Towards an Islamic Lunisolar Calendar

Towards an Islamic Lunisolar Calendar
Author: Hisham Abad
Publisher: Hisham Abad
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2021-04-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

The Calendar was invented in ancient times to allow nations to pace their economic and social activities with climatic seasons. Throughout the history of civilizations, much depended on organizing and administering an accurate calendar. Hunter-gatherers needed the calendar to predict the migrations of herds of wild animals. As humanity advanced, farming communities required calendars to predict the coming of rain or the time of the flooding of rivers. Traders and seafaring communities needed to map the best time of the year to tackle the dangers of seas when sailing far from home. In contemporary times of globalization, calendars have become even more critical in optimizing the complex supply chains of local and global production cycles. Oral traditions ascertain that the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula used a rudimentary lunisolar calendar, called in the literature the “Arabian Calendar.” Like with all nations, the lunisolar Arabian Calendar helped the Arabs organize their meager resources in the best ways possible. For example, research showed that the Ḥajj season and its pan-Arabian markets were scheduled to coincide with the date harvesting season peaking from July to September. The abundance of the date harvest available in this period, along with assigning the concept of inviolability to the Arabian months spanning this season, allowed them to travel across Arabia to Mecca to trade in the pan-Arabian markets and to participate in the religious rituals of their pilgrimage (the Ḥajj). It is asserted in this book that Prophet Muḥammad followed the lunisolar Arabian Calendar all his life. At the end of the tenth year after he migrated from Mecca to Medīna, and during his Farewell Pilgrimage, the Qurʾān sternly abolished the process of intercalation, i.e., the Nasīʾ, the very process which allowed the Arabs to organize their various economic and religious activities. When Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb initiated the Hijri Calendar seven years after Prophet Muḥammad death, i.e., in 17 AH, he founded it as “purely lunar,” which meant its months were allowed to float within the solar year. Caliph ʿUmar is famous for his zeal in protecting the fundamental Islamic principle of monotheism. This, I show, was the reason for introducing the Hijri Calendar as purely lunar, because “Nasīʾ,” i.e., Quraysh’s method of intercalation was hopelessly entangled with the polytheistic religion of Quraysh, the Prophet’s tribe, and the guardian of the holy places in Mecca and its environs. The harmful effects of following the purely lunar Hijri Calendar were realized from early on. But the prohibition of Nasīʾ inhibited the early Islamic caliphs from reforming the Hijri Calendar. This book explores the history of the Arabian Calendar and its intimate connection with the Hijri Calendar. The main findings of this book are as follows: 1- The main Ḥajj shrines in Macca are aligned in the direction of sunrises and sunsets of the Summer Solstice day. 2- Quraysh intercalated its Arabian Calendar by forcing the Summer Solstice (SS) Day to occur within the 11th month of the Arabian Calendar, Shawwāl. The Nasīʾ month was added when the onset of the SS was about to transfer to into the 11th month Dhū’l Qaʿda. 3- The onset of the SS day was determined through the sunset alignment along the line joining the posts of “al-Wosṭā and al-ʿAqaba Jamarāt, and also by observing the sun rising from behind the peak of mount Thabīr from the location of the sacrificial altar of pre-Islamic Mina. 4- The Prophet arrived in his migration from Mecca to Medīna on the Days of ʿĀshūrāʾ which corresponded to the dates of 8th of Rabīʿ-I, the 10th of the Hebrew month Tishri, and to the 23rd of September 632. 5- The epoch of the Hijri Calendar must be adjusted back by two days from the epoch used so far. 6- The Farewell Pilgrimage occurred in autumn on September 4, 632 CE, not in spring on March 11, 632 CE.

Project Planning and Control Using Primavera Contractor Version 6. 1

Project Planning and Control Using Primavera Contractor Version 6. 1
Author: Paul E. Harris
Publisher: Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2009
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1921059265

Written for project management professionals who understand how projects are managed and wish to learn how to plan and control projects with or without resources using Primavera Contractor. The spiral bound version will be useful for training courses and for learning the software.

Time

Time
Author: Abdoul khoudouss Kamara
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 79
Release: 2024-02-08
Genre: Science
ISBN:

Abdoul Koudouss Kamara is a Mauritanian mining engineer, born in 1938, who lives in the United States. His research in the prediction of events by calendar periodicities dates back to the 1970s. Having lost his sight in 1990, his work was greatly slowed down. Abdoul K. Kamara is also a practitioner of esotericism.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual
Author: David Pogue
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 907
Release: 2009-10-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1449388787

For a company that promised to "put a pause on new features," Apple sure has been busy-there's barely a feature left untouched in Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard." There's more speed, more polish, more refinement-but still no manual. Fortunately, David Pogue is back, with the humor and expertise that have made this the #1 bestselling Mac book for eight years straight. You get all the answers with jargon-free introductions to: Big-ticket changes. A 64-bit overhaul. Faster everything. A rewritten Finder. Microsoft Exchange compatibility. All-new QuickTime Player. If Apple wrote it, this book covers it. Snow Leopard Spots. This book demystifies the hundreds of smaller enhancements, too, in all 50 programs that come with the Mac: Safari, Mail, iChat, Preview, Time Machine. Shortcuts. This must be the tippiest, trickiest Mac book ever written. Undocumented surprises await on every page. Power usage. Security, networking, build-your-own Services, file sharing with Windows, even Mac OS X's Unix chassis-this one witty, expert guide makes it all crystal clear.