Januk,
On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, at 11:39:47 [GMT -0700] (which was 12:09 AM where I live) you
wrote:
JA> Not that I'm aware of. However, I had created a translation template
JA> that could translate the GMT time into various languages. If
JA> you could explain how the Hijri date and Islamic calender work, it
JA> might be possible to modify that template.
I am not sure if this would be an easy task. Just got this info from the web.
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-islamic.html
Giving in brief so that you can read and then if interested click on the links
given
below.
Each month starts when the lunar crescent is first seen (by a human observer's eye)
after
a new moon.
Although new moons may be calculated quite precisely, the actual visibility of
the
crescent is much more difficult to predict. It depends on factors such as weather,
the
optical properties of the atmosphere, and the location of the observer. It is
therefore
very difficult to give accurate information in advance about when a new month will
start.
Furthermore, some Muslims depend on a local sighting of the moon, whereas others
depend on
a sighting by authorities somewhere in the Muslim world. Both are valid Islamic
practices,
but they may lead to different starting days for the months.
So you can't print an Islamic calendar in advance?
Not a reliable one. However, calendars are printed for planning purposes, but
such
calendars are based on estimates of the visibility of the lunar crescent, and the
actual
month may start a day earlier or later than predicted in the printed calendar.
Different methods for estimating the calendars are used.
Some sources mention a crude system in which all odd numbered months have 30 days and
all
even numbered months have 29 days with an extra day added to the last month in
'leap
years' (a concept otherwise unknown in the calendar). Leap years could then be
years in
which the number year mod 30 is one of the following: 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 21, 24,
26,
or 29. (This is the algorithm used in the calendar program of the Gnu Emacs editor.)
Such a calendar would give an average month length of 29.53056 days, which is quite
close
to the synodic month of 29.53059 days, so on the average it would be quite accurate,
but
in any given month it is still just a rough estimate.
Better algorithms for estimating the visibility of the new moon have been devised.
http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/~muhanna_1/hijri-intro.html
http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~tawfig/convert/
--
Warm regards,
Raj
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Replied on Thursday, September 06, 2001 using TB Ver 1.53d
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