Maal Hijrah 1429

I have always thought so highly of the Hijra calendar.

For one we decided the count in the year in 632 AD and chose the year of the prophet's migration in 622 as our base. The Gregorian calendar, if I am not mistaken, started its count in the 15th century and chose the birth of Isa Alaihissalam as their datum (though they missed it by a good few years).

In other words, the year 1429 Hijra is actually 2630 AD if we were to start the count based on the Gregorian calendar. Or more if we were able to count to Adam's day on earth!

Too big a number, I guess, for us to use daily. And what's in a number anyway, right?

The lunar based calendar was apparently pre-ordained by God in the Qur'an. And being lunar-based, our religious holy days tend to rotate a bit year by year (solar year that is). While it is difficult at times to keep track of the holy days, if one were to use the solar Gregorian calendar, but to my mind, at least no one has the right to keep on fasting in the short winter days year in year out.

Not that it matters that much for us here in the tropics.

I have always pitied the guys in the southern hemisphere. Christmas is almost always etched in my mind with white snow blanketing the house and lawn. So in Australia I thought it was funny when the public loudspeaker was blaring the song "I wish for a white christmas" while we were basking the hot midsummer sun.

Then again, who am I to say the Ozzies do not enjoy putting shrimp on their barbie during Christmas?

No chance, I guess, for someone to be fasting for 18 hours through out his life if he were to stay put at a milder climate country as a purely lunar-based calendar like the Hijra would always be 11 days short than its solar-based counterpart. I had never had the opportunity to be doing that to be honest, and I am not sure if I would like to have a go at it or not.

So I was explaining the virtue of the Hijra calendar more than twenty years ago to my Indian colleague Theva during a chat, may be during a grave yard shift change-over in Padang Rengas.

Him: "Then how would you decide when is the time for planting and other economic activities which is normally based on the four seasons?"

I had no answer to him then. I do know now that, while the Chinese use a 'lunar' calendar, it was a modified (or adjusted) to take care of this quirk. So would the Jewish community. I was told that intercallary is forbidden for us and hence it was not done for the Hijra calendar.

I guess for us, we would have to use the lunar to determine our holy days and another solar based one for other activities.

Since it was pre-ordained, I guess the Maal Hijrah is no longer just an arbitrary point in the time plane.

But one thing puzzles me. We seems to have so many different dates (solar calendar dates) for our other celebrations (Eid etc), but there seems to be consensus when it comes to Maal Hijrah. During one year, the world was celebrating Eid on four different solar-calendar dates. How come we can agree on the Maal Hijra?

May the New Year brings us closer to God, and may he reward us with iman.

Amin.

Have a blessed Maal Hijrah everyone.