All great civilisations (for example Indian, Persian, Chinese, Javanese) have their own calendars for at least the essential functions of worship, trade and astronomical observations.
The world now uses a the Common Era (CE) calendar while a number of its various cultures and civilisations retain their original calendars. CE is also referred to as the “Christian Era" or "Current Era.”
Most authors prefer to understand CE as the Common Era that is being shared by all of mankind regardless of religion. This is to replace Anno Domini: “The year of our Lord (Jesus Christ)”. Thus “Before Christ” or BC is being replaced by “Before Common Era” or BCE.
Let us first bring to mind Zheng He, whom we knew as Cheng Ho in the Malayan school history of the early 1960s. If this great Muslim eunuch of the late 14th and early 15th CE centuries led his seven-expedition armadas to conquer the world – not just exploring south and then westward from China, peacefully trading like he did – the world would be perhaps different from now.
Imagine if he had sailed south, conquering Vietnam, parts of Siam and most of the Malay Archipelago (not just establishing Semarang in Central Java as his port and making friends with the Sultan of Malacca).
Sailing westward, say he took Sri Lanka, conquered the coastal cities of India (starting the first Sino-Indian war) and finally subdued the maritime areas of Persia and Arabia. He would then be known in history as a conqueror and not an explorer.
Everything Chinese would be fashionable and Chinese culture would be dominant if this subduing of nations was continued by his successors. That is, provided the Ming and subsequent emperors did not stop Zheng He and the likes of him from continuing their expansionist grandiose schemes.
We would then be writing in Chinese characters and Mandarin would be the lingua franca from China to Arabia. And we would be using the Chinese calendar.
Let's continue imagining. This time let's go further to the west; to the Arab Muslims who are now believed to have reached the Americas well before Columbus. Evidences show that they were there even at the time of the third or fourth caliphs of Islam, less than two or three decades after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
The Fountain magazine, Issue 58 / April – June 2007 article “Islam and Muslims in America before Columbus” written by Salih Yucel is a thought-provoking read on this issue. Should reinforcements of Muslims be sent from across the Atlantic then these Arab settlers would change the socio-political landscape of the Americas.
In the meantime, if all Arab sailors who, since the time of the Christ, incessantly sailed eastward to India, the Malay Archipelago and East Asia with their final stop in China, were equipped with increasing fire power that was meant for pillage and plunder, the dominant culture would perhaps be Muslim-Arab, like after the Arab seafarers became Muslim in the 7th CE century.
Arabic would be the lingua franca of the world and we would now be using the Muslim-Arab calendar.
But mankind was not fated to witness all that. We now accept the fact that since the days of the post-Andalusian Columbus, Western civilisation was play that role of colonising and plundering the New World (west and east) through its main four representatives: the Catholic Portuguese and Spanish; and the Protestant Dutch and English. This planned and concerted effort at active colonisation lasted for about four centuries, culminating in the era of Western hegemony of the last century or so.
That is why English is an international language and the world largely refers to the CE calendar which is essentially a Gregorian-Christian calendar. It is an internationally accepted civil calendar and is also known as the “Western calendar”.
In Arabic and among Muslim peoples, it is referred to as the Masihi (from al-Masih, the Christ or the Anointed) Calendar or, for example in the Malay language, Takwim Masehi, which is clearly influenced by its original Arabic name.
It was named after Pope Gregory XIII who first introduced it in February 1582. It is an adaptation of a calendar designed by Italian doctor, astronomer and philosopher Luigi Lilio (also known as Aloysius Lilius) who was born in 1510, a year before the Portuguese conquered Malacca. However he didn't experience fame for he died in 1576, six years before his calendar was officially introduced.
Finally, let's understand the origin and functions of the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 days. The first Islamic year began in 622 CE during which the emigration (Hijrah) of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina took place. Each numbered year is designated either “H” for Hijrah or “AH” for the Latin “Anno Hegirae” or “In the year of the Hijrah”.
Muslims refer to this Hijri calendar as regards their new year's day and the days of obligations (like the fasting month of Ramadan) and religious celebrations. In the Gregorian calendar, 1437AH (which is the current Islamic Hijri year) runs from October 14, 2015 to October 2, 2016.
The world now uses a the Common Era (CE) calendar while a number of its various cultures and civilisations retain their original calendars. CE is also referred to as the “Christian Era" or "Current Era.”
Most authors prefer to understand CE as the Common Era that is being shared by all of mankind regardless of religion. This is to replace Anno Domini: “The year of our Lord (Jesus Christ)”. Thus “Before Christ” or BC is being replaced by “Before Common Era” or BCE.
Let us first bring to mind Zheng He, whom we knew as Cheng Ho in the Malayan school history of the early 1960s. If this great Muslim eunuch of the late 14th and early 15th CE centuries led his seven-expedition armadas to conquer the world – not just exploring south and then westward from China, peacefully trading like he did – the world would be perhaps different from now.
Imagine if he had sailed south, conquering Vietnam, parts of Siam and most of the Malay Archipelago (not just establishing Semarang in Central Java as his port and making friends with the Sultan of Malacca).
Sailing westward, say he took Sri Lanka, conquered the coastal cities of India (starting the first Sino-Indian war) and finally subdued the maritime areas of Persia and Arabia. He would then be known in history as a conqueror and not an explorer.
Everything Chinese would be fashionable and Chinese culture would be dominant if this subduing of nations was continued by his successors. That is, provided the Ming and subsequent emperors did not stop Zheng He and the likes of him from continuing their expansionist grandiose schemes.
We would then be writing in Chinese characters and Mandarin would be the lingua franca from China to Arabia. And we would be using the Chinese calendar.
Let's continue imagining. This time let's go further to the west; to the Arab Muslims who are now believed to have reached the Americas well before Columbus. Evidences show that they were there even at the time of the third or fourth caliphs of Islam, less than two or three decades after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
The Fountain magazine, Issue 58 / April – June 2007 article “Islam and Muslims in America before Columbus” written by Salih Yucel is a thought-provoking read on this issue. Should reinforcements of Muslims be sent from across the Atlantic then these Arab settlers would change the socio-political landscape of the Americas.
In the meantime, if all Arab sailors who, since the time of the Christ, incessantly sailed eastward to India, the Malay Archipelago and East Asia with their final stop in China, were equipped with increasing fire power that was meant for pillage and plunder, the dominant culture would perhaps be Muslim-Arab, like after the Arab seafarers became Muslim in the 7th CE century.
Arabic would be the lingua franca of the world and we would now be using the Muslim-Arab calendar.
But mankind was not fated to witness all that. We now accept the fact that since the days of the post-Andalusian Columbus, Western civilisation was play that role of colonising and plundering the New World (west and east) through its main four representatives: the Catholic Portuguese and Spanish; and the Protestant Dutch and English. This planned and concerted effort at active colonisation lasted for about four centuries, culminating in the era of Western hegemony of the last century or so.
That is why English is an international language and the world largely refers to the CE calendar which is essentially a Gregorian-Christian calendar. It is an internationally accepted civil calendar and is also known as the “Western calendar”.
In Arabic and among Muslim peoples, it is referred to as the Masihi (from al-Masih, the Christ or the Anointed) Calendar or, for example in the Malay language, Takwim Masehi, which is clearly influenced by its original Arabic name.
It was named after Pope Gregory XIII who first introduced it in February 1582. It is an adaptation of a calendar designed by Italian doctor, astronomer and philosopher Luigi Lilio (also known as Aloysius Lilius) who was born in 1510, a year before the Portuguese conquered Malacca. However he didn't experience fame for he died in 1576, six years before his calendar was officially introduced.
Finally, let's understand the origin and functions of the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 days. The first Islamic year began in 622 CE during which the emigration (Hijrah) of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina took place. Each numbered year is designated either “H” for Hijrah or “AH” for the Latin “Anno Hegirae” or “In the year of the Hijrah”.
Muslims refer to this Hijri calendar as regards their new year's day and the days of obligations (like the fasting month of Ramadan) and religious celebrations. In the Gregorian calendar, 1437AH (which is the current Islamic Hijri year) runs from October 14, 2015 to October 2, 2016.
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