The establishment of the Hijri calendar

The companions agreed, in the sixteenth year of the caliphate of Oumar, or the seventeenth or eighteenth according to others, to make the Islamic era begin with the year of the Hijra. A deed, that is, a document of debt, was brought to Oumar, may Allah be pleased with him, against a man, falling due in Cha’bane. Oumar asked: which Cha’bane? That of the year we are in, of the past year, or of the coming year? He then gathered the companions and consulted them on establishing a calendar by which they would know the due dates of debts and the rest. One proposed: date according to the calendars of the Persians, who dated by their kings, one after another: he disliked that. Another proposed: date by the calendar of the Romans, who dated by the reign of Alexander son of Philip of Macedonia: he disliked that too. Others said: date by the birth of the Messenger of Allah; others: rather by his prophetic mission; others: rather by his emigration; others: rather by his death. Oumar inclined to dating from the Hijra, on account of its prominence and fame, and they agreed with him.

The Boukhari reports, in the chapter on the calendar and when it was established, through Sahl ibn Sa’d: they did not count from the Prophet’s mission nor from his death, but counted only from his arrival in Medina. The Waqidi reports that Oumar consulted the people on dating and that they agreed upon the Hijra. Abou Dawoud at-Tayalisi reports through Ibn Sirine that a man came to Oumar and said: establish a calendar. He said: date what?

The man said: it is a custom of the non-Arabs: they write in such a month of such a year. Oumar said: that is good, so date. They asked: from which year do we begin? They proposed his mission, they proposed his death, then they agreed upon the Hijra.

They then asked: from which month do we begin? They proposed the Ramadhan, then the Mouharram, because it is the month in which the people return from their pilgrimage, and it is a sacred month. So they agreed upon the Mouharram. Ibn Jarir reports that Ibn Abbas said of the words of the Most High: by the dawn and the ten nights (al-Fajr, 1-2), that it was the Mouharram, the dawn of the year.

Oubayd ibn Oumayr reports that the Mouharram is the month of Allah, the first of the year: in it the House is clothed in its garment, the people date their writings by it, and in it silver is struck.

Imam Ahmad reports through Amr ibn Dinars that the first to date written documents was Ya’la ibn Oumayya in Yemen, and that the Messenger of Allah arrived in Medina in Rabi’ al-Awwal, and the people made that the beginning of the year. Mohamed ibn Ishaq reports, from az-Zouhri and from ach-Cha’bi, that the descendants of Ismaïl first dated from the fire of Abraham, then from the building of the House by Abraham and Ismaïl, then from the death of Ka’b ibn Louayy, then from the Year of the Elephant, and that finally Oumar ibn al-Khattab dated from the Hijra, in the year sixteen or seventeen. This topic has been treated with its chains in the Sira Omariyya. The companions thus made the Islamic era begin with the year of the Hijra and, according to what became known of them, made the Mouharram its beginning: that is the view of the majority of the imams.

As-Souhayli reports from Imam Malik that he held the beginning of the Islamic year to be Rabi’ al-Awwal, because it is the month in which the Messenger of Allah emigrated, citing the words of the Most High: a mosque founded upon piety from the first day (at-Tawba, 108), that is, from the first day of the Prophet’s entry into Medina. That view is fitting, but practice proceeded contrary to it: because the Mouharram is the first of the months of the Arabs, they made the year of the Hijra the first year and its beginning the Mouharram, so that the order might not be confused. And Allah is most knowing.