Happy Ramadan to all who observe it
Could someone Eli5 how a calendar that is less time than the time it takes the earth to travel around the sun used outside of a religious context?
I understand it’s connected to the stages of the moon and that the date for Ramadan moves in relation to the Gregorian calendar every year, was the ever a time when the Islamic calendar was used without the Gregorian calendar?
If so, how did that work logistically? I have a friend who was born during the month of Ramadan, and that year Ramandan was in the summer. Was it never an issue that the months don’t always corelate to seasons? Were seasons not really thing in the part of the world where the calendar was developed?
In: 5
Lunar and solar calendars were both used in the Middle East (eg the date of the crucifixion is 15 Nisan – the 3rd lunar month of the year in the Babylonian calendar. They were reconciled by adding an extra month when needed – but the solar calendar was used for agriculture. The Islamic calendar is a purely lunar calendar, and does not adjust, so cycles around the solar year every 33 years. For non-religious purposes people use a version of the Gregorian calendar or the solar Persian calendar.
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