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Lunar Calendar of Pre-Islamic Arabia
By admin | December 19, 2008
Before the advent of Islam brought the Prophet Muhammad, the Arab community used a lunisolar calendar. It was a lunar calendar adjusted by the sun’s position. Beginning of the year (Ra’s as-Sanah = Head of Year) is used to take place after the end of summer, or at around September. The first month was named Muharram, for in the months all tribes in the Arabian Peninsula agreed to proscribe war. In October, the leaves turn yellow so the moon was named Shafar (”yellow”). November and December in the autumn (Rabi`) was respectively named Rabi-ul Awwal and Rabi-ul Akhir. Winter comes in January and February, so they were named Jumadi al-Awwal and Jumadi al-akhir (jumad means “frozen”). Then the snow melts in the month of March (Rajab).
April in the spring season was month of Sya`ban (syi`b = valley), it was time when they went down to the valleys for agricultural land or tend livestock. In May, the temperature began to burn skin, and it increased in June. This is the month of Ramadan (”burning”) and Syawwal (”improvement”). July was the peak of summer that made people more like sitting at home rather than traveling, so this month named Dzulqa`dah (qa`id = sit). Finally, August was named Dzulhijjah, for in the month the Arab communities went to perform Hajj Pilgrimage as a ritual since the era of their ancestors, Abraham.
Each month begins at the emergence of hilal (new moon circulation). It can be 30 or 29 days, so it has 354 days in a year, or 11 days faster than the solar calendar which has 365 days a year. To adjust it to the sun’s position and make the new year always falls in early autumn, then there are seven years which have the 13th month (so one year consists of 384 days) in each period of 19 years. The Intercalation month or extra month was called nasi’ which was used to be added at the end of the year –after the Dzulhijjah.
In fact, not all tribes in the Arabian Peninsula agreed on the years which have the month of nasi’. Each tribe determined the year based on their preference. So, there were occasion where a tribe fought against other tribe in the month of Muharram (forbidden month to fight) with the reason that the war was happened in the still month of nasi’, had not entered Muharram, according to their calendar. As a result, the problem of this intercalation month often caused enmity among the Arab communities who were still in the atmosphere of Dark Ages at that time.
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