We all follow the Hijri Calendar, for Ramadan and for the celebration of Eid. However, how much do we know about the practices of other cultures? Indeed even ours?
Humans have been time keeping since millennia, mostly for commerce but also for rituals too. The first reported civilisation to keep time were the Sumer Civilisations (around today’s Iran) which introduced the Sexagesimal System (with number 60 as base).
Luni-solar Calendar
Luni-solar calendars were common to all ancient cultures of the world (Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish and, pagan worlds of Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Indian Subcontinent). The Chinese, Romans and Jews used it to track seasons and to celebrate the onset of spring, while the Subcontinent cultures used it to keep the track of stars, sun and planets – an important element in their worship and beliefs.
The Luni-solar calendar used a new-moon to start a new month. An year was composed of 354 days or 12 months. Ten days short of solar calendar, a month was added to an year (inter-calary month) every two or three years to synchronize the lunar calendar to the seasons, which are based on the rotation of earth around the sun.
Julian calendar
BC 46: Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, changed luni-solar calendar to a Solar Calendar by fixing January as the first month and abolishing the inter-calary month. A day was added to few months and, a day was added after a couple of years (leap year) to compensate for inter-calary month.
As the pagan Romans became the dominant world power, the Julian Calendar spread across the known world. It was used not only for religious festivals but also for secular purposes: collecting yearly tributes or seasonal taxes for the empire.
Persian calendar
226-41 CE: The Sassanid king, Ard-ashir, instituted the solar calendar based on a fixed 30-day 12-month calendar. It was aimed to rival the Roman domination. After the 12th month, five more days were added and inter-calary month was discarded.
The system was imperfect, even causing much confusion in Zarthosht (Zoroastrian) faith’s religious requirements.
In the 10th century, the Persian Calendar was improved by Malik Shah but was never implemented. Only in the 20th century, did today’s Iran perfected it. It is now the official calendar of Iran since 1925 CE.
Indian Subcontinent Calendars
Indian and Buddhist calendars are luni-solar calendars, just like the Greeks. More than thirty calendars exist today, based on regions and sects – with differences in the beginning of the days, the start of the month, day of the new year, and naming of years. The age of these various calendars can range from year 5000 to year 500.
Since 1952, regional calendars are being standardized but no agreement on ‘Hindu’ calendar has yet been agreed to.
Buddhist calendar, used in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, is uniform except in naming the years, which has national variance.
Logging the Years
The Arabs logged the years based on major events. Abraha’s [the governor of Yemen, then a province of the Kingdom of Aksum (now, Ethiopia)] unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Ka’ba was named ‘Year of the Elephant’; the Prophet was born in this same year.
The more civilized Chinese, Romans and Zarthosht associated their ‘year’ with the rein of their kings. A new cycle of years began with the ascension of a new king. The Subcontinent had a diverse system (each sub-culture has its own method) of naming years.
Jewish Calendar
160 CE: The Jewish Calendar [by Hosey Ben Halafta] calculates its years from the date of creation of Aadam, the first human. Hosey calculated it was 3761 years before him. So, in 2013 CE, according to the Jewish calendar (Rosh Hashanah), the world is only 5,773 AM (anno mundi~the year of world) old.
‘Christian’ Calendar
284 CE: As Christianity replaced the pagan Romans, the new rulers dropped 1st January (of pagan significance) as the start of its year. Instead, the birth of Jesus or Mary was used as the starting day of the year. For naming years, the Christians followed (after 284 CE) the Roman culture of naming the year after the reign of kings until 888 CE.
731 CE: Christian historians (like Bede of England) introduced the concept of writing the equivalent of Before Christ (BC) and After Death (AD) while copying Jewish history of creation of world. Soon, official patronage was given to this concept from 888 CE onwards but it took another 800 years for the whole of Catholic Christians to accept this method of dating years.
1582 CE: An Italian fixed the leap year of the Julian Calendar, and standardized it. Soon, it was sanctioned by the Pope Gregory (the representative of God for Catholic Christians), during the height of Catholic and Protestant wars. It took more than two hundred years for the Protestant Christians to accept the ‘Gregorian’ Calendar as a universal means of Time Keeping.
19th Century: During the colonization of the world by the Europeans, the ‘Gregorian’ Calendar became the standard way to keep time across the world.
Due to changing polemics and politics, this calendar is today called as ‘Christian Calendar’. The Orthodox Christians still use the ‘Era of Martyrs’ calendar, based on Julian Calendar, but starting from 284 CE when Christianity took over pagan religion in Europe. Both of these ‘Christian Calendars’ has pagan roots going much farther in history, to Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar.
1949: China accepted the standardized ‘Julian/Gregorian’ Calendar and logged the years as Common Era (CE) instead of AD, and BCE instead of BC. As the European world becomes more globalised, the CE and BCE are bound to gain increasing legitimacy.
Hijri Calendar
The Prophet, in his lifetime, did away with intercalary months when Pagan Makkans manipulated the calendar to wage war in the ‘forbidden months’.
638: After the spread of Islam, in a multicultural world mired with multiple calendars, Khaalif Umar adopted the ‘Year of Hijrah’ as the first year of new calendar for for his subjects – the Hijri calendar was born.
Unlike Julian calendar, Hijri calendar was local and observation based. And, with only 355 days a year, 10-12 days short of solar calendar, the Hijri calendar drifted with the seasons.
In drifting with seasons, the Hijra Calendar affectively obliterated the pagan festivals of spring, harvest and fertility. It was a radical idea, that aimed to banish superstitions and ignorance. It was the symbolic of rational monotheism.
