This website wants to shed a new light on the Islamic Calendar. Thanks to modern astronomical methods, it is quite possible to establish, decades in advance, a projected Islamic calendar specific for each country of the world.

Amongst all the calendars in the world, that of Makkah is preeminent because of its impact on the life of millions of pilgrims around the world. In fact, the date of Hajj, or the great pilgrimage, depends on an accurate calendar for this holy city. Thus first of all, we set ourselves the task of developing an exact calendar for Makkah.

Our work takes into consideration the necessity of observing the crescent after sunset in order to consecrate the beginning of the new month. The concept of a “zone of extended visibility” is introduced as defined by the time interval between sunset and the prayer of Fajr in Makkah at each birth of the new moon. This time interval allows us to observe the sky to the west of Makkah. Until when? Until the time of the morning prayer, or Fajr, in Makkah. This concept of “extended visibility” is based on the use of visibility curves that are very reliable because they allow us to predict the visibility of the young crescent with a high degree of precision. We also publish photographs of the early crescent in our Photo Gallery section. They validate the accuracy of our calculations and attest in an irrefutable manner the physical presence of the crescent in the sky.

The method that we have perfected for Makkah in the course of the past years can be easily generalised for any location on earth: the new month will start next day in this location if the crescent can be observed there at sunset, or if it can be observed to the west before the prayer of Fajr in the location. This method allows us to fix the beginning of the new month for any country in the world for all the twelve months of the Hegirian year.

From now onwards, our site presents, month after month, not only the projected visibility curve for the crescent, but also a calendar specific to each country. Such a calendar is not an artifice for unifying the Islamic calendar through some arbitrary decision. Indeed no! In fact we are presenting a calendar both in strict conformity with the demands of the Sharia and scientifically exact. Our fervent desire in this undertaking is to submit ourselves scrupulously to the will of the Creator whilst, of course, making full use of scientific enlightenment.

We request you to click on Islamic Calendar Introduction in order to read the details concerning the method we use.

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