New Islamic Year 1447H - A continued advocacy to imbibe, imbue the Hijri calendar

 Introduction

On July 13, 2012; I shared a poem about time, maybe my best ever piece, on Facebook. A dozen years on, I went searching and found it. Time, perhaps to frame it and keep it on a wall at home. 

Whereas I remember it as Mathematics of every day, I am reminded that the title I gave it is Our Beginning, Our End! 

Well, here I am writing the third iteration of a classic piece on the need to imbue and imbibe the Islamic calendar, 10 years after I wrote the first one in 2015 (1436H) and the second in 2018 (1440).

The advocacy on keeping track of the Islamic calendar as Muslims is one that we must increasingly see as personal and while doing so, recruit (for want of a better word) other Muslims to do same. That will be a community building process that once strengthened at the individual level can be consolidated at the group level. May Allah help us!

The last few years have stood out with respect to the reality of short attention span that it has visited on us thanks to technology generally and more specifically social media and monetized content creation (subject for another day!).

Let me remind myself again, this piece is about the Islamic calendar and the need to make it centerstage in our lives as Muslims. In this piece, I make a case for leveraging digital tools to keep up the consciousness of our unique dating structure.

Digital steps to living the Hijri calendar

a. Download an Azaan or Hijri calendar app if you do not have one, and if you do, make it a point to interact with it more often.

b. Add Hijri dates to random messages that you share on social media (especially WhatsApp), it could be message to friends or family etc.

c. Record key dates in both Hijri and Gregorian dates (marriage, graduation, birthdays etc.)

d. Use optional fast dates to track Hijri dates. The White Days fasts (13th, 14th and 15th of each month) means you are able to know when each month splits in half. 

Whiles these are not cast in stone or hard and fast measures, at least one or a combination could help us keep track of the Islamic dates in our daily lives.

So what are the traditional measures that we have advocated over the years? 

1. Imams MUST make it a point to at all events be it at naming, marriage or funeral ceremonies to remind all gathered of the Islamic date.

2. Jum’ah Imams SHOULD adopt the habit of dating – verbally – their lectures across the board – Islamic and Gregorian dates for that matter.

3. Islamic schools MUST enforce the concept of the Hijriyyah dates into the minds of young Muslims they teach.

I hail my Islamic school teachers at Hamdaniyya Islamic School, Accra New Town, a special mention to Ustaz Abdul Kareem who unfailingly wrote both dates on the top corner of the board. A habit that I adopted without fail in the the years I served as Class 2 teacher.

4. Muslim show hosts should be tasked with reminding their audiences about the Islamic dates before and after each program. 

5. Muslim writers should also sign off with the Islamic dates.

Final words 

I wish respectfully to conclude with my poem about time, here goes:

Our Beginning, Our End!

As the chronometer ticks, by passes time;
The irreclaimable asset, once lost

A total of sixty ticks, adds up to a minute,          
Sixty minutes is equal to an hour

A sum of 24 hours amounting to a day,
An addition of one towards our graves

A subtraction of same of our lives on earth

Simple mathematics of every single DAY

May the New Islamic Year, 1447H, bring us all that is good. 

Thanks for your time, bis salaam!

Published this day - July 3, 2025 = Muharram 8, 1447H

Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban

Ex-Teacher, Hamdaniyya Islamic School – Accra New Town

Journalist, fact-checker