Should We Still have a Lunar Calendar?

Use of lunar calendar was not a scientific choice but only a practical necessity for the illeterate Arabs who could not keep or follow a complicated solar calendar which involved mathematical caculations. They were aware of its inaccuracies and drawbacks and therfore tried to adjust it to the solar sysrem be adding a month to the lunar year after every four years during the so called pre-Islamic Jahilia period. This was necessary for the agriculturists to keep track of the seasons as is evident from the names of the Islamic months which correspond to the various seasons. For example `Ramazan` meant `Haarh`, the hottest month. With the advent of Islam which originally was a religion of traders (Banias) for the traders of Mecca, who had little regard for the needs of the farmers, this interpolation of a month was banned. Consequently a paradoxical situation arose whereby, so to say, the month of July sometimes appeared in December. But this was the order of the traders` God who did not like the interpolation by the farmers. So it is being followed religiously as a tradition with no practical use whatsoever.

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i agree wholeheartedly with wasiq`s summation on the utility of a lunar calendar. what`s wrong with adding 11 days to the year to normalize with the solar calendar (as Judaism does)

sigh .. it will never happen though.

Good article. Got me to thinking. The solar calendar was well known at the origin of Islam. Why was the lunar calendar adopted at all?

Unfortunately the only thing that comes to mind is that staring at the sun in the middle of a desert does not qualify as a survival trait.

Since a broad consensus of Islamic organisations and nations is about as likely as an ice age in hades, may I propose that a unilateral adoption makes at least as much sense.

Having an alternative may swing a few people over to the side of the rationalists.