The Muslim Calendar

May 6, 2008

Although this blog is named “The Jesus Myth,” I like to discuss other “religions” as well.

One thing I find interesting about Islam is its calendar.

One would think the year ‘1′ in the Islamic calendar would coincide with a particularly noteworthy event — perhaps the most important event. After all, Christians date their calendar from the birth of Christ (or at least very close to it). One would think Islam would have year ‘1′ start at Muhommed’s birth (or death). Yet that is not the case.

In 622, when Muhommed was more than fifty years old, he and his followers made the Hijra from Mecca to the oasis of Yathrib — later renamed Medina — some 200 miles to the north. He had already angered the pagan leaders of Mecca, and there had already been an attempt on Muhammad’s life. Muhammad had sent emissaries to Medina to ensure his welcome. He was accepted by the Medinan tribes as the leader of the Muslims and as arbiter of inter-tribal disputes.

Shortly before Muhammad fled the hostility of Mecca, a new batch of Muslim converts pledged their loyalty to him on a hill outside Mecca called Aqaba. Sira p208 conveys the significance of this event:

Sira, p208: When God gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second {oath of allegiance at} Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not in the first act of fealty. Now they {Muhammad’s followers} bound themselves to war against all and sundry for God and his Apostle, while he promised them for faithful service thus the reward of paradise.

That Muhammad’s nascent religion underwent a significant change at this point is plain. The scholarly Ishaq clearly intends to impress on his (Muslim) readers that, while in its early years, Islam was a relatively tolerant creed that would “endure insult and forgive the ignorant,” Allah soon required Muslims “to war against all and sundry for God and his Apostle.” The Islamic calendar testifies to the paramouncy of the Hijra by setting year one from the date of its occurrence. The year of the Hijra, 622 AD, is considered more significant than the year of Muhammad’s birth or death or that of the first Quranic revelation because Islam is first and foremost a political-military enterprise. It was only when Muhammad left Mecca with his paramilitary band that Islam achieved its proper political-military articulation. The years of the Islamic calendar (which employs lunar months) are designated in English “AH” or “After Hijra.”

This only underscores the primacy of violence in Islam.

Of course, your Islam apologists would, yet again, complain that we’re reading a “translation” and that the only true Quoran (or Haddith, or whatever) is Arabic and that we must only talk about the Arabic version.

What’s absurd about that claim is that the vast, vast majority of Muslims don’t read Arabic at all. So I guess all those Muslims aren’t real Muslims.

I don’t think I need to speak fluent German in order to understand “Mein Kampf.” Any idiot could translate that book into English, and I’d have a pretty good idea how sad Hitler’s brain was.

It is time for the human race to move beyond this kind of superstitious nonsense, this root of intolerance, bigotry, racism and genocide.

Posted by TomV | Filed Under Beliefs