The hijri year as the sources set it — every marked day filed with its evidence and classified: an act the sources prescribe, or an event the record places there. Nothing decreed, nothing folklore.
The count is not a convention the community drifted into — the Qur'an states it as a decree written the day the heavens and the earth were created: twelve months, four of them sacred. The Prophet ﷺ named the four in the farewell sermon: three consecutive — Dhū al-Qaʿdah, Dhū al-Ḥijjah, Muḥarram — and Rajab standing alone. The months are lunar, opened and closed by the sighted crescent, and the era counts from the year of the Hijra — the companions themselves chose that epoch.
إِنَّ عِدَّةَ الشُّهُورِ عِندَ اللَّهِ اثْنَا عَشَرَ شَهْرًا فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ مِنْهَا أَرْبَعَةٌ حُرُمٌ
“Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve months in the register of Allah from the day He created the heavens and the earth — of them, four are sacred.”
ON THE RECORD · Qur'an 9:36 · al-Bukhārī 3197 — ṣaḥīḥ · epoch: al-Bukhārī 3934 — ṣaḥīḥ
PRACTICE — an act the sources prescribe · HISTORICAL — an event on the record
Not dates of the year — the week and the month carry their own marked days.
The best day the sun rises on — Ādam was created on it, entered the Garden on it, was brought out of it on it. When the call sounds, trade stops and the community gathers for the sermon and prayer; and somewhere in the day sits an hour in which a servant asking Allah for good is not refused.
EVIDENCE · Qur'an 62:9 · Muslim 854 · al-Bukhārī 935 — ṣaḥīḥ
The Prophet ﷺ kept the fast of Monday and Thursday, and gave the reason for each: Monday “is the day I was born on and the day I was sent,” and deeds are presented on the two days — “I love that my deeds be presented while I am fasting.”
EVIDENCE · Muslim 1162 — ṣaḥīḥ · at-Tirmidhī 747 — ḥasan
Three days a month under the full moon — the “white” nights. The Prophet ﷺ counseled their fast and set the arithmetic himself: a good deed at ten times its like, three days a month is the fasting of a lifetime.
EVIDENCE · at-Tirmidhī 761 — ḥasan · al-Bukhārī 1979 — ṣaḥīḥ
A hijri day begins at sunset, and a month opens with the sighted crescent — “fast when you see it, and break the fast when you see it” — running twenty-nine or thirty days, never more. Computed calendars (this page uses the Umm al-Qurā reckoning) are projections for planning; the observance itself follows the sighting.
EVIDENCE · al-Bukhārī 1909 · 1907 — ṣaḥīḥ
Didn't He Say