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Argument for the Traditional Lunar Year

Started by MaverickMonotheist, June 17, 2013, 04:50:04 PM

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MaverickMonotheist

Salaam everyone,

I want to propose a possible argument for maintaining the traditional lunar year by rethinking how the sun is used regarding the calendar.

The problem with a luni-solar calendar is the need for an intercalary month or some sort of adjustment to fix the dissonance of the lunar year with the solar year.  A solution to this is a lunar year and a solar year that operate independently of each other by segregating the uses of each.

Let's assume for a moment that the lunar calendar was the one in operation at the time of the revelation of the Qur'an.  It states that certain months are "well known."  If we assume that the current lunar calendar is the one endorsed by the Qur'an, then we run into the pragmatic problems that have been discussed at length.

Instead, let's consider what the sun is used for in the Qur'an: marking the times for prayer.  In the Jewish tradition, the dawn prayer began when someone could distinguish the white thread from the blue one on his tzitzit.  Playing on this tradition, but correcting it, the Qur'an talks about dawn beginning when the white thread of the sky can be distinguished from the black of the horizon by the light of the sun.  The evening prayer also calls the observer to the setting of the sun.  In the solar year, the place of the sun in reference to a fixed point (i.e. a person always facing the same direction at that time) moves throughout the solar year.  In other words, if a person is truly facing a fixed qibla, the place where the sun rises and sets on the horizon moves and the peak of the sun at its height fluctuates based on the time of year.  Ancient astronomers observed this motion of the sun, and you can sometimes find a drawing of an analemma calendar on globes.

So if the solar year is separate and monitored as part of the morning and evening times for prayer, and the lunar calendar is used for the marking of months for the holy months and the month for fasting, then you have a system that makes use of both.  Marking where the sun rubs the horizon could be used for planting and harvest and there would be no need to try to correct the 11 day difference between the two calendars and the traditional lunar calendar could be left intact.

Just an idea.  Salaam.

Scrappy-doo

Salamun alaykum.
Good proposal!  I am surprised no one has answered. I really don't know, but it sounds plausible to me.  :hmm
Non illigitimus carborundum

mmkhan

Salaam MM,

What do you think of 10:5 and 17:12?

The only thing I am stuck on is "a'dada alSineena and alHisaab". If alSineena is only referring to years, then how about months? Does this mean, we don't need months in our calender? And what exactly alHisaab is referring to? Does it mean, the hisaab of years only or making of full calender?


May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path :pr
mmKhan
6:162    قل إن صلاتي ونسكي ومحياي ومماتي لله رب العلمين
6:162    Say: My contact prayer, and my rites, and my life, and my death, are all to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

3:51

MaverickMonotheist

Salaam mmKhan,

In response, I have no idea.  ;) 

Quote from: mmkhan on June 29, 2013, 05:00:55 AM
Salaam MM,

What do you think of 10:5 and 17:12?

The only thing I am stuck on is "a'dada alSineena and alHisaab". If alSineena is only referring to years, then how about months? Does this mean, we don't need months in our calender? And what exactly alHisaab is referring to? Does it mean, the hisaab of years only or making of full calender?


May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path :pr
mmKhan

kgwithnob

Quote from: MaverickMonotheist on July 03, 2013, 01:39:35 PM
Salaam mmKhan,

In response, I have no idea.  ;)

9:36,
إِنَّ عِدَّةَ ٱلشُّہُورِ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ٱثۡنَا عَشَرَ شَہۡرً۬ا فِى ڪِتَـٰبِ ٱللَّهِ يَوۡمَ خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٲتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ مِنۡہَآ أَرۡبَعَةٌ حُرُمٌ۬‌ۚ ذَٲلِكَ ٱلدِّينُ ٱلۡقَيِّمُ‌ۚ فَلَا تَظۡلِمُواْ فِيہِنَّ أَنفُسَڪُمۡ‌ۚ وَقَـٰتِلُواْ ٱلۡمُشۡرِڪِينَ كَآفَّةً۬ ڪَمَا يُقَـٰتِلُونَكُمۡ ڪَآفَّةً۬‌ۚ وَٱعۡلَمُوٓاْ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَ ٱلۡمُتَّقِينَ
Lo! the number of the months with Allah is twelve months by Allah's ordinance in the day that He created the heavens and the earth. Four of them are sacred: that is the right religion. So wrong not yourselves in them. And wage war on all of the idolaters as they are waging war on all of you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).

Peace,
Khalil

Mazhar

[url="http://haqeeqat.pk/index.htm"]http://haqeeqat.pk/index.htm[/url]

wrkmmn

peace:

this is for all the kufars who like the idea of making the lunar month work with the solar.
the sun regulate the seasons, the moon regulates all living things:

The moon:

    regulates your menstrual cycle,
    can trigger ovulation and fertile times,
    affects your emotions and
    affects the way people behave and view the world.

Women are connected to the moon by our blood, our hormones and our souls.

The first step in claiming the gifts of our menstrual cycle is to become re-acqainted with Mother Moon. Putting aside all the scientific phenomena of the way the Moon affects the earths tides, weather, animals, fluids and moods, symbolically the Moon has a lot to teach us.

9:37
The intercalation [of months] is but one more instance of [their] refusal to acknowledge the
truth56- [a means] by which those who are bent on denying the truth are led astray. They declare
this [intercalation] to be permissible in one year and forbidden in [another] year,57 in order to
conform [outwardly] to the number of months which God has hallowed: and thus they make
allowable what God has forbidden.58 Goodly seems unto them the evil of their own doings, since
God does not grace with His guidance people who refuse to acknowledge the truth.


56 Lit., "is but an increase in denying the truth (kufr)". The term nasi', rendered by me as
"intercalation", may also be translated as "postponement" - i.e., the postponement of lunar
months by means of the periodical intercalation of a thirteenth month, as practiced by the
pre-Islamic Arabs with a view to bringing the traditional lunar calendar, for purely worldly
reasons, into accord with the solar year (see note 54 above). The Qur'an describes this practice
as an additional instance of kufr because it contravenes God's declared will as regards the
observance of the lunar calendar in respect of various religious duties (cf. the preceding verse,as well as 2:189 and the corresponding note 165).
57 An allusion to the arbitrary manner in which the pre-Islamic Arabs intercalated a thirteenth
month in the third, sixth and eighth year of every eight-year period.
58 By means of the intercalation spoken of above, the pagan Arabs did in most years keep the
number of months to twelve; but by divorcing the four "sacred months" (Muharram, Rajab, Dhu'l-Qa'dah
and Dhu'l-Hijjah), from their proper lunar context they obviously profaned and perverted the natural
law.

huruf

I am suprised by the proposal, not because I consider it unreasonable, but because I have been taking it for granted since a long time ago. A solar calendar has its uses and a moon calendar has its uses. It is not a matter of which is best it is a matter of what you use them for. And in that sense no different as choosing between the pot or the frying pan. Choose both, one ofr some things the other for other things. Those things for which they are suitable. 


Salaam

Scrappy-doo

But surely if we are going back by the count of 10 each year, wouldn't we then be in danger of fighting and hunting in the forbidden months?
Non illigitimus carborundum