Pre-Islamic Arabian calendar

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Several calendars have been used in

intercalary month added from time to time to keep the pilgrimage within the season of the year when merchandise was most abundant.[4][5]

Pre-Islamic day names

The names for the days of the week in pre-Islamic Arabia were changed during the era of Islam to numbers ("the first (day)", "the second (day)", etc.) with the exception of the sixth day, "Friday", whose name means "congregation", in reference to this being the Islamic day of communal prayer. The numbering follows the account of the creation in six days, with the seventh the day of rest, in the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis. Prior to this, the pre-Islamic Arabian days of the week were:

Number Pre-Islamic الأيام الجاهلية Islamic الأيام الإسلامية
1 al-ʾawwal ٱلْأَوَّل al-ʾaḥad ٱلْأَحَد
2 al-ʾahwan or al-ʾahuwan or al-ʾawhad ٱلْأَهْوَن / ٱلْأَهُوَن / ٱلْأَوْهَد al-ʾithnayn ٱلْإِثْنَيْن
3 al-jubār ٱلْجُبَار ath-thulāthāʾ ٱلثُّلَاثَاء
4 al-dubār or al-dibār ٱلدُّبَار / ٱلدِّبَار al-ʾarbiʿāʾ ٱلْأَرْبِعَاء
5 al-muʾnis ٱلْمُؤْنِس al-khamīs ٱلْخَمِيس
6 al-ʿarūbah ٱلْعَرُوبَة al-jumʿah ٱلْجُمْعَة
7 ash-shiyār ٱلشِّيَار as-sabt ٱلسَّبْت

Pre-Islamic month names

Sources for the names of these pre-Islamic months are al-Muntakhab min Gharīb Kalām al-ʿArab

al-Mas'udi suggest that the Ancient Arabs used the same month names as the Muslims, though they also record other month names used by the pre-Islamic Arabs.[1]

Number Pre-Islamic الشهور الجاهلية Islamic الشهور الإسلامية
1 muʾtamir or al-muʾtamir مُؤْتَمِر / ٱلْمُؤْتَمِر al-muḥarram ٱلْمُحَرَّم
2 nājir نَاجِر ṣafar صَفَر
3 khawwān or khuwwān خَوَّان / خُوَّان rabīʿ al-ʾawwal رَبِيع ٱلْأَوَّل
4 wabṣān وَبْصَان rabīʿ al-ʾākhir or rabīʿ ath-thānī رَبِيع ٱلْآخِر / رَبِيع ٱلثَّانِي
5 ḥanīn حَنِين jumādā al-ʾūlā جُمَادَىٰ ٱلْأُولَىٰ
6 rubbā رُبَّىٰ jumādā al-ʾākhirah or jumādā ath-thāniyah جُمَادَىٰ ٱلْآخِرَة / جُمَادَىٰ ٱلثَّانِيَة
7 al-ʾaṣamm or munṣil al-ʾasinnah or al-muḥarram ٱلْأَصَمّ / مُنْصِل ٱلْأَسِنَّة / ٱلْمُحَرَّم rajab رَجَب
8 ʿāḏil عَاذِل shaʿbān شَعْبَان
9 nātiq نَاتِق ramaḍān رَمَضَان
10 waʿl or waʿil وَعْل / وَعِل shawwāl شَوَّال
11 warnah وَرْنَة ḏū al-qaʿdah ذُو ٱلْقَعْدَة
12 burak or maymūn بُرَك / مَيْمُون ḏū al-ḥijjah ذُو ٱلْحِجَّة

Occasions

Some suggested that the Arab pilgrimage festivals in the seventh and twelfth months were originally

Adar I respectively. Nevertheless, the Islamic position equating Nisan with Dhū al-Ḥijja has prevailed.[10] Nisan is the month of spring in the Hebrew calendar and Babylonian calendar, which are both lunisolar calendars
with either 12 or 13 months.

Four forbidden months

Main article: Sacred months

The Islamic tradition is unanimous in stating that Arabs of

Lakhmid ruler, al-Mundhir II, respected for two months in the summer solstice of 541 AD/CE.[1] However, Muslim historians do not link these months to a particular season.[1]

Nasi'

Main article: Nasi'

The

Kinanah,[3] by a man known as the al-Qalammas of Kinanah and his descendants (pl. qalāmisa).[13]

Different interpretations of the concept of Nasī’ have been proposed.[14] Some scholars, both Muslim[15][16] and Western,[1][3] maintain that the pre-Islamic calendar used in Central Arabia was a purely lunar calendar similar to the modern Islamic calendar. According to this view, Nasī’ is related to the pre-Islamic practices of the Meccan Arabs, where they would alter the distribution of the forbidden months within a given year without implying a calendar manipulation. This interpretation is supported by Arab historians and lexicographers, like Ibn Hisham, Ibn Manzur, and the corpus of Qur'anic exegesis.[17]

This is corroborated by an early Sabaic inscription, where a religious ritual was "postponed" (ns'’w) due to war. According to the context of this inscription, the verb ns'’ has nothing to do with intercalation, but only with moving religious events within the calendar itself. The similarity between the religious concept of this ancient inscription and the Qur'an suggests that non-calendaring postponement is also the Qur'anic meaning of Nasī’.[1] Thus the Encyclopaedia of Islam concludes "The Arabic system of [Nasī’] can only have been intended to move the Hajj and the fairs associated with it in the vicinity of Mecca to a suitable season of the year. It was not intended to establish a fixed calendar to be generally observed."[18]

Others concur that it was originally a lunar calendar, but suggest that about 200 years before the

al-Mas'udi, and some Western scholars.[20] This interpretation considers Nasī’ to be a synonym to the Arabic word for "intercalation" (kabīsa). The Arabs, according to one explanation mentioned by Abu Ma'shar, learned of this type of intercalation from the Jews.[3][13][19] The Jewish Nasi was the official who decided when to intercalate the Jewish calendar.[21] Some sources say that the Arabs followed the Jewish practice and intercalated seven months over nineteen years, or else that they intercalated nine months over 24 years; there is, however, no consensus among scholars on this issue.[22] The metonic cycle of 19 years was established for intercalating the Hebrew calendar since the time of their exile in Babylonian, and it was also observed in the Babylonian calendar as well, starting in the same period. The Kinānah tribe, during the time of Muhammad, was in charge of authorizing the intercalation; that the Kinānah tribe had taken over this task from the Kinda tribe, which had been Judaized for hundreds of years previously, lends credence to the position that the process of intercalation may have been borrowed from the Jewish tradition.[23]
Referring to
Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. ca. 442 A.H./1050 C.E.), it has been posited that this intercalation was effected in order to accommodate the scheduling of seasonal trade cycles with annual pilgrimages,[24]

The prohibition of nasi' in AH 10 has been suggested as having had the purpose of wresting power from the Kinānah clan who was in control of intercalation, but there is no consensus regarding this position.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j F.C. De Blois, "TA’RĪKH": I.1.iv. "Pre-Islamic and agricultural calendars of the Arabian peninsula", The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, X:260.
  2. ^ Mahmud Effendi (1858), as discussed in Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby, Elements of the Jewish and Muhammadan calendars (London: 1901), pp. 460–470.
  3. ^ a b c d A. Moberg, "NASI'", The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd, VII: 977.
  4. ISBN 9789004194359
    . page 18.
  5. ^ see also Shah, Zulfiqar Ali and Siddiqi, Muzammil (2009). The astronomical calculations and Ramadan: a fiqhi discourse Washington, D.C.:The International Institute of Islamic Thought. ISBN 9781565643345. page 64.
  6. ^ 'Al-muntakhab min gharīb kalām alʿarab Cairo: Dār al-fajr li-n-nashr wa-t-tawzīʿ, 1989.
  7. ^ Lisān al-ʿarab Beirut: Dār Lisān al-ʿarab, 1970.
  8. ISBN 0791418758.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link
    )
  9. ^ Fazlur Rehman Shaikh, Chronology of Prophetic Events (London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 2001) p. 52.
  10. ^ a b Hideyuki Ioh, "The Calendar in Pre-Islamic Mecca", Arabica, 61 (2014), pp. 471–513; 758–59.
  11. ^ "Hebrew and Islamic Calendar Reconciled (No. 53)".
  12. ^ Abrahamson, Ben; Katz, Joseph. "The Islamic Jewish Calendar" (PDF). Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  13. ^
    Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787–886), Kitab al-Uluf
    , Journal Asiatique, series 5, xi (1858) 168+. (in French and Arabic)
  14. ^ For an overview of the various theories and a discussion of the problem of "hindsight chronology" in early and pre-Islamic sources, see Maurice A. McPartlan, The Contribution of Qu'rān and Hadīt to Early Islamic Chronology (Durham, 1997).
  15. ^ Mahmud Effendi (1858), as discussed in Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby, Elements of the Jewish and Muhammadan calendars (London: 1901), pp. 460–470.
  16. ^ According to "Tradition", repeatedly cited by F.C. De Blois.
  17. ^ Muḥammad al-Khuḍarī Bayk (1935). Muḥāḍarāt tārīkh al-Umam al-Islāmiyya. Vol. 2 (4th ed.). Al-maktaba al-tijāriyya. pp. 59–60.
  18. ^ The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Index, p. 441
  19. ^ a b al-Biruni, "Intercalation of the Ancient Arabs", The Chronology of Ancient Nations, tr. C. Edward Sachau, (London: William H. Allen, 1000/1879), pp. 13–14, 73–74.
  20. ^ A. Moberg, "NASI'", E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam
  21. ^ Bab. Talmud, Sanhedrin, p. 11.
  22. ^ Bonner 2011, page 21
  23. ISBN 8182200628
    . Page 442.
  24. ^ Bonner 2011, page 22
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