Introduced in the year 638 of the christian era. The first day of the first year (Hijrah) corresponds to the 16th of july 632 of the Gregorian calendar. The Hijrah chronicles the migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Makkah to Madinah in September 622 C.E.).

This calendar is purely lunar.

The mean duration of a lunar cycle is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds. It is approximately 44 minutes more than the muslim month, that is 11 days every 30 years. So the muslim calendar counts 19 years of 354 days and 11 years of 355 days (the abundant years). The cycle of 'abundant' or not years has 30 years, it forms the muslim lunar cycle. The 11 years of 355 days are the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 26th and 29th. This lunar calendar doesn't match with the solar year and then with the seasons.

Muslims put the beginning of each month not at the time of the conjonction between sun and moon, it is when sun, moon and earth are on a straight line, which is the precise instant of the new moon, but when they see in the evening, at the moon rise, the thin light of the first crescent.

The muslim and gregorian calendar will meet on the 1st of Jumadi-Ula 20874 which will be the 1st of may 20874.


©Alain Opériol - 1991-2010 (www.encinaal.fr)