that we should fast the 10th of Muharram. And if we can

fast today's the ninth and the 10th or the 10th and 11th Why Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to pass the 10th of Muharram. In fact, before Ramadan was revealed, fasting the 10th of Muharram was compulsory, right in the year before, before Ramadan was revealed the fasting of Ramadan, the original compulsory fast was once a year on the 10th of Muharram. And then that was replaced with one month of the year, which is Ramadan, but the tender Muharram remained a sunnah. It may emphasize sunnah, so emphasize that the Sahaba say we don't know of any month in which the prophets loathsome was more eager to fast outside of Ramadan than Mahara. And the Prophet sallallahu

alayhi wa sallam said who ever faster tend to have more haram, a preview date higher previous year's minus sins are forgiven.

So a lot of incentive to foster tanto, Mahara. And we know in the final year of the Prophet's life, he said, If I live to see next year, I'll fast the ninth and the 10th or the 10th and 11. So he never actually did it. But he had intention to do it. So that's where we get the idea of fasting today's fifth you fast only the 10th the prophets was him did that Hamdulillah he finds the ninth and the 10th or the 10th and 11th. The Prophet saw some encouragement as well as nothing wrong with it. Right. So these are recommended fast for the 10th of Muharram. The other good deed related to the 10th of Muharram is one of the spiritual authenticity but nonetheless

I believe it's authentic. And that is the Hadith where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Whoever increases in spending on their family on the 10th of Muharram, that Allah will increase their sustenance for the rest of the year, whoever increases in spending on their family on the 10th of Muharram, Allah will increase their sustenance for the rest of the year. Now, over the generations, the whole amount of Hadees have been split on whether this hadith is authentic or not. One group of Allah Ma said the hadith is weak. Or they said no, which authentic. And what's interesting is those Allah who said it's oTENTik. They said that when they practice this Hadees, not

a single year, were they disappointed that every single time they spent extra on their family on the 10th of Muharram, they found that to be a year in which their risk increased. So for them, that became the testimony that the Hadees must be authentic. And I believe that the hadith is authentic as well. So again, to summarize, the tender Muharram is coming up. If you following the South African calendar, it's a Tuesday. If you following the Saudi candidates on Monday, I don't know everyone's which calendar you're following, but just giving both dates out, right. Either way, whichever calendar you're following, make sure the tender Muharram make intention to fast. This is

the fact that the Prophet Salam considered most important and significant outside of Ramadan. And it is something that is very good for all of us because they can industry one of the good deeds is to do with the past year, I wanted him to do it the next year, we start our new year with a good deed that erases all the sins of the past year. So we start off fresh, and then we start our new year with another good deed that blesses the next year. So erase the sins of the past year and bless your provisions for the next year and see how Allah subhanaw taala has made it for us. So we get started our year with something powerful. So to summarize today's

we said that the calendar, the Hijri calendar, was decided upon in the time of Omar Domingo, Hatha Raja and who in a committee with him or Ceman, and ally, that they got together. And they decided that we need to have an official calendar because we are now in civilization. And they chose the year of the hijra, because that was the turning point in political history for Islam. That's when the civilization of Islam was born. And they chose Muharram because it is a blessed month, and it comes after the Hajj. So you can end the year with the Hajj and you start the year up with Ashura. So it's a blessing man to end the year and begin the year with and eventually this became a matter

of each bar, a matter of consensus became something that high OMA follow until our times and we also reminded ourselves that to do the good deeds that are associated with a 10th of Muharram, which is to fasten the canto mojado and to increase your spending on your family on the 10th of Muharram. We ask Allah to accept from us, probably not enough in dunya Hasina will will offer you the Hudson are working super hard aerobic aerobic is a boon for Salam Salim Al Hamdulillah.

Al Hamdulillah muda who understood he understood Pharaoh and meno be hit our Kali when all the villa Himanshu Rudy and fusina who may see Dr. Molina Miyagi Hilah who further mandala on May you dilute for the Hadith and Baba inner circle honeystick a tabula for Haider, have you had the Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was shuddered more than what he said to her Kula modesetting bid for COVID. Attend Allah Allah, Allah tempted now

over the past 100 years, we've seen a decline in the usage of the history calendar. Right ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War One, the EG calendar kind of fell out of usage amongst Muslims. Most Muslims around the world adopted the Gregorian calendar. And this became the norm and this became the culture. Now technically this is not haram there's nothing haram about it right? There's nothing wrong with using the Christian calendar to decide on weekdays or weekends or holidays or things that it's not haram. I know some people think it is, but there's no evidence for it being haram. Right? So it is permissible. But nonetheless, as Muslims, we should strive to revive

the country calendar. in whatever capacity we have, we can because this is the calendar Allah chose for us. But Allah said these 12 months are the months Allah chose for us. And He has blessed four of them. And because we don't follow the big calendar anymore, we don't even know the blessing months are upon us. Think about it. Two blessed months have just passed us by Jakarta, Indonesia, and the third one is upon us. But many Muslims are oblivious, oblivious to the fact that these are blessing months. And you know, for them, it's just August.

So we have to make some kind of effort to revive the usage of this calendar in our homes and in our lives. I want to share some tips on how we can do this on a very practical level. Number one, have the Islamic date displayed somewhere in your home every day. Just have the date available just like how when you look at your phone and look at your calendar, you can see that today is like you know, the fifth of August to the sixth of August. Likewise, you should have something in your home where you look at it and he shows you today's you know the seventh of Muharram or the eighth of Muharram or whatever it is you should have this

to display some student awareness. So every member of your family is aware of what is the demand and the date and the year in the Islamic calendar. Many Muslims don't even know what is the year. They don't even know it's 1444 years since the hijra, right? Many of them don't even know this. So have the daily usage of this calendar in that way. It's a very small thing, but it makes a huge difference to how we

how we interact with our religion. Because if you are aware of what the Islamic date is, you will be more aware of any important dates coming up. So for many people, you know, many of these fasts come and go, because you don't even know that the Islamic what the Islamic candidate has to say about this month, right? For many people, holy months will come and go and they won't even know because you don't look at the Islamic calendar. The only time we look at it is when it's time for for Eid, or it's time for Ramadan. But if you have it somewhere in your home, then you are aware and you can at least keep track. So number one, increase your daily awareness and usage of the date, try to be

aware of at least what the date is today. Islamically. And try to make this something that you're aware of all the time, just like with the recording calendar. Number two, mark this significant dates, be aware of significant dates on the calendar, things like the 10th of Muharram things like your The Day of Arafah things like

you know, the 15th of Shabbat and you know, if you follow that opinion, whatever it is, but significant dates on the calendar, mark them in the Islamic and then even though your own personal dates, Chai using the Islamic calendar, right, try having this, that you use the Islamic calendar, and not just the recording date. So when you marking a date of an event, put the Islamic date as well. So people are aware, you get more people aware like this. So just say for example, you send out a poster for an event, and you have the mark day that is on the seventh of March, but you also have marked it and it's on the you know, the night of of, of Ramadan, or whatever it is, it keeps

people aware of the Islamic State, and it creates a broader awareness. So we need to start using these dates in our daily usage in that way as well as marking the significant dates, number three, on to the secret months, three these months as secret months dextrocardia to Asia Muharram three different special because Allah has declared him to be special. Number four, start planning your life around the Islamic calendar. Many people are so unaware of the Islamic calendar that your book or holiday and indeed it is oh I booked a holiday in Ramadan. Right or the book or the daily meal they decide to go on a sea cruise and they realize in the middle of the Kuwait, tomorrow's Elijah, I

know that right and didn't do anything because you're not working with the calendar. So start working your life around the Islamic calendar. Be aware how many months left until Ramadan, when exactly is Ramadan going to be when exactly it's going to be when exactly is Mahara and work your life around that calendar, let that be the calendar that you work with. So when you when you're working on your Sokka, you use the Islamic calendar binary for zakah, you're supposed to be using the Islamic calendar, not the Western calendar, because its annual payments based on the EEG calendar. So if you're not using it, you don't use the camera. Right? It's the same with working on

puberty for children. By the way, if a if a if a Muslim boy reaches 15, on the Hijri calendar, without showing any of the signs of puberty, he's considered an adult in Islam.

15 on the big calendar, that's like three or four months before 15 on the Gregorian calendar, which means for those three or four months, he might be considered an adult in Islam, but he doesn't realize it because you're not even aware of what the month is, you're not even aware of how the Hijri calendar works. So these are this is important if we start building our life around the Islamic dates. And one last thing, I'm just going to mention it, it's something we'll probably only think about doing in five or 10 or 20 years time and people are ready. But at least to put the idea in the younger generations mind, we need to start working towards a global history calendar. as it

existed in a time of the field effort, right in the time of the Ottoman Empire, they would work on one calendar. But now you know, we all split up and everyone's citing the moons on different days and everyone's fighting about it. And so one person is the 10 other persons are dying, the other person is the 11th. But we really need to consider working with the calculations and working with astronomy just like we do with our solar times. So we can have a unified global Islamic calendar. I think it will be much more acceptable for Muslims around the world to work with the Hindu calendar if we know when the data right so just an idea, maybe one day in the future inshallah. Allah will

revive this practice of having a actual Islamic calendar that the entire Muslim world follows. But of course, we first need to sort out our fake differences before that. So these are some of the things we can do and we ask Allah to bless this year we ask Allah to make it a year of Baraka, a year of peace, a year of revival of Islam, a year in which all of our personal problems are resolved and all the problems of the Ummah resolved a year of revival of Islam in a political man way and in every other way. A year in which the injustice is that Muslims around the world are experiencing come to an end and the poverty that the Muslim world experiencing comes to an end and the year in

which we returned to the golden ages of Islam, Robin Artina Fijian Johanna Coppola