Calendar · a Light

The Muslim year counts from a departure, not a birth

Around 638 CE the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab and his advisers had to decide where the Muslim calendar should begin. They did not choose the birth of the Prophet ﷺ, or the first revelation, or a victory. They chose the Hijra, the migration from Makkah to Yathrib, because that was when a scattered community became a society with obligations to one another. By the standard reckoning the first day of Muharram in year 1 falls on 16 July 622 in the Julian calendar. Every Islamic date since is counted from a group of refugees arriving in a town that agreed to take them in.

Set under Umar ibn al-Khattab · c. 638 CE