Originally posted by One Bad Pig
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The Tabular Islamic Calendar
To make Islamic time reckoning more predictable and less dependent on lunar observations, Muslim scholars developed the Tabular Islamic calendar in the 8th century CE. This system uses arithmetical rules to determine the length of each month and inserts leap days on a regular basis.
Like in the traditional version, each year has 12 months. However, their length is predetermined: months with uneven numbers have 30 days, while months with even numbers have 29 days.
In a leap year, a day is added to the 12th and final month, Dhu 'l-Hidjdja, making it 30 days long. Common years in the Tabular Islamic calendar have 354 days, while leap years are 355 days long.
To make Islamic time reckoning more predictable and less dependent on lunar observations, Muslim scholars developed the Tabular Islamic calendar in the 8th century CE. This system uses arithmetical rules to determine the length of each month and inserts leap days on a regular basis.
Like in the traditional version, each year has 12 months. However, their length is predetermined: months with uneven numbers have 30 days, while months with even numbers have 29 days.
In a leap year, a day is added to the 12th and final month, Dhu 'l-Hidjdja, making it 30 days long. Common years in the Tabular Islamic calendar have 354 days, while leap years are 355 days long.
That from a more academic source. Every second or 3rd year is a leap year, so the calendar drift isn't that great. However, Ramadan is tied to the crescent moon of the 9th month, so it will wander as much as Easter does, more or less.
And now for the next problem - this way of doing things was introduced 200 years after Muhammed.
11 days short every year - Over 12 years it would amount to 132 days (about 4 months) short.
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