ISLAMIC NEW YEAR

Malaysian Muslims recite prayers during a ceremony on the first day of Moharram, which marks the start the Muslim new year, in Putrajaya January 10, 2008. (REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad, Malaysia)

The Islamic New Year 1433 (Arabic: رأس السنة الهجرية‎ Ras as-Sana al-Hijreya) begins on or around November 26, 2011 in the Gregorian Calendar (the exact date depends on visibility of the hilal (waxing crescent moon following a new moon) and may vary according to location).
The day marks the beginning of the new year in the Islamic Calendar, called Hijra (هِجْرَة). The arabic word Hijra means migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622. Alternate spellings of this word are Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira in Latin. The Hijra has twelve lunar months, the beginnings and endings of each month are determined by the sighting of the crescent moon. The Islamic calendar is the official calendar in many Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Other Muslim countries use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes and only turn to the Islamic calendar for religious purposes.
The first day of the new year, called Awal Muharram, is an important religious day for Muslims. It is observed on the first day of Muharram which is the first month in the Islamic calendar.
In some countries, this day is recognized as a public holiday. Among these countries are:
Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Muslims do not traditionally “celebrate” the beginning of a new year, but do acknowledge the passing of time. They spent the day in prayer and are supposed to reflect on how they are leading their life and on their own mortality. It is also a time for making resolutions for the new year. Muslims around the world gather in mosques, offer special prayers and listen to special readings from the Koran, especially the narrations of the Hijra.
Recently a number of Muslims have started sending greeting cards to each other on their New Year’s Day.

Tala al-Badru Alayna – طلع البدر علينا – a traditional religious Islamic song (Nasheed)
that the Ansar sung to Prophet Muhammad upon his arrival at Yathrib (Medina)
after completing the Hijra in 622 CE.
The song is currently over 1400 years old, and one of the oldest in the Islamic culture.
The following version is composed by Yusuf Islam in 2008:

Since the Islamic year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Islamic new year does not come on the same day of the Gregorian calendar every year. While some Islamic organizations prefer determining the new month (and hence the new year) dates by local sighting of the moon, most Islamic institutions and countries, including Saudi Arabia, follow astronomical calculations to determine future dates of the Islamic calendar.
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Islamic Calendar – Hijra

The Islamic calendar was first introduced by the close companion of the Prophet ‘Umar ibn Al-Khattab. During his leadership of the Muslim community, in approximately 638 A.D., he consulted with his advisors in order to come to a decision regarding the various dating systems used at that time. It was agreed that the most appropriate reference point for the Islamic calendar was the Hijra, since it was an important turning point for the Muslim community. After the migration to Medina (formerly known as Yathrib), the Muslims were able to organize and establish the first real Muslim “community,” with social, political, and economic independence. Life in Medina allowed the Muslim community to mature and strengthen, and the people developed an entire society based on Islamic principles.

The Islamic calendar is not to be confused with a lunar calendar that is based on astronomical calculations. The latter is based on a year of 12 months adding up to 354 or 357 days. Each lunar month begins at the time of the monthly “conjunction”, when the moon is located on a straight line between the earth and the sun. The month is defined as the average duration of a rotation of the moon around the earth (29.53 days).
The Islamic calendar, however, is based on a different set of conventions. Each month has either 29 or 30 days, but usually in no discernible order. Traditionally, the first day of each month is the day (beginning at sunset) of the first sighting of the Hilal (Arabic: crescent moon) shortly after sunset. If the Hilal is not observed immediately after the 29th day of a month (be it because clouds block its view or because the western sky is still too bright when the moon sets etc.), then the day that begins at that sunset is the 30th. Such a sighting has to be made by one or more trustworthy men testifying before a committee of Muslim leaders. Determining the most likely day that the Hilal could be observed was a motivation for Muslim interest in astronomy, which put Islam in the forefront of that science for many centuries.
This traditional practice is still followed in the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries. Each Islamic State proceeds with its own monthly observation of the new moon (or, failing that, awaits the completion of 30 days) before declaring the beginning of a new month on its territory. But, the lunar crescent becomes visible only some 15–18 hours after the conjunction, and only subject to the existence of a number of favourable conditions relative to weather, time, geographic location, as well as various astronomical parameters. Given the fact that the moon sets progressively later than the sun as one goes West, Western Muslim countries are likely to observe the new moon one day earlier than Eastern Muslim countries. Due to the interplay of all these factors, the beginning of each month differs from one Muslim country to another, and the information provided by the calendar in any country does not extend beyond the current month.

An Indian version of “Tala al-Badru Alayna”
by Minhaj-ul-Quran Naat Council

A number of Muslim countries try to overcome some of these difficulties by applying different astronomy-related rules to determine the beginning of months. Thus, Malaysia, Indonesia, and a few others begin each month at sunset on the first day that the moon sets after the sun (moonset after sunset). In Egypt, the month begins at sunset on the first day that the moon sets at least five minutes after the sun.
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Muhammad’s Migration to Medina

The period of Muhammad in Medina started with the Hijra (migration to Medina) in 622 and ended with the conquest of Mecca in 630.

In the course of Muhammad proselytizing in Mecca, he viewed Christians and Jews (both of whom he referred to as “People of the Book”) as natural allies, part of the Abrahamic religions, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support.

A delegation consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina (known as Yathrib before Muhammad’s arrival), invited Muhammad as a neutral outsider to Medina to serve as a chief arbitrator for the entire community. There was fighting in Yathrib mainly involving its Arab and Jewish inhabitants for around a hundred years before 620. The recurring slaughters and disagreements over the resulting claims, especially after the Battle of Bu’ath in which all clans were involved, made it obvious to them that the tribal conceptions of blood-feud and an-eye-for-an-eye were no longer workable unless there was one man with authority to adjudicate in disputed cases. The delegation from Medina pledged themselves and their fellow-citizens to accept Muhammad into their community and physically protect him as one of themselves.
Muhammad instructed his followers to emigrate to Medina until virtually all his followers left Mecca. Being alarmed at the departure of Muslims, according to the tradition, the Meccans plotted to assassinate Muhammad. With the help of Ali, Muhammad fooled the Meccans who were watching him, and secretly slipped away from the town with Abu Bakr. By 622, Muhammad emigrated to Medina, a large agricultural oasis. Those who migrated from Mecca along with Muhammad became known as Muhajirun (emigrants).

Among the things Muhammad did in order to settle the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina was drafting a document known as the Constitution of Medina (date debated), “establishing a kind of alliance or federation” among the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca, which specified the rights and duties of all citizens and the relationship of the different communities in Medina (including that of the Muslim community to other communities specifically the Jews and other “Peoples of the Book”). The community defined in the Constitution of Medina, Umma, had a religious outlook but was also shaped by the practical considerations and substantially preserved the legal forms of the old Arab tribes. Muhammad also adopted some features of the Jewish worship and customs such as fasting on the Yom Kippur day.

The first group of pagan converts to Islam in Medina were the clans who had not produced great leaders for themselves but had suffered from warlike leaders from other clans. This was followed by the general acceptance of Islam by the pagan population of Medina, apart from some exceptions. This was, according to Ibn Ishaq, influenced by the conversion to Islam of Sa’d ibn Mua’dh, one of the prominent leaders in Medina.
(Muhammad – wikipedia).
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Numbering the Years

In pre-Islamic Arabia, it was customary to identify a year after a major event which took place in it. Thus, according to Islamic tradition, Abraha, governor of Yemen, then a province of the Christian Kingdom of Aksum (Ethiopia), attempted to destroy the Kaaba with an army which included several elephants. The raid was unsuccessful, but that year became known as the Year of the Elephant, during which Muhammad was born (surat al-Fil). Most equate this to the year 570 CE, but a minority use 571 CE.

The first ten years of the Hijra were not numbered, but were named after events in the life of Muhammad according to al-Biruni:

1. The year of permission.
2. The year of the order of fighting.
3. The year of the trial.
4. The year of congratulation on marriage.
5. The year of the earthquake.
6. The year of enquiring.
7. The year of gaining victory.
8. The year of equality.
9. The year of exemption.
10. The year of farewell.

In 638 CE (17 AH), Abu-Musa al-Asha’ari, one of the officials of the second Caliph Umar in Basrah, complained about the absence of any years on the correspondence he received from Umar, making it difficult for him to determine which instructions were most recent. This report convinced Umar of the need to introduce an era for Muslims. After debating the issue with his counsellors, he decided that the first year should include the date of Muhammad’s arrival at Medina tun Nabi (Yathrib). Uthman ibn Affan then suggested that the months begin with Muharram, in line with the established custom of the Arabs at that time. The years of the Islamic calendar thus began with the month of Muharram in the year of Muhammad’s arrival at the city of Medina, even though the actual emigration took place in September. Because of the Hijra, the calendar was named the Hijra calendar.
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Saudi Arabia’s Umm al-Qura Calendar

Saudi Arabia uses the sighting method to determine the beginning of each month of the Hijri calendar. Since AH 1419 (1998/99) several official hilal sighting committees have been set up by the government to determine the first visual sighting of the lunar crescent at the beginning of each lunar month. Nevertheless, the religious authorities also allow the testimony of less experienced observers and thus often announce the sighting of the lunar crescent on a date when none of the official committees could see it.
The country also uses the Umm al-Qura calendar, based on astronomical calculations, but this is restricted to administrative purposes. The parameters used in the establishment of this calendar underwent significant changes over the past decade.

Before AH 1420 (before 18 April 1999), if the moon’s age at sunset in Riyad was at least 12 hours, then the day ending at that sunset was the first day of the month. This often caused the Saudis to celebrate holy days one or even two days before other predominantly Muslim countries, including the dates for the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), which can only be dated using Saudi dates because it is performed in Mecca.

For AH 1420–22, if moonset occurred after sunset at Mecca, then the day beginning at that sunset was the first day of a Saudi month, essentially the same rule used by Malaysia, Indonesia, and others (except for the location from which the hilal was observed).

Since the beginning of AH 1423 (16 March 2002), the rule has been clarified a little by requiring the geocentric conjunction of the sun and moon to occur before sunset, in addition to requiring moonset to occur after sunset at Mecca. This ensures that the moon has moved past the sun by sunset, even though the sky may still be too bright immediately before moonset to actually see the crescent.

In 2007, the Islamic Society of North America, the Fiqh Council of North America and the European Council for Fatwa and Research announced that they will henceforth use a calendar based on calculations, using the same parameters as the Umm al-Qura calendar, to determine (well in advance) the beginning of all lunar months (and therefore the days associated with all religious observances). This was intended as a first step on the way to unify Muslims’ calendars throughout the world, in some future time.
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Months of the Islamic Calendar

Islamic months begin at sunset of the first day, the day when the lunar crescent is visually sighted. The lunar year is approximately 354 days long, so the months rotate backward through the seasons and are not fixed to the Gregorian calendar.

“These are the Months In Islam” – a Nasheed about all months in the Islamic Calendar,
by Zain Bhikhaa:

The months of the Islamic year are:

1. Muḥarram – (or Muḥarram al Ḥaram): محرّم
2. Ṣafar – (or Ṣafar al Muzaffar): صفر
3. Rabīʿ al-Awwal – (Rabīʿ I): ربيع الأوّل
4. Rabīʿ al-Thānī – (or Rabīʿ al-Ākhir) (Rabīʿ II): ربيع الآخر أو ربيع الثاني
5. Jumādā al-Ūlā – (Jumādā I): جمادى الأولى
6. Jumādā al-Thānī – (or Jumādā al-Ākhirah) (Jumādā II): جمادى الآخرة أو جمادى الثانية
7. Rajab – (or Rajab al-Murājab): رجب
8. Shaʿbān – (or Shaʿbān al-Muʿaẓẓam): شعبان
9. Ramaḍān – (or Ramaḍān al-Mubārak): رمضان
10. Shawwāl – (or Shawwāl al-Mukarram): شوّال
11. Dhū al-Qaʿda – (or Dhū al-Qiʿda): ذو القعدة
12. Dhū al-Ḥijja – (or Dhū al-Ḥajja): ذو الحجة

Of all the months in the Islamic calendar, Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, is the most venerated.
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Important dates in the Islamic (Hijra) Calendar are:

• 1 Muharram (Islamic New Year)
• 10 Muharram (Day of Ashura). For Sunni Muslims, the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites. For Shia Muslims, the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, and his followers.

• 12 Rabi al Awal (Mawlid an Nabi for Sunni Muslims)
• 17 Rabi al Awal (Mawlid an Nabi for Shia Muslims Twelvers)
• 13 Rajab (Birthday of Ali ibn Abi Talib.)
• 27 Rajab (Isra and Miraj)

• 15 Sha’ban (Mid-Sha’ban, or Night of Forgiveness), and the birthday of Muhammad al-Mahdi (The Twelfth Imam)

• 1 Ramadan (first day of fasting)
• 21 Ramadan Ali ibn Abi Talib’s Martyrdom.
• 27 Ramadan (Nuzul Al-Qur’an) (17 Ramadan in Indonesia and Malaysia)
• Last third of Ramadan which includes Laylat al-Qadr

• 1 Shawwal (Eid al-Fitr)

• 8-13 Dhu al-Hijjah (the Hajj to Mecca)
• 10 Dhu al-Hijjah (Eid al-Adha)
• 18 Dhu al-Hijjah (Eid al-Ghadeer)
• 24 Dhu al-Hijjah (Eid al-Mubahila)
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Waiting for the New Year (photo: www.shurulmubeen.com)

GREETINGS

Islamic scholars point to the fact that initiating specific greetings on the occasion of the Islamic New Year are not appropriate, because by making a specific greeting like “happy new year” this means in a way celebrating the occasion – which is something the Prophet did not do.

What is the ruling on congratulating people on the occasion of the Hijri new year, and how should one reply to a person who offers congratulations?

Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen:
If someone offers you congratulations, then respond to him, but do not initiate such greetings. This is the correct view concerning this matter. So if a person says to you, for example, “Happy New Year”, then you can say, “May Allaah make it a good and blessed year for you.”
But you should not initiate such a greeting, because I do not know of any report that the salaf (early generations of Islam) congratulated one another on the occasion of the new year, rather the salaf did not regard the first of Muharram as the first day of the new year until the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allaah be pleased with him.

Shaykh ‘Abd al-Kareem al-Khudayr:
Praying for another Muslim in general terms, in phrases that are not meant as a kind of ritual on special occasions such as Eid, is acceptable, especially if what is meant by this greeting is friendship and to show a friendly face to one’s fellow Muslim. Imaam Ahmad (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: “I do not initiate the greeting but if someone greets me I return the greeting, because responding to the greeting is obligatory. But being the first to offer congratulations is neither Sunnah nor forbidden.
(Islam Question and Answers)
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The following version of the song “Tala’al Badru Alayna”
is a composition by Mira Izzad, sung by Umm Kulthum:

Umm Kulthum (probably born May 4, 1904, died Febr. 3, 1975) was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village that belongs to El Senbellawein. Various spellings of her name include Om Koultoum, Om Kalthoum, Oumme Kalsoum, Umm Kolthoum and Ümmü Gülsüm.
Umm Kulthum is known as the Star of the East (kawkab el-sharq). More than three decades after her death, she is still recognized as one of the Arab world’s most famous and distinguished singers of the 20th century. Umm Kulthum is widely regarded as the greatest female singer in Arab music history.

“Tala al Badru Alayna” – Nasheed sung by Labbayk (with lyrics):

Labbayk is a nasheed group based in London, UK. Nasheed is Islamic vocal music. The group started singing officially in Islamic events from the year 2004 and have been doing live performances around the world since. The group consists of Masum born in 1987, Ehsaan born in 1987 and Imran born in 1991, with Ehsaan joining the group in 2006. The nasheeds composed have no musical instruments and no musical instruments were utilised in composing the vocal harmonies.

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I greet all Muslims on the occasion
of the Islamic New Year!
May Allah’s light always fill the pages of your life.

Best wishes,

Angela Nilsson
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Sources:
http://islam.about.com/cs/calendar/a/hijrah_calendar.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_New_Year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(Islam)
http://www.indobase.com/holidays/new-year/newyear-in-different-religions/islamic-new-year.html

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