Parentella

As we all know, a calendar system is a method of dividing time into days, months and years. Throughout human history, calendars have been either Solar (based upon the revolution of Earth around the Sun–365 days) or Lunar (based on the cycles of the moon–354 days).

Islam uses a lunar based calendar. The Islamic New Year (AKA Maal Hijra) is celebrated on the first day of Muharram, which is the first month in the Islamic calendar. This year, the Islamic New Year starts at sunset on December 6^th and they will be ringing in the year 1432 AH. Their calendar starts the year that the Prophet Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina, where he became a ruler (A.D. 622).

The New Year celebration is not a gala affair, rather it’s a quiet and sober gathering. People meet in mosques (houses of worship) and dargahs (shrines) to offer special prayers and listen to special readings from the Koran. Muslims are supposed to reflect on their life, the manner in which they are leading their life, the passing of time and about their own mortality.

An important part of the prayer service is the narration about the migration of Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. Even though his actual journey took place in the third Islamic month, New Year’s Day is set aside as a time to remember the significance of the migration.

Recently a number of Muslims have started sending greeting cards to each other on their New Year’s Day.

Sources: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/holidays/islamicnewyear.htm; http://www.indobase.com/holidays/new-year/newyear-in-different-religions/islamic-new-year.html; http://www.newyearfestival.com/islamic-new-year.html; http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0823197.html. Image credit: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:hazgTTf4edIqyM:http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f259/HeWhoE/360971d8.gif&t=1

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Written by Christi Grab, with help from Huseyin Bilal. Christi is Parentella’s Editorial Director and author of  The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People Part 1 – San Diego to Australia.  She is currently working on book two of the series.

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Tags: Islamic New Year, Muslim culture, Muslim traditions

This entry was posted on Monday, December 6th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under Christi Grab, Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.