By Noon Prayer by El Guindi Fadwa;

Author:El Guindi, Fadwa; [El Guindi, Fadwa;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845200961
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2008-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Another anonymous poet cited by al-Biruni (73) demonstrates the centrality of intercalators in pre-Islamic Arabia:

We have an intercalator, under whose banner we march;

He declares the months “ordinary”19 or sacred, as he likes”

Ibn al-Athir (1965; cited by Bamyeh 1999: 275, n.33) reports that the Arab an-Nasa’ah (intercalators) using their calendar as the standard, “exchanged one of the forbidden months for the following one because they needed to raid during the month designated sacred by the Quraysh.” Al-Mas’udi (1965 II: 30–31, 188) reports about a month, an-Nasi,’ that an-Nasa’ah added to the lunar calendar once every three years in order to make up the discrepancy between the lunar and the solar calendars. In terms of the sacred months, this would result in an increase once in three years of a month in which fighting was permitted.

It appears that Arabian Arabs adopted a system of intercalation for at least two centuries before the Hijra. It involved “adding the difference between their [referring to lunar] year and the solar year, when it had summed up to one complete month, to the months of their year” (al-Biruni 1998 [1879]: 73). That is to say, lunar months and solar months are never in synch. Their “intercalators … the Kalamis of the tribe Kinana, rose, after pilgrimage had been finished, delivered a speech to the people at the fair, and intercalated the month, calling the next following month by the name of that month in which they were. The Arabs consented to this arrangement and adopted the decision of the Kalammas, This proceeding they called ‘Nasi,’” i.e. postponement, because “in every second or third year they postponed the beginning of the year for a month, as it was required by the progression of the year” (73).

Al-Biruni elaborates: “a month progressed beyond its proper place in the four seasons of the year, in consequence of the accumulation of the fractions of the solar year, and of the remainder of the plus-difference between the solar year and the lunar year” (73–74). They add the “plus-difference,” thus making a second intercalation. The Arabian Arabs were able to follow such progression by recognizing “the rising and setting of the Lunar Mansions,” when the turn of intercalation had come to Sha’ban. Now Sha’ban was called Muharram, and Ramadan was called Safar.

To illustrate this technique a list of the names of twelve months reported to have been employed centuries before and into the seventh century (i.e. prior to and into the birth of Islam) is provided here in table form to simplify al-Biruni’s explanation of how intercalation works. Note that in Table 5.6 the twelve Arabic month names are the same names used today as Islamic months.

Table 5.6 Arabic month names (adopted as Islamic) 1 Muharram

2 Safar

3 Rabi’ Awwal

4 Rabi’ Thani

5 Jamad Awwal

6 Jamad Thani

7 Rajab

8 Sha’ban

9 Ramadan

10 Shawwal

11 Thu l-Qa’da

12 Thu l-Hijja

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