9 – CONVERSION OF
A LUNAR YEAR INTO ANNO DOMINI

Let us find the anno domini which coincides with the beginning of the Hegira lunar year 1404; 1403 x 0,97023 = 1361.23 would become the Hegira solar year which starts on the 16th of July. Then 1361.23 + 621.54 = 1982.77 would be (0.24 x 30 = 7.2) the eighth day of (0.77x12=9.24) the tenth month of the year 1983 A.D. 

10 – FINDING OUT THE FIRST DAY OF THE
HEGIRA YEAR

The first day of Muharram is the beginning of the Hegira year. To find out what day it is (it was, it will be), the concerned year is multiplied by five. The number obtained is divided by eight. The remainder shows the number of days from Thursday. For example, the first of Muharram, 1357:

Five times 1357 is 6785. When this is divided by eight the remainder is one. The first day of Muharram is Thursday. Please see the fourth fascicle of Endles Bliss. 

11 – FINDING OUT THE FIRST DAY OF
ANY ARABIC MONTH (By the IŞIK Method)

One minus the number of the year is multiplied by 4.367. The figure assigned to the month concerned is added to the unit figure of the number obtained. When the total is divided by seven, the remainder shows the number of days from Friday.

The figures assigned to the twelve Arabic months are relatively the first letters of the twelve capitalized words in the following minemonic couplet:

Hilmi, Be not Drifted by Hopeless Zeal of Earth!

Jibing Damsel Was to the Zealous its Beauty’s Joy.

The succession of the twelve capital letters in the couplet is the same as the succession of the twelve Arabic months beginning with Muharram. Each letter is the assigned number of the month occupying the same position in the series of twelve.

The letters in the words “Ebjed hewwez hutty” are called Hurûf-i-jummal and represent the following:

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E = 1, b = 2, j = 3, d = 4, he = 5, w = 6, z = 7, hu = 8, t = 9, y = 10.

Accordingly, the first letters of the capitalized words in the couplet above denote the following months:

Hilmi       = 8 = Muharram

Be          = 2 = Safar

Drifted    = 4 = Rabî’ul-awwal

Hopeless = 5 = Rabî’ul-âhır

Zeal       = 7 = Jamâzil-awwal

Earth     = 1 = Jamâzil-âhır

Jibing     = 3 = Rajab

Damsel   = 4 = Sha’bân

Was      = 6 = Ramadân-ul-mubârak

Zealous  = 7 = Shawwâl

Beauty   = 2 = Dhu’l-qa’da

Joy        = 3 = Dhu’l-hijja

As an example, let us find out the twenty-ninth day of the month of Dhu’l-qa’da 1362:

Let us multiply the number 1361 by 4.367; the answer is 5943. Now let us add two to this, -for the number assigned to Dhu’l-qa’da is two-; the answer is 5945. If we divide this by seven the remainder is two. So, the first day of Dhu’l-qa’da is the second day beginning with Friday: It is Saturday. And the twenty-ninth day is again, naturally, Saturday. This method, discovered by Hüseyn Hilmi Işık[1] ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ aleyh’, the compiler and the publisher of the book Endless Bliss is very precise and accurate.

While the moon joins the daily east-west motions of the sun and the stars, it moves in a west-east direction around the earth. This motion is faster than the sun’s motion from west to east. The moon completes one rotation in 27 days plus 8 hours. Therefore, it completes its daily tour fifty minutes plus 30 seconds after the stars. The sun, on the other hand, completes its tour four minutes after (the stars). Consequently, the moon reaches the meridian later than the sun did the previous day and sets 45 minutes after the sun the first night. There is an angle of approximately five

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[1] Please see the twelfth chapter of The Proof of Prophethood.

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degrees between the plane of the lunar orbit and the ecliptic plane. Once each revolution, the sun, the earth and the moon become aligned with one another, the sun and moon being in the same direction from the earth. This state of collinearity is called Ijtimâ’i neyyireyn = Conjunction. In this state the face of the moon in our direction becomes obscure. We cannot see the moon. This period of time is called Muhâq. There is not a fixed period of muhâq. It varies from twenty-eight hours to seventy-two hours. The Ottoman calendars give a maximum of three days. The time of conjunction is exactly the middle of the period of muhâq. Scientific calendars determine its exact time for each month. Since the earth revolves about the sun, too, the duration of time between two conjunctions is 29 days and 13 hours. At the time of conjunction, the sun and the moon pass the meridian at the same time. The moon can never be seen anywhere before the angle between the two elongations (Beynûnet), i.e. the elongation between the earth and the moon and that which is between the earth and the sun, has become eight degrees [approximately fourteen hours after the moment of conjunction]. When the angle becomes eighteen (18) degrees maximum, the moon comes out of the state of invisibility and the new moon appears on the western horizon during the forty-five minutes prior to sunset. However, due to (the fifty-seven minute phenomenon termed) parallax, when it reaches a position five degrees from the horizon, it can no longer be seen. After the moon comes out of the state of invisibility, the new moon can be observed in places situated on the same longitude as the location where the sunset is taking place. As for later hours, that is, at night, it can be observed after sunset in countries west of these places. For instance, close to the beginning of the month of Rajab, the time of conjunction was fifteen (15) hundred hours according to Turkish meantime [Izmit’s local time], on 14 May, Wednesday, 1980. The new moon cannot be observed before 5 a.m. the following day, i.e. Thursday. As it was accepted by the Ottoman scholars, when the (moon’s) elongation becomes eighteen (18) degrees, which means a duration of one and a half days, the first appearing of the new moon will be at 3 a.m. on 15 May, Friday. Since the time of sunset as of (that) Friday in Istanbul is 19.20 hours, it will be possible to observe the new moon during sunset on Friday [the night previous to Saturday] in the city of Chicago, America, where the sunset is 16 hours earlier, that is, they are 240 degrees east of

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Istanbul and 270 degrees east of London. It cannot be observed on this same night in places east of the two hundred and seventieth meridian. Their nights begin at the time of sunset and the mornings following these nights begin at midnight. The purpose for these calculations is not to determine the time when the lunar month begins, but to find out the (beginning of the) month when the new moon can be seen. Those who say that it began before Friday night should not be believed. Imâm-i-Subkî also said so. We should not believe those people who falsify the Imâm’s statement. (Commentaires of Tahtâwî and Shernblâlî). It is stated as follows on the two hundred and eighty-ninth page of the first volume of Ibni Âbidîn, during the discourse on how to find the direction of qibla: “Scholars said that we should not trust calendars in learning the first day of Ramadân-i-sherîf. For, the fast becomes fard after the new moon is seen in the sky.Our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ stated, ‘Begin to fast when you see the new moon!’ On the other hand, the (first) appearing of the new moon depends on calculation, not on seeing it; calculation is valid, and the new moon first appears on the night indicated by calculation. Yet it can be seen on the following night instead of that night, and it is necessary to begin the fast on the night it is seen, not on the night it must appear (according to the calculation). Such is the commandment of the Sharî’at.” It is an act of worship to look for the new moon in the sky. As it is seen, announcing the beginning of Ramadân-i-sherîf beforehand is an indication of not knowing the Sharî’at. Likewise, the first day of the ’Iyd of Qurbân is determined by observing the new moon for the (beginning of the) month of Zu’lhijja. The ninth day of the month of Zu’lhijja, the Arafa Day, is the day found by calculation or calendar, or the following day. The hajj performed by those who climb the Arafât a day earlier is not valid. So none of them can be a hadji.

The books Ma’rifetnâma and Ajâib-ul-makhlûqât contain other different methods and charts instructing how to determine the first day of an Arabic month. The latter also quotes Imâm-i-Ja’fer Sâdiq ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ aleyh’ as having said: The first day of each year’s Ramadân-i-sherîf is the fifth day of the week that is supposed to begin with the first day of the previous year’s Ramadân-i-sherîf. Following is Uluğ Bey’s chart and the directions showing how to use it, derived fromAhmed Ziyâ Bey’s book:

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The Abuzziyâ Calendar of the year 1310 [A.D. 1893] formulates the steps for finding the first day of an Arabic month as follows: The number of the hijrî lunar year is divided by eight. The remainder is found on Ibni Ishâq Ya’qûb Kindî’s chart, above, the first line. A vertical movement downward from this number and a horizontal line leftward from the name of the month will intersect on the number representing the day counted from Friday on.

There are various methods for finding the first day of anArabic month. The most dependable method is the one systematized by Uluğ Bey. According to this method, the first step is to find the first day of the first month, Muharram, of the hijrî year. For finding the first day of the month of Muharram, the number of the hijrî year concerned is divided by the fixed number 210. The first figure of the remainder (the first on the right) is subtracted from the remainder. The number found is checked on the first chart (The first one of Uluğ Bey’s charts of lunar month): it will be one of the numbers on the first column, that is, the column containing numbers with their first figures discarded. A horizontal move rightward from this number and a vertical projection from the figure representing the first figure of the remainder (on the uppermost horizontal line) will converge on the number indicating the first day of Muharram counted from Sunday. For example, let us find the first day of Muharram of the hijrî year 1316: 1316 / 210 = 6. 56 /210 . The remainder is 56. When its first figure, 6, is subtracted, number 50 will be found. As you move rightward from number fifty on the first column, you will find number 1 on the column belonging to number 6, (which is on

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the uppermost horizontal line). Hence, the first day of the year (the hijrî year 1316) was Sunday. To find the first day of any Arabic month, first the first day of that year is found. On the second chart, the number on the intersection of the (horizontal) line belonging to the month concerned and the column containing the number on the line belonging to the month Muharram, i.e. the number on the first line representing the first day of the year, represents the number of the day counted from Sunday and it is the first day of the month concerned. As an example, let us find the first day of Ramadân, 1316: Sunday, the first day of that year, (as we have already found in the first example above), is the first day of the week. Therefore, on the second chart, the number on the intersection of the column belonging to number 1 on the first line and the horizontal line belonging to Ramadân is 6. Hence, the first day of Ramadân is the sixth day from Sunday, i.e. Friday.

Finding the beginning of the hijrî year concurring with a given Christian year:

A hijrî year begins approximately eleven days earlier in the Christian year following the Christian year in which the previous hijrî year began. Once every 33.58 hijrî years, which means once every 32.58 Christian years, the beginning of hijrî year coincides with one of the first days of January. Chart III shows the hijrî years beginning in December. The hijrî year-beginnings following these move yearly from this twelfth month backwards to the first month, coinciding with each of the Christian months. For finding the Christian month corresponding with the beginning of any of such hijrî years which the chart does not contain, the hijri year that is closest to it and which the chart contains is found on the chart, and thereby the Christian year next to this hijrî year on the chart. The difference between the two hijrî years is added to the Christian year found on the chart. For instance, let us find the Christian year coinciding with the beginning of 1344 hijrî: 1344-1330=14; 1911+14=1925. It coincides with July, which is below number 14 on Chart IV. The Christian year with which a certain Christian month within a certain hijrî year coincides, if this certain month is before the month with which the beginning of the hijrî year coincides, is one year ahead of the year found.

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ULUĞ BEY’S CHARTS OF LUNAR MONTHS

 

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CHART II