Saudi Arabia switches from Hijri calendar to Gregorian calendar

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Oct 18, 2016 at 07:52

Dr Pipes

I'm sure you are aware that Saudi Arabia switched from السنة الهجرية or the Hijri calendar which is a lunar calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar to the Gregorian calendar or السنة الميلادية

Qur'an 9:37 makes it clear that using any calendar with an intercalary month or النسىء or al-Nasi' (The word النسىء could very well be a loan from Coptic Naci which is the name of the intercalary month in the Coptic calendar and for this see month number 13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_calendar) is prohibited and Kufr and Allah does not guide al-Kuffar

Now why would the Saudis switch to the Gregorian calendar? The answer is to save money of salaries paid the SA's employees

The Saudis know very well that the sophisticated Persians realized early on that the Hijri calendar is useless so they invented the السنة الهجرية الشمسية or تقويم هجري شمسي https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D9%82%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%85_%D9%87%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A_%D8%B4%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A

And in the Hijri Sun Calendar the Persians were able to have a calendar that accounts for the intercaraly month that is not present in the Hijri Calendar

Why would the Saudis not use the Hijri sun calendar? I suspect they do not wish to have anything in common with Iran even a calendar

It is interesting to know that in the Levant the Babylonian calendar is used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_names_of_calendar_months

And in the case of Egypt the Gregorian calendar is the one used but the Hijri calendar is given prominence Also the native Coptic calendar is still used by farmers

One final point: The Quranic word Shahr or شهر was read by al-Mufasereen as: Month

In actual fact the word شهر or Shahr is a loan word from Syriac ܣܲܗܪܵܐ or Sahra http://www.assyrianlanguages.org/sureth/dosearch.php?searchkey=9447&language=id

This really means that when the Qur'an is talking about Shahr it is really the moon and the moon cycle

And yes the Arabic word Sahra could mean staying up late

Now back to Saudi Arabia: I have not heard any of their Sheikhs protesting this switch and I wonder why

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