Talk:Hijrah/Archive 1

Latest comment: 7 months ago by JMF in topic Non-neutral point of view

Vandalism ? edit

Zora, before starting to jumping around and yelling "vandalism", consider that the hijri year and the event of hijra are two totaly different things, one an event, and the other a dating built on the event. Both articles are now goin to be expanded by me and do no longer fitt on a single aritcle, even if it was ok to compres two different issues on the same article. I am not done with working on them, and are not going to be done in a few days.--Striver 06:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Source edit

Reading this page (and other related pages) it is not at all clear what aspects of the discussion are derived from the Koran or other Muslim tradition and what parts are agreed upon by secular historians. The impression is given that both are in complete agreement. More references would be helpful. Sammy1339 23:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

The cited reference, Shamsi, discusses all available sources, mainly statements by the followers of Muhammad who accompanied him or by compilers of those statements who interviewed those followers. There is some disagreement among the followers themselves, which presents a problem for any modern researcher. The dates given in the article are the conclusions of Shamsi, a Muslim historian. Secular historians generally don't give any detail so they are ignored. A prime example of disagreement is that Muhammad arrived in Medina on 8 Rajab. But does that mean that he arrived in the neighborhood of Medina or the city itself? Shamsi opts for Quba', a small town in the neighborhood, which would make the discordant statements agree. An even greater disagreement is noted in the article, that the dates given by the followers of Muhammad may have been in the lunisolar calendar used at the time of the hijra, and they may never have been converted into the lunar calendar which began ten years later, which would shift all dates by three months! However, they gave their statements after the lunar calendar had been adopted and intercalary months had been forbidden by Allah, so it is generally assumed that all dates have been converted. This article would be very unwieldy if all of the discordant data cited by Shamsi was included. Note that Shamsi's article is 71 pages long! — Joe Kress 08:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Merge edit

Somebody (not me) proposed a merge. Is it ok if i merge this article into the other two? --Striver 04:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why did you create an alternate article with a non-standard name (Migration to Medina) when the English name for the event is Hijra? — Joe Kress 22:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
"hijra" in it self is a bit problematic. There are several hijra events, "migrations", to Abyssinia, the one after the blockade, to Ta'if and finaly the one ot medina. And it gets worse considering that "hijra" also denotes something that has nothing to do with a migration, a calendar system. I wanted separete the actual historical event from the later theoretical desicion on how to count years. Both the actual event and the dating system are broad topics, and it does both a disservice to have them on the same article. Did that answer your question? --Striver 00:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
No respons in two weeks? Im removing the tags. --Striver 18:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hijra is a standard English term for the move of Muhammad and his followers to Medina; therefore, it must be the title of the article. Pecher Talk 18:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Julian Calendar? edit

Why are the corresponding dats written in the Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthurian Legend (talkcontribs)

Because Wikipedia requires that all dates before October 15, 1582 be given in the Julian calendar, which was used exclusively in Europe at that time. See WP:DATE#Different calendars. — Joe Kress 19:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

The Gregorian dates are important to metion to explain away confusions, see comments below. Chrislamic.State (talk) 19:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Guess what you forgot to mention the first "Flight" edit

I am amazed at who is writting Islamic history, how could you forget the first hijirah? The flight to Ethiopia? or is this not supported by the Arab council of Scholars?--Halaqah 08:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Common mistake, any source ? edit

I read with interest : "The Hijra is celebrated annually on 8 Rabi' I, about 66 days after 1 Muharram, the first day of the Muslim year. Many writers confuse the first day of the year of the Hijra with the Hijra itself, erroneously stating that the Hijra occurred on 1 Muharram AH 1 or 16 July 622."

Any source to support this claim I find this important since so many people (even the Encyclopedia britannica) say that the Hijra occurred on the 16th of July 622 and this marks the beginning of AH 1. Or am I misunderstanding something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.205.142.75 (talkcontribs) 02:59, 20 August 2008

The source for Hijra dates in September is the reference cited in the article by Shamsi, who exhaustively studied all Muslim sources. See the discussion in Source above. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:20, 20 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
In my opnion, the statement is inaccurate. For millions from the Sunnah Wal Jamaah sect, the Hijra is NOT celebrated anually on 8 Rabi', but on 1st Muharram. - "saibog@yahoo.com" 211.25.207.222 (talk) 02:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

It is only those who follow the opinion of Al-Biruni who consider the 8th of Rabi'1 to have been the date the Prophet arrived at Quba' near Medina. The Gregorian 16th of July 622 corresponded to the 26th of Rabi 1 while coincidentally, the 1st of Rabi 2 corresponded to the Julian 16th of July which became the 1st of Muharrram (although the original 1st of Muharram that year was on April 18/19). Quite a puzzle to unravel. There seems to be a need for a more clarifying section written in simpler English to assist the layman.Chrislamic.State (talk) 19:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Significance? edit

The article says nothing about the significance of the event. Why are the Islamic years counted from this, and not for example from Muhammad's Birth, or Death, or from his first or last revelation? -- 92.229.143.191 (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Date conflict edit

Since the addition of the section "Muslim account of Muhammad's Hijra" there are now two somewhat different dates for Muhammad's arrival in Medina. The date quoted in the new section (around September 622) results from the conventional (but erroneous) method of converting Islamic dates to Western dates which neglects the fact that intercalary months were used before 10 AH. The date quoted in the first section ("Hijra of Muhammad") is three lunar months earlier which accounts (probably correctly) for the intercalary months inserted between 1 AH and 10 AH. AstroLynx (talk) 15:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

  Fixed --AsceticRosé 05:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
It's not fixed yet.

Dates in the table edit

The conversion of dates in the current version of the article [1] into Gregorian is obviously wrong, it doesn't correspond with the correct days of the week. For example 13 June 622 was actually SUNDAY, yet the table falsely shows Thursday for it, and 1 July 622 was THURSDAY, not Friday. The dates need to be fixed. Khestwol (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

The dates in the table are indeed messed up. 'Day 9' should probably read 'Day 5'. AstroLynx (talk) 15:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
I suspect that much of the confusion arises from the attempt to give Gregorian, instead of Julian, calendar dates for the key events of the hijra. This is silly - no one (except for some Mayanists) uses Gregorian calendar dates for events before 1582. AstroLynx (talk) 16:04, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

622 CE edit

Please check the hijra dates in the article 622#Religion. Are they correct? Khestwol (talk) 18:14, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you User:Khestwol, those dates don't agree with the Julian dates in Fazlur Rehman Shaikh's system nor with their Gregorian equivalent. User:AstroLynx, those should be the Julian dates according to WP Manual of style right? Bulgarios (talk) 18:50, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
The only source linked to the Islamic dates on this page is Shamsi (1984) but they make no sense either with Shamsi's chronology (Julian or Gregorian) or Fazlur Rehman's chronology (Julian or Gregorian). Best to replace them with Fazlur Rehman's dates (in the Julian calendar) as we are doing the same here.
There are bound to be more pages on WP related with the prophet Muhammad with similar problems. AstroLynx (talk) 09:47, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Dates Sorted edit

I have got hold of the cited sources (a very intense but interesting and inexpensive book) and have inserted the Julian dates alongside the Gregorian dates. I thought it would be best to keep only the Julian dates as cited in the book, but seeing how many confusing coincidences there are between the Gregorian dates and Julian dates I see now how it makes sense to keep both published here in order to cross-reference them against each other for all to see how and where exactly the confusions arose. Chrislamic.State (talk) 19:23, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

The supposed dates for the Hijra as they are currently listed are not consistent and are certainly not those proposed in the cited paper by Shamsi (1984), nor those proposed by Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001). Perhaps it would be less confusing if two tables were given - one with the chronology proposed by Shamsi (1984) and one with the chronology proposed by Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001). AstroLynx (talk) 09:37, 30 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
AstroLynx, I'm confused about recent date changes. Previously, the source Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001) was used to count Hijra from 17 June — 2 July 622 in Julian Calendar, and now the same source is being used, after this edit by 87.81.147.76, to say that Hijra occurred from 9 May - Monday 24 May 622 in Julian Calendar. Do you have Fazlur Rehman's book? What dates does he actually provide in his book? And is there any special reason we should stick to Fazlur Rehman Shaikh? -AsceticRosé 08:26, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I did not make the recent changes which have again messed up the dates. I have Fazlur Rehman's book and can easily insert the dates proposed by him. My proposal is to give the dates listed by Shamsi (1984), who assumes that the calendar used in Muhammad's days operated on the same rules as the current Islamic calendar, and those of Fazlur Rehman (2001), who assumes that the calendar was kept in approximate synchrony with the seasons by inserting an intercalary month when this was deemed necessary. AstroLynx (talk) 08:51, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Hi Vgent, I didn't say that you made the recent changes. Probably my wording was not clear. I was actually asking information from you because your are for long involved in date-related issues of the Prophet's immigration. So what are the dates provided by Fazlur Rehman and Shamsi (1984)? Do they provide Julian or Gregorian dates? Which one should be preferred here -- Julian or Gregorian? The book is nor available on Google Books. So, it would be nice if you present those informations here on this talk-page so that we can see and use them to prevent regular mess-up. Thanks. -AsceticRosé 09:58, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

F.A. Shamsi ("The Date of Hijrah", Islamic Studies 23 (1984): 189-224, 289-323 (JSTOR link 1 + JSTOR link 2)) assumes that the calendar used by Muhammad operated on the same rules as the current Islamic calendar. He gives the following chronology for the key events during Muhammad's hijra:

Day Islamic Date
(Julian equiv.)
Notes
Day 1 26 Safar AH 1 (Thursday)
(9 September 622)
Qurayshite Meeting and departure from Mecca
Day 5 1 Rabi' al-Awwal (Monday)
(13 September)
departure from the Cave of Thawr
Day 6 2 Rabi' al-Awwal (Tuesday)
([14 September])
at Umm Ma'bad's camp
Day 12 8 Rabi' al-Awwal (Monday)
(20 September)
arrival in Quba'
Day 16 12 Rabi' al-Awwal (Friday)
(24 September)
first visit to Yathrib (Medina)
Day 26 22 Rabi' al-Awwal (Monday)
(4 October)
finally settles in Medina

[The Julian calendar date for Muhammad's arrival at Umm Ma'bad's camp is not actually given by Shamsi but of course follows from the other dates]

Fazlur Rehman Shaikh, in his Chronology of Prophetic Events (London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 2001), pp. 51-52 & 129-131, assumes that the calendar was kept in approximate synchrony with the seasons by inserting an intercalary month when this was deemed to be necessary. His dates for events in 1 AH are thus three lunar months earlier than those computed from the proleptic Islamic calendar.

Day Islamic Date
(Julian equiv.)
Notes
Day 1 1 Rabi' al-Awwal AH 1 (Thursday)
(17 June 622)
conference of the Quraysh leaders
Day 5 5 Rabi' al-Awwal (Monday)
(21 June)
departure from the Cave of Thawr
Day 12 12 Rabi' al-Awwal (Monday)
(28 June)
arrival in Quba'
Day 16 16 Rabi' al-Awwal (Friday)
(2 July)
entry into Yathrib (Medina)

On p. 130, Fazlur Rehman lists other dates for the arrival of Muhammad in Quba', as proposed by modern scholars, ranging from 31 May 622 to 22 November 622.

All dates are in the Julian calendar. AstroLynx (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

For all these dates we need only present the academic consensus (Perceval, Shaikh and Hideyuki Ioh) which is discussed lightly here Islamic_calendar#Pre-Islamic_calendar. Bulgarios (talk) 16:17, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Fine with me but all the authors you cite give Julian calendar dates, not Gregorian. AstroLynx (talk) 16:21, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Hi AstroLynx, sorry for delay response. I really appreciate you for presenting Fazlur Rehman and F.A. Shamsi's works.
AstroLynx and Bulgarios, I have the following proposal: in the article, the dates given by Fazlur Rehman will be used, and as AstroLynx mentioned below that Nearly all historians (a few Mayanists excepted) use Julian calendar dates before 1582 and it is common WP practice to do likewise, using Julian dates will be the best option. Using Julian dates will also be comfortable from the viewpoint that Fazlur Rehmanhas has presented the dates in Julian format. There will be a note below with saying On p. 130, Fazlur Rehman lists other dates for the arrival of Muhammad in Quba', as proposed by modern scholars, ranging from 31 May 622 to 22 November 622 to inform the readers that other views are available about the dates.
Bulgarios, I see the ip Special:Contributions/87.81.147.76 is being disruptive. Don't edit war with it and present your views here. I've already warned the ip. -AsceticRosé 16:35, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
OK it seems there is an approaching consensus here then. This will be my answer for the discussion below this too. I agree with User:AsceticRose's suggestions. Bulgarios (talk) 16:41, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
This will also work for me. AstroLynx (talk) 17:03, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Very good, still let's not overlook the Gregorian use of some non-western trained scholars such as Naeem Siddiqui. With that in mind wouldn't it be a good project to set dates in all early Islam calendars to the standard presented by User:AsceticRose? Bulgarios (talk) 17:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks everybody. I see, with the change of dates, there are other things to do. (1) The section name Hijra of Muhammad is erroneous. This section actually deals with date-issues. It should be renamed accordingly. And, this section should be transferred below because most readers want to know the details of events, not the complex issue of dates. (2) The lead should be expanded to summarize the body of the article. (3) With the insertion of Fazlur Rahman's dates, some adjustments may be needed in other parts of the article to remove discrepancies.
Hard pressed by time, I will still try my best to improve the article. Others' cooperation will be appreciated. -AsceticRosé 17:29, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, there is scope to include Gregorian dates besides the Julian one. All we need is to insert one or two more columns with the heading Gregorian equiv. (by xxx) -AsceticRosé 17:36, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have time to give your recommendations a bash. Bulgarios (talk) 17:55, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Checklist of the to-dos discussed edit

1) Fazlur Rehman Shaikh's dating system

Started

2) Julian calendar dates

Started

3) Note about other views on dates. "On p. 130, Fazlur Rehman lists other dates for the arrival of Muhammad in Quba', as proposed by modern scholars, ranging from 31 May 622 to 22 November 622"

Done?

4) The section name Hijra of Muhammad is renamed and, transferred below

Done

5) lead expanded to summarize the body of the article.

Done

6) With the insertion of Fazlur Rahman's dates, some adjustments may be needed in other parts of the article to remove discrepancies.

Started

7) General removal of Gregorian dates except for clarity in tricky areas.

Done

I have a question about Naeem Siddiqi's date of 23 September 622. According to this page his date is for the 8th of Rabi' I which would make it a Gregorian date, but according to P.130 of Fazlur Rehman Shaikh's book, it is Julian corresponding to the 11th of the lunar month rather than the 8th (three days out being the difference between Julian and Gregorian dates in the year 622). It seems Faizur made a mistake here right? Bulgarios (talk) 19:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

For Muhammad's arrival at Quba', Fazlur Rehman (p. 130) cites Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (Life of Muhammad, Calcutta, 1982, p. 129) as giving Monday 20 September 622 CE and Naeem Sidiqqi (Muhammad, the Benefactor of Humanity, Delhi, 1983, p. 265) as giving Thursday 23 September 622 CE. Fazlur Rehman may not have realized that Naeem Siddiqi's dates were Gregorian instead of Julian (the linked website, at least, is not clear on this). I am not too familiar with modern Islamic names but it would not surprize me if Abdul Hamid Siddiqi and Naeem Siddiqi refer to the same person. AstroLynx (talk) 10:20, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi AsceticRose, I see that you have started to revise the main page – thanks for that. Regarding the table with the dates proposed by Shamsi (1984) and Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001), should we not first give the dates of Shamsi and then those of Fazlur Rehman Shaikh? Shamsi's dates were proposed earlier than those of Fazlur Rehman Shaikh. AstroLynx (talk) 08:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply


I also agree this makes sense. I have gone ahead and put Shamsi's dates first in the table just to save User:AsceticRose some time. If you don't like it please do revert. Discussing the table I have provided an alternative box below to work on which to my own eye at least is less tricky to follow. I think a separate column for the Islamic dates is helpful to see that there are (fundamentally) two different schemes (represented by Shaikh and Shamsi respectively) which provide Julian dates for the Islamic dates. I have inserted the missing dates as they would be for each scheme from the data tables provided. If you like it please copy and paste into the article. Bulgarios (talk) 17:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Day Islamic dates F. A. Shamsi scheme
Julian dates
F. R. Shaikh scheme
Julian dates
Events
1 26 Safar AH 1 Thursday 9 September 622 Sunday 13 June 622
5 1 Rabi' al-Awwal Monday 13 September Thursday 17 June
9 5 Rabi' al-Awwal Friday 17 September Monday 21 June
12 8 Rabi' al-Awwal Monday 20 September Thursday 24 June date for arrival in Quba' according to Biruni
16 12 Rabi' al-Awwal Friday 24 September Monday 28 June date for arrival in Quba' from other primary sources
20 16 Rabi' al-Awwal Tuesday 28 September Friday 2 July
26 22 Rabi' al-Awwal Monday 4 October Thursday 8 July

Sorry I have to go so I'll be back to complete it later.

I have no problem in putting Shamsi first. With regard to giving the Islamic dates in separate column, there is a problem. The Islamic dates proposed by Shamsi and Fazlur Rehman are not same. For example, day 1 is 26 Safar as per Shamsi but 1 Rabi' al-Awwal according to Fazlur Rehman. How will you manage this? Islamic dates in separate column looks better and it did not escape my attention. But because of two-date reality, I arranged columns as per authors, not as per format. Any better idea? -AsceticRosé 05:24, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Good Points. I will abandon my alternative table. Bulgarios (talk) 15:55, 9 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Do we need Gregorian dates? edit

Of late, several editors have been adding Gregorian calendar dates to the Julian dates related to the principal events of the Hijra. Do we really need those? Readers are usually confused enough about the relation between the Islamic and Western calendars (the edits made to this page during the last few months shows that some editors are equally confused) and I do not believe that adding the Gregorian calendar dates will help in reducing this confusion.

Nearly all historians (a few Mayanists excepted) use Julian calendar dates before 1582 and it is common WP practice to do likewise. In order to make the page more accessible I would like to propose to use only Julian calendar dates. AstroLynx (talk) 12:17, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Personally, as a common reader I find the Gregorian dates more relevant than the old Julian calendar dates. It certainly saves time checking these dates on a calendar converters. From a strictly academic point of view (most readers on these topics are not academically trained) as long as each date is clearly labelled as Julian so that readers do not confuse these dates with the Gregorian calendar dates, I think it would be fine.
Most online calendar converters actually give Julian dates before 1582 so I fail to see your point here (perhaps you should look at some other date converters). Giving Julian dates is the WP norm and it makes it easier to compare or check with dates given in the scholarly literature. Giving Gregorian dates is also very inconvenient if you are looking at pre-1582 events mentioned both by Christian authors (who will be using the Julian calendar) as by Islamic authors. AstroLynx (talk) 16:17, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I agree with the WP manual of style which you mentioned before. Just like I said the Gregorian dates are more useful for common readers. Wikipedia is not an academic reference work yet. It is not assumed by common readers (the majority audience) unfamiliar with WP style and academic convention that the dates prior to 1582 are not Gregorian. Clearly there has been a lot of confusion in this article until now precisely because some of the Gregorian and Julian dates for some of the events in the sequence can be misunderstood for each other. Otherwise like I said, it should be made clear at every instance that Julian dates are being used in this article because as I see it there have been many edits on both sides of the argument so far in this article and discussion causing confusion. Bulgarios (talk) 16:31, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
On a related topic, may I ask User:AstroLynx are these also your edits here? Bulgarios (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Can you be more specific? Your link doesn't work for me. AstroLynx (talk) 16:17, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Oh how strange it did not paste everything. Here it is again Special:Contributions/87.81.147.76 Bulgarios (talk) 16:31, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
No, those edits are certainly not mine. Have a look at some of the discussions during the past few months on [2] and you will quickly realize that we are quite different persons. AstroLynx (talk) 16:38, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Very good, I just did not want to assume the worst before double-checking. I noticed when I first started using Wiki that I could be logged out sometimes between edits until I ticked the stay logged in for 30 days box.
BTW You can see we are reaching a consensus above with User:AsceticRose on the dates issue too. Bulgarios (talk) 16:45, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Good news. AstroLynx (talk) 17:03, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
No Bulgarios, the ip is not AstroLynx, rather a different person. AstroLynx always edits with his own account. -AsceticRosé 17:29, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
(ec)Greetings. I'm not impressed with Bulgarios' claim that the Hijra began on a Thursday. F A Shamsi says that Hazrat 'Abd Allah b. 'Abbas contemporaneously reported that it was Monday. al - Hakim says there is a tradition handed down the generations that it was Monday. Muhammad b. 'Abd ul - Barr gives Monday. Unless someone can give a good reason for not following these reliable sources I'll revert back.
Again, in his original edit he gave Gregorian dates which he took from Fazlur Rehman Shaikh's book and which are wrong. Given that he is wrong in the most fundamental aspects of chronology his dating is not to be relied upon - he is not a reliable source. Looking at the table, Day 1 is given as 26 Safar and Day 9 as 1 Rabi 'I. But eight days from 26 Safar is 5 Rabi 'I. The table is consistent with Hegira happening on the traditional Sunday night - Day 9 is Monday, Day 16 is Monday, Day 20 is Friday. But if Day 9 is Monday, 1 Rabi I then Day 16 is Monday, 8 Rabi 'I, which I had, not 12 Rabi 'I as inserted by Bulgarios. If Day 20 is Friday, Day 30 cannot be Friday, and if Day 20 is 5 July Day 30 cannot be 16 July. You people have completely messed up, and it will not be long before I revert to the correct version. I trust this explanation will satisfy AsceticRose, who has just messaged me on my talk page. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 17:44, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Dear User:87.81.147.76, I am very sorry you feel so much negativity about me. I would like to invite you to outline a Shia view section here on this talk page which could be included in the article since I have noticed some of the dates you have been inserting are significantly different from those in the Sunni sources and general academic consensus. Please do not forget to provide a source for your dates. I am genuinely and sincerely interested to see the official Shia perspective on this if it is different. Kind regards. Bulgarios (talk) 19:50, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I think that for clarity we need both Julian and Gregorian dates. Khestwol (talk) 10:27, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

It's nothing to do with Sunni v Shia. The errors I pointed out are still there. It's a matter of simple arithmetic, adding an interval to dates in different calendars which are the same day and getting two dates which are not the same day. I don't know why you people keep saying that the difference between the reformed and unreformed calendars in 622 was three months. That difference applies after eight years (99x29.53=2923.47 days, 8x365.25=2922 days). There were ten years between the Hegira and the reform, so AH 1 began four months before the epoch, i.e. 19 March.
Most sources agree Muhammad left Mecca on a Monday, so he left his house on the previous Thursday. Both Fazlur Rehman and F A Shamsi agree on this. Traditionally, Muhammad left his house in the last week of Safar, so the dates are: Thursday 27 Safar (13 May) leaves house and Monday 1 Rabi al - Awwal (17 May) leaves Mecca. The journey takes a week and he reaches Quba' on Monday, 8 Rabi 'al - Awwal (24 May). He enters Yathrib on Friday, 12 Rabi 'al - Awwal (28 May). This is the date established by Dr Muhammad Hamidullah, although he expresses it as 31 May (Gregorian). The people who say Muhammad left Mecca on a Thursday are referring to the day he left his house. [3] confirms he left his house on 27 Safar and reached Yathrib on Monday, 8 Rabi 'al - Awwal.
Again, The Sealed Nectar, Safi - ur - Rahman Al - Mubarakpuri (Riyadh, 2002) says on p. 205:

The Prophet had thus left his house during the night on the 27th of Safar, during fourteenth year of Prophethood.

On p. 206

They confined themselves to this cave for three nights, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Source: Fathul - Bari 7/336.

On p. 213

On Monday, 8th Rabi 'ul - Awwal, the fourteenth year of Prophethood ... Allah's Messenger arrived at Quba'. Source: Rahmatul - lil - 'Alamin 1/102. It was on that day that he reached fifty - three years of age.

On p. 214

Allah's Messenger stayed in Quba' for four days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Source: Ibn Ishaq. see Ibn Hisham 1/494. He has clearly stated that he arrived at Quba' on Monday and departed from it on Friday (Zadul - Malad 2/54.55). He built the Masjid in Quba' and prayed in it. This was the first Masjid founded upon piety to be built after his Prophethood began. On the fifth day, Friday, he mounted by the Order of Allah, along with Abu Bakr. He sent a message to Bani An - Najjar, his maternal uncle, to come and accompany him and Abu Bakr to Madinah. He rode towards the new headquarters amidst the cordial greetings of his Madinese followers who had lined his path. He halted at a place in the valley of Banu Salim bin 'Awf and there he performed his Friday prayer with a hundred others. Source: Sahih Al - Bukhari 1/555 and 560. Zardul - Ma'ad 2/55 and Ibn Hisham 1/494.

A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims Ce. 570 to 661 by Sayyid Ali Ashgar Razwy [4].

Muhammad ibn Ishaq

"The Messenger of God arrived in Quba on Monday".

S. Margoliouth

On Monday the 8th of Rabi - I of the year 1 A.H. ... the Prophet reached Kuba, now a great place for gardens and orchards ...

On the Friday, the Prophet rode from Kuba towards Yathrib, and is said to have performed service in the Wadi Ra'unah. (Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, London, 1931).

The First Year of Hijra

According to the investigations of the late Mahmood Pasha al - Falaki of Egypt, the day when Muhammad Mustafa, the Messenger of God, arrived in Quba was Monday, 8th of Rabi - I of the year 13 of the Proclamation ... On the following Friday, 12th of Rabi - I ... the Messenger of God left Quba and entered Yathrib ...

The Life of Muhammad: Muhammad Husayn Haukal (2008) - [5]

p. 187:

Muhammad reached Quba, two leagues from Madinah, and stayed there four days with Abu Bakr being constantly with him. It was a Friday, and Muhammad performed his prayer in Madinah at the mosque situated in the valley of Ranuna. Six and a half miles south of the city. [Tr.].

87.81.147.76 (talk) 10:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I oppose the introduction of Gregorian dates. They only serve to confuse. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 11:09, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Of the authors who assume an intercalated calendar during Muhammad's lifetime, only Muhammad Hamidullah assumed that there were four intercalations between 1 AH and 10 AH (apparently in 3, 4, 6 & 9 AH, but his 1969 paper is not very clear about this). All other authors, Caussin de Perceval (1843), Amir 'Ali (1954), Muhammad Asad (1980), Fazlur Rehman (2001) and Hideyuki Ioh (2014), assume that there were three intercalations in the same period.
I assume that you are referring to Hamidullah's 1969 paper in The Islamic Review & Arab Affairs, vol. 57, nr. 2, pp. 6-12 (available online here) which was also summarized by Fazlur Rehman (pp. 22-24) in his discussion of Hamidullah's thesis. AstroLynx (talk) 11:51, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for that link User:AstroLynx. Still, the dates researched by User:87.81.147.76 visible [here] (?1 Muharram? = Friday 19 March, ?23? Safar = Sunday 9 May, ?24? Safar = Monday 10 May, ?1 Rabi I? = Monday 17 May, ?8? Rabi I = Monday 24 May, ?12? Rabi I = Friday 28 May, ?22? Rabi I = Monday 7 June) seem to be original. The days and Julian dates provided are genuine, but the correlation with Lunar month days according to the system described in Hamidullah's work is out. Meanwhile although Hamidullah's table on page 9 of that work you provided is supposed to be of Gregorian dates, cross-checking his claim 21 March was a Sunday and 31 May was a Monday in 622 reveals these are actually Julian -another case where someone obviously did not realize the academic convention on pre-1582 dates- and still do not agree with the system he himself described, but it was 1969 after all and he probably had to rely on tables rather than a computer. Nevertheless, they are still different from those researched by User:87.81.147.76. There must be another source, although the point is probably moot now anyway. Bulgarios (talk) 17:34, 5 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
The Western dates given in Hamidullah's 1969 paper are in the Julian calendar. Although the title of the paper suggests that they are Gregorian the word 'Gregorian' should here be interpreted as 'Western'. This is a commonly made mistake (also on WP) and should be avoided. In 1969 only printed conversion tables were available and these were always computed according to the Julian calendar for dates before 1582.
Regarding IP 87...'s dates and claims, they are often based on his own original research, so it should not surprize you when they can not be verified. This IP (and his by now countless aliases) has a long history of trying to insert his own OR in WP. He still has not indicated which of the numerous publications of Hamidullah is his actual source for the claim that there were four intercalations between 1 and 10 AH. AstroLynx (talk) 09:06, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
You only gave me one Hamidullah publication to work on. In note 30, there is a flaw in his logic. He posits a fourth intercalation before the epoch of the reformed calendar. This would mean that the unreformed 1 Muharram would be three months before the reformed one. The dates in the table on page 10 are consistent with intercalations in 624, 626, 629 and 631. 625, 626, 628 and 631 are theoretically possible so instead of casting unsubstantiated aspersions at other editors why don't you explain how you arrive at your conclusion that these are the intercalary years? This is obvious original research, which you delight in accusing other editors of without producing evidence. Hamidullah gives a date of 31 May 622 as falling within Rabi'I. Under the reformed calendar 30 September falls within Rabi'I. It's probably too difficult for you to work out that the difference is four months.
From June 569 to December 609 (forty years) Hamidullah posits fifteen intercalations. From December 609 to March 622 (thirteen years) he posits four intercalations. From March 622 to January 627 (five years) he posits two intercalations. From January 627 to March 632 (six years) he posits two intercalations. Then his arithmetic goes wrong. 17 June, 569 was Monday as claimed but that is in the Julian calendar. His date is Gregorian. The correct birth date is Monday, 12 Rabi'I, 2 June 570. For the first revelation, 22 December 609 is Monday as claimed, but that is in the Julian calendar. His date is Gregorian. The correct date is Monday, 27 Ramadan, 1 December 609. 610 contained an intercalation.
21 March 622 is Sunday as claimed, but that is in the Julian calendar. His date is Gregorian. For the entrance into Medina, 31 May 622 is Monday as claimed, but that is in the Julian calendar. His date is Gregorian. The correct date is Monday, 8 Rabi'I, 28 May 622. The occidental date Friday, 16 July 622 is Julian. For the Battle of Badr, 18 November 623 is Friday as claimed, but that is in the Julian calendar. His date is Gregorian. The correct date is Monday, 17 Ramadan, 14 November 623. 624 contained an intercalation. For the Battle of Khandaq (Trench), Saturday, 29 Shawwal, 24 January 627 is a Julian date. For the Last Pilgrimage, Friday, 9 Dhu'l Hijjah, 6 March 632 is a Julian date.
Hamidullah wants 12 Rabi'I, 632 to be a Monday. He calculates 12 Rabi'I to be Thursday, 4 June and he does this by overweighting 29 - day months. The occidental date Thursday, 2 Rabi'I, 28 May 632 is Julian. As Islamic days begin the previous evening, this leads to the desired Monday, 12 Rabi'I, 8 June 632 for the Prophet's death. 7 Shawwal, 3 AH was a Saturday. This is the Julian date 22 December 624. There was no intercalation in 625. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 17:53, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Actually, my claim that Hamidullah posited intercalary months in 3, 4, 6 & 9 AH has a source (but I may have misinterpreted it). Fazlur Rehman Shaik (2001, pp. 22-24), from whose work I quote, wrote:

"That's why in search of the true location of the nasi's he [Hamidullah] drifted from idea to idea and went farther away from the true solution, at least of the Madinan decade after coming to it once. This is transparent from an excerpt of his letter addressed to Dr. Hashim Amir Ali in 1972. It read: "Then I had thought that the intercalation took place regularly every third year. Now in the article on Nasi' (1968) I hesitated ... in my present stage of research, intercalation[s] were made at the end of the 3rd, 4th, 6th and 9th years of the Hijrah..." "

Hamidullah in this quote refers to his original paper in the Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society (1968) which probably offers more details than the summary of it in The Islamic Review & Arab Affairs. We do not have this journal in our library, nor is it online as far as I know, but I have ordered scans of it.
As I noted yesterday, Hamidullah gives Julian dates, not Gregorian dates. AstroLynx (talk) 08:26, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Having received scans of Hamidullah's original paper ("The Nasi', the Hijrah Calendar and the Need of Preparing a New Concordance for the Hijrah and Gregorian Eras", Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, vol. 16 (1968), pp. 1-18), I must correct some earlier statements. In a long note (nr. 30) at the end of his paper he indicated which years in the Medinan decade he believed had been intercalary: the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th. Confusingly, in the 1969 version printed in The Islamic Review & Arab Affairs the first intercalation is placed "... just before the beginning of the year 1A.H.", while still claiming that four intercalations had been made during the Medinan decade (perhaps this is a unfortunate misprint which escaped Hamidullah's attention).
However, as the 1972 letter cited above (from Fazlur Rehman Shaikh's book) reveals, he later changed his mind and claimed that the intercalary years had been 3, 4, 6 & 9 AH. AstroLynx (talk) 13:42, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Comparing Hamidullah's paper published with exactly the same title both in the Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society (1968) and The Islamic Review & Arab Affairs (1969), I observe some notable differences in his proposed dates.
So, the birth of the prophet is placed on Monday 12 Rabi' I, 53 BH, which his 1968 paper is equated with 9 September 569 but in his 1969 paper with 17 June 569.
Similarly, the prophet's first revelation is placed on Monday 27 Ramadan, 13 BH = 28 January 610 (1968 paper) and Monday 17 Ramadan, 13 BH = 22 December 609 (1969 paper).
The Battle of Badr is placed on Friday 17 Ramadan, 2 AH = 16 December 623 (1968 paper) and Monday 17 Ramadan 2 AH = 18 November 623 (1969 paper).
The death of the prophet is placed on Monday 12 Rabi' I, 11 AH = 8 June 632 (1968 paper) and Monday 2 Rabi' I, 11 AH = 25 May 632 (1969 paper).
So, already between 1968 and 1969 Hamidullah changed his intercalation scheme. AstroLynx (talk) 15:13, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

What investigation did you carry out as a result of which you were able to confirm that these dates are Julian? As the Muslim calendar at this time was similar to the Jewish I entered the Jewish dates using Fourmilab's converter. Here are my results:

Friday, 7 June 569 = 6 Tammuz 4329 = 2 Rabi'I
Monday, 22 December 609 = 20 Teveth 4370 = 17 Ramadan
Sunday, 21 March 622 = 4 Nisan 4382 = 1 Muharram
Monday, 31 May 622 = 16 Sivan 4382 = 12 Rabi'I
Friday, 18 November 623 = 19 Kislev 4384 = 17 Ramadan
Saturday, 24 January 627 = 1 Adar I 4387 = 29 Shawwal
Friday, 6 March 632 = 8 Veadar 4392 = 9 Dhu'l hijjah
Monday, 25 May 632 = 29 Iyar 4392 = 2 Rabi I

Notwithstanding that the Jewish system of dehiyyoth masks the offset in the quantieme you can clearly see a difference which can only be explained by Hamidullah using a table of Gregorian dates in the conversions I highlighted. The last one is offset in the opposite direction because that was where he artificially inflated the number of 29 - day months. As for using reformed dates in the table, we had a consensus to not do this because the preponderance of sources went with the unreformed dates.

I oppose the introduction of reformed dates. We know the calendar at that time was unreformed not least because the Prophet himself said so. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 16:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I am afraid that I do not follow your reasoning that Hamidullah's dates are Gregorian. The Western dates (with weekdays) which you cite (Friday 7 June 569, etc.) are only consistent when a Julian calendar is assumed. The corresponding Jewish dates also seem to be correct (but I did not check them all). But the Islamic dates which you give are puzzling. The Jewish and the Islamic calendars should give nearly the same day in the month as they both measure the lunar age. In your table there are differences up to four days and sometimes the Jewish days are earlier than the Islamic days and sometimes they are later than the Islamic dates.
I think that you are over-complicating matters by introducing the Jewish calendar - note that we actually do not know whether the calendar used by the Jews in Mecca and Medina operated under the same rules as the current Jewish calendar. al-Biruni, in his Chronology (pp. 64-65), notes that in his time three different intercalation schemes were used by the Jews. AstroLynx (talk) 09:11, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
If you look at al - Biruni, you will see that the schemes only appear to be different because different communities initialise the cycle in different years. In all communities the actual Nasi is the same month each time. But that has only a marginal effect on the Julian dates on which the Jews observe new moon. The major factor is the rule that there are only four days of the week on which the year can begin, and this imbalance is transmitted throughout the year. So let's forget the Jewish calendar and work from Fourmilab's Islamic calendar instead. We must first calibrate the Tabular Islamic Calendar against the moon in the sixth and seventh centuries. We can do that using the eclipse of 27 January, AD 632 around eight in the morning. The following day, 28 January would have been the first of the month. But according to Fourmilab it was the 29th. So when I quote the Fourmilab dates I will add one day to them.
We need only concern ourselves with the dates which I say in my post of 17:53, 6 July were calculated by Hamidullah using a table of Gregorian dates. These are as follows:
17 June 569, Hamidullah says the 12th, Fourmilab says the 16th.
21 March 622, Hamidullah says the 1st, Fourmilab says the 3rd.
31 May 622, Hamidullah says the 12th, Fourmilab says the 15th
18 November 623, Hamidullah says the 17th, Fourmilab says the 20th.
If Hamidullah were getting his Islamic dates from a Gregorian calendar, they would be three days earlier than the ones obtained from a Julian calendar, and this, on average, is exactly what we see. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 11:11, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
O.k., now I understand your reasoning. You are correct — although the Western dates are Julian (otherwise the weekdays would not match), the Islamic dates are indeed about 3 days too early with respect to the lunar phases, suggesting that they were computed from an algorithm based on the Gregorian calendar. My apologies for being slow to latch on to that.
The question remains who then computed these Islamic dates, Hamidullah stated "I am not an astronomer" and he did not trust the conventional conversion tables (see note 30) so they may have been computed by an astronomer whose software did not distinguish between the Gregorian and the Julian calendar. AstroLynx (talk) 15:13, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don't know about that. Did you know the Hubble Space Telescope was originally useless because the grinding formula was calculated in either Imperial or metric and executed in the other system? Most probably the issue never occurred to the astronomer. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 15:32, 8 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes AstroLynx please do add the Gregorian dates as well. When we are talking in context of a non-Roman area, then we don't have to exclusively use Julian dates, but we should mention both for clarity. Khestwol (talk) 11:33, 11 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
When I started this topic a week ago, I had actually hoped that we could get rid of the Gregorian dates once and for all. In my opinion they will only confuse readers. Published Western literature on calendrical or historical issues in early Islam always refers to the Julian calendar (never to the Gregorian calendar). Astronomical software (such as Skyviewcafe) and tables which can be useful for checking lunar and solar eclipses or other celestial phenomena reported in early Islamic sources always use the Julian calendar before 1582. However, should there be consensus on adding the Gregorian dates I will not oppose it. I would then recommend to give prominence to the Julian dates and, when necessary, add the Gregorian dates between brackets or mention them to a footnote. AstroLynx (talk) 11:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
The difference between Julian and Gregorian dates around 622 CE were only of 3 days (See Conversion between Julian and Gregorian calendars. Hence, adding Gregorian dates will surely be redundant. We already have dates to make readers know in which part of history did the migration occur. Penchant for more equivalent dates verges on silly practice. Other reasons not to include Gregorian dates have been given many times above. Read them again. We are done here.
Any other point other than this to improve the article will be appreciated. -AsceticRosé 17:29, 11 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Possible move edit

From Hijra (Islam)Hijra, as the PRIMARYTOPIC. See Talk:Hijra#Move. — LlywelynII 12:57, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 12 October 2015 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 06:01, 28 October 2015 (UTC)Reply



Hijra (Islam)Hegira – "Hegira" is WP:CONCISE and offers WP:NATURAL disambiguation. It does not have to use any parentheses, yet represents the topic of the article totally unambiguously. Khestwol (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 09:40, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

  • Support as nom. Khestwol (talk) 06:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose Support (see below). While I'm a fan of WP:NATURAL disambiguation, I'm not sure it should really apply to different romanizations of the same phrase, as it can lead to weird things. And Arabic famously has a zillion ways to be Romanized. Suppose there's 3 books in Arabic with the same Arabic name: it would be very strange indeed to see them under 3 different romanizations in English, implying their title was subtly different when it was really the same. Just bite the bullet and have parenthetical disambiguation and the same title for each. (Now if for whatever reason, one of those three books was usually romanized one way but the other two are romanized the other way, fine.) Anyway, a quick Google Books search has 131K hits for "Hijra" and 27K hits for Hejira. Google Scholar has 3K results for hijra 622 and a mere 285 for hejira 622. SnowFire (talk) 20:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
SnowFire but your Google Search results seems to be predominantly for Hijra (South Asia) as you type "Hijra" in the search box, a concept with no relationship to this article. Did you take that into account? I do not think the comparison is fair when Hijra has been overwhelming used for an Indian concept in online sources. Khestwol (talk) 13:45, 22 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
I know that Hijra has other meanings, yes, but the difference appears large enough that it seems likely that Hijra vs. Hejira... except wait, you used *Hegira* with a g. Okay, Google books for Hijra 622 vs. Hegira 622 are 12K to 20K in favor of Hegira, so yeah, seems you're right. SnowFire (talk) 15:22, 22 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. Common usage in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reaching a consensus edit

AstroLynx has just said we should reach a consensus on this page before we change 622. So let's try and make it easy by breaking it up into chunks. First, everybody (apart from a few fringe writers) agrees that the calendar in use in 622 was intercalated. Can we get consensus on that before we move on? 87.81.147.76 (talk) 12:15, 9 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Why do you want to change June 622 to May 622, and July 622 to June 622? Based on what source? Khestwol (talk) 13:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Are you suggesting Shamsi was Fringe User:87.81.147.76? Bulgarios (talk) 15:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
AstroLynx has asked me to open a discussion here. As noted above, Shamsi and Fazlur Rehman's Islamic dates are not the same - they can't both be right but they can both be wrong. Wikipedia would be doing its readers a disservice if it didn't investigate the sources and only give the dates which are correct. The Sealed Nectar says

They convened a meeting on Thursday, 26th Safar, the year fourteen of Prophethood.

The reference given is Rahmat-al-lil'alameen, 1/95-102. Presumably this checks out. The Sealed Nectar continues:

The Prophet had thus left his house during the night on the 27th of Safar, during fourteenth year of Prophethood;

It goes on:

They confined themselves to this cave for three nights, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

So the departure from the cave was on Monday, 1 Rabi I. Fazlur Rehman gives the date of the conference as Thursday, 1 Rabi I, confusing it with the date of the departure from the cave. The Sealed Nectar gives the date of Muhammad's arrival in Quba' as Monday, 8th Rabi'ul-Awwal, the fourteenth year of Prophethood. It continues:

Allah's Messenger stayed in Quba' for four days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

It adds:

On the fifth day, Friday, he mounted by the order of Allah, along with Abu Bakr.

This is confirmed by the Prophet himself, who says that he arrived at Quba' on Monday and departed from it on Friday (Zadul-Ma'ad 2/54, 55). Sources state that the journey lasted between thirteen and nineteen days. So it did - the time from leaving his house on Thursday night to entering Medina on Friday morning is fifteen days. Having made the initial error, Fazlur Rehman is forced to perpetuate it, against all sources, to keep within the timeframe. All his subsequent dates are four days late as well. Thus he falls into the trap of ascribing the date of the entrance into Medina (four days after the arrival at Quba') to the date of arrival at Quba'.

Sayyid Ali Ashgar Razwy, A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims C.e. 570 to 661 gives the arrival at Quba' as Monday, 8 Rabi I, ten days after setting out, with the departure on the following Friday. Dr Mustafa as-Sibaa'ie, The Life of Prophet Muhammed, says that the Messenger and his companions reached Madeenah on Friday, 12 Rabi I, after spending four days in Quba'. William Montgomery Watt, in Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, points out that the normal travelling time for emigrants making the 250 - mile journey between Mecca and Medina was about nine days. Hamidullah's reconstruction is the only one which fully accords with the sources and is technically sound - it proposes four intercalations in the ten years, which is astronomically correct. Three intercalations in this period equate to only five in nineteen years, which is far too few. 81.133.34.23 (talk) 13:01, 26 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 10 May 2017 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. After more than a month of listing, this seems no closer to any sort of resolution, and I can't see any agreement on any of the points. I suggest this may need some narrower RMs, concerning each of the affected articles one-by-one, as there are too many moving parts here.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:25, 15 June 2017 (UTC)Reply



Hegira → ? – Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

I disagree with this - a web search (I checked both Google and Bing) suggests that the transgender group is the dominant meaning for "Hijra", and that "Hijrah" and "Hegira" are the much more common spellings for the Islamic concept. So I still think that Hijra (South Asia) should be moved to Hijra. Korny O'Near (talk) 14:33, 10 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
That's not necessary (by the way, Hijra (Islam), the former title of this article, or Hijrah would be a more obvious title). It's fine for the Islam subject to be located at Hegira (this has already been discussed above: the Anglicisation Hegira is more common even in scholarly literature). The issue is where Hijra should point to, or what it should contain, and Korny's and my preference would be the third gender. Those who look for the Islam subject could then be directed to Hegira through a hatnote, per Korny's proposal, and those who look for other topics called Hijra would be directed to a dab page, called Hijra (disambiguation) (For Muhammad's migration, see Hegira. For other topics, see Hijra (disambiguation)). (Hijra (Islam), Hijrah etc. would redirect to Hegira, as they do now.) This would be the most simple solution. The alternative would be to leave Hijra (South Asia) where it is or rename it to Hijras, or something like Hijra (third gender) or Hijra (transgender). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:51, 10 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Sorry for the confusion. The withdrawn proposal was to move Hegira (disambiguation) → Hijra. Kory O'Near suggested, on the contrary, to leave Hegira (disambiguation) where it is and to move Hijra (South Asia) → Hijra instead. The three people involved in the discussion all agreed with Korny O'Near. That includes me, which is why I withdrew my proposal.
Moving Hijra (South Asia) is not really a question of religion. It is a question of English spelling. Arabic: هِجْرَة and Hindi: हिजड़ा can both be transliterated as hijra, though, as you note and as the Wikipedia titles currently treat it, the Arabic can also be transliterated as hegira or in other ways. Korny O'Near suggested (and I have no reason to doubt him) that the spelling hijra transliterates the Hindi more often than the Arabic, at least according to web searches. I believed the request was uncontroversial, as the people involved in the discussion all appear to agree. If there is controversy, I apologize. Cnilep (talk) 07:21, 11 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose moving Hegira to Hijra. Mohammed's Hegira is usually spelled the traditional latinized way, not the technical transliterated way. The same is true of a lot of other Arabic words (i.e. Damascus not Dimashq) Genealogizer (talk) 18:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose moving Hijra (South Asia) to Hijra. Recommend leaving Hijra (South Asia) where it is or to some other parenthetical disambiguation. Recommend that this page Hegira be moved back the Hijra (Islam). In my opinion, both major uses of Hijra must be parenthesized. By the way, there are two Islamic Hijras, that of Muhammad and an earlier one by some of his followers as described in the article, so plural is a problem. — Joe Kress (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Hegira links are indeed scholarly, at least in the Islamic sense, because "Hegira" was the accepted spelling used by Western scholars before about 1950 for the migration. But since then its spelling has shifted to "Hijra", a scholarly spelling used by all scholars to more closely conform to the spelling used by Muslim scholars. "Muslim" itself is a similar shift, replacing the former spelling used by Western scholars of "Moslem". — Joe Kress (talk) 19:06, 22 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Hegira. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:43, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 8 September 2018 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. No participants supported the proposal to move to Hijrah. Still no consensus on the proposal to move to Hijra. (non-admin closure)Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 11:11, 29 September 2018 (UTC)Reply


HegiraHijrah – The transliteration of Arabic هِجْرَة to 'Hegira' is frankly an abomination. The Arabic letter ـجـ is pronounced in both Classical and Modern Standard Arabic as an English 'j'. There is no 'g' vocalization in the language, save for some colloquial dialects such as Egyptian Arabic. There is also no equivalent to the vowel 'e', and an additional 'i' has been added again because of dialectical epenthesis. The correct transliteration of the Arabic term, as well as the common English usage, is 'Hijra' or 'Hijrah'. There is no legitimate reason for this term to be written as 'Hegira'. LissanX (talk) 05:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me | my contributions 14:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

  • Move to Hijra: I agree that the page should be moved, but I see from this n-gram that "Hijra" predominates. StAnselm (talk) 08:12, 8 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Support actually that is outdated spelling and I am baffled that our Wikipedia article is still using it. –Ammarpad (talk) 17:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Support the move to Hijra per StAnselm's rationale. --Joyakdol (talk) 13:46, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Support the move to Hijra per above. But read the 2017 discussions for the knock-on consequences. Note this page was at Hijra (Islam) until moved after a discussion in 2015. I weonder if this nomination is adequate to cover all the issues. Johnbod (talk) 15:19, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment Despite calls to move to Hijra, it's a disambiguation page whose RM once failed: See Talk:Hijra#Requested move 2 May 2017. The thing is, Hijra (South Asia) seems to be an important topic that objectively challenges the WP:PTOPIC status of the Islamic term, so the dab should not be moved without a broader input. I thus propose an interim move to Hijrah or Hijra (Islam) and perhaps re-discussing the whole setup on Talk:Hijra. No such user (talk) 15:55, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose - Hegira is an English word that comes from a Latinization of an Arabic word, just like Algebra or Alchemy. This would be like moving Cantonese to Guangzhouese in order to be in line with the modern romanization of Canton/Guangzhou. Lovesaver (talk) 00:33, 17 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
    • Look at current usage to in English though. —innotata 02:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. The ngram above is flawed, because the "Hijra" entry will include all matches for Hijra (South Asia) which, from a cursory look at books in Google over the same period (1990 to 2008),[6] features very prominently in results for the term. As such, and also because of the primary topic issues mentioned by No such user, I think we should leave it as is. The second entry in the ngram, and the first which unambiguously refers to this topic, is Hegira so it seems a good match per both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURALDIS.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:27, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • And see 2 discussions further up on this page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose until issues raised in this and previous title discussions are addressed more fully by supporters of a move. —  AjaxSmack  01:46, 28 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ambiguity in article edit

The following two sentences are ambiguous. I request that some knowledgeable editor make them clearer, because I, for one, being ignorant, cannot understand them. "Beginning in January 623, Muhammad led several raids against Meccan caravans travelling along the eastern coast of the Red Sea. Members of different tribes was [sic] thus encouraged by the need to act as a unit." E.g., are the "different tribes" Meccans, or are they allies of Muhammed? Acwilson9 (talk) 03:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion edit

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:10, 28 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 9 February 2022 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Hijrah. No such user (talk) 12:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)Reply


HegiraHijrah – It has been a long time now since the medieval Latin transliteration of "Hegira" has been used as the standard definition, common name or principle title used in tertiary sources for this event, which is far more commonly known as either "Hijrah" or "Hijra". Sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica and recent scholarly sources tend to prefer "Hijrah", as the "h" at the end is technically correct given the presence of a Taa Marbouta. This is well corroborated by many of the principle sources in the article here (e.g.: Shamsi, Marom). "Hegira" is a version that was a dominant term historically, but no longer in modern academic literature. The decline of the term is shown clearly in Ngrams, which also clearly shows the rise in "Hijra" as the more common colloquial expression of the term. However, for the purposes of Wikipedia, it seems fitting to stick with the more academically rigorous and reliable, secondary source-supported "Hijrah" with an "h", for both the reasons above and to prevent confusion with Hijra (South Asia), which refers to a transgender identity in India. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose, per ngrams showing that Hegira continues to be preferred. BilledMammal (talk) 12:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    @BilledMammal: I already provided an Ngrams link, which, if you were to go by that alone, would point you in the direction of "hijra", so I don't see your point. Also, why did you stop the Ngrams at 2019? Since then, Hijrah has exceeded Hegira. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Ngrams dataset currently stops at 2019. Looking at the case insensitive ngrams and adding "Hijra", we see that Hegira is slightly preferred compared to Hijrah, but Hijra sees significantly more use than either. Is there a reason you didn't propose "Hijra"? BilledMammal (talk) 18:45, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Yes, I listed the various reasons in my opening statement. The tertiary and academic sources prefer "Hijrah" with an "h" because it is a slightly more accurate transliteration. Obviously both Hijrah and Hijra are quite similar to each other, and both are quite different from Hegira, which apart from being archaic is a very poor transliteration. In some ways there are two stages to the discussion: first, whether one or the other of Hijrah or Hijra is preferable to Hegira, and secondly, which is best. Based on quality sourcing, I say Hijrah. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:58, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Thank you for clarifying. Altered !vote to support "Hijra" as the WP:COMMONNAME, although I continue to oppose the proposed title as in comparison I believe the current name better aligns with WP:CRITERIA. BilledMammal (talk) 19:01, 9 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per proposer. Nothing else I can say. Neocorelight (Talk) 13:56, 10 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Support a move to either Hijra or Hijrah. Assessing the WP:CRITERIA:
    • Recognisability: hijra > hijrah >> hegira. This is a purely subjective analysis but I have to check what "hegira" means whenever I encounter it. By contrast "hijra" is immediately recognizable.
    • Naturalness: hijrah > hijra >>>> hegira. The pronunciation of the last, interpreted as a Latinisation, is very different from the Arabic it supposedly represents. The vowels are wrong (standard Arabic doesn't even have /e/), the second consonant is /g/ when it should be /dʒ/ (problematic in some languages, but not English), and the stress is on the second syllable when it should be on the first. It's a mess.
    • Precision, concision: all equal; no ambiguity and you can hardly be more concise.
    • Consistency: can't be assessed on the level of individual articles.
  • On this basis I consider the current title to be easily the worst of the three options. It's a toss-up between the other two, leading slightly towards hijra IMO. Hairy Dude (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Move to Hijra as it is the most common spelling in English sources. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Strong oppose move to Hijra, and such a proposal would also require inclusion of the disambiguation page in the discussion. As I mentioned last time, "Hijra" predominantly refers to the topic of Hijra (South Asia) and arguably that should be the primary topic if any article is. It also very significantly dominates the page views. As for Hijrah vs Hegira, fairly neutral on that. Britannica calls it "hijrah" so there's that. Hijrah is also slightly ahead of hegira on page views, and is closer to the alternative "hijra" too. So, on balance, support original proposal to move to "Hijrah" with an H.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Comment: Ah yes, while I noted the risk of a conflict with the South Asian meaning of hijra, I didn't think to cross reference hijra with likely associated words. This is a very crude analysis but "hijra + India" does superficially appear to outweigh "hijra + Islam", a problem that "Hijrah" with an "h" avoids. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Non-neutral point of view edit

This part does not seem to be written with a neutral point of view.


“After the hijrah, Muhammad was keenly interested in attacking the caravans of the Meccans and plundering their goods,which prompted armed conflicts between the Muslims and the Quraysh, including the battles of Badr, Uhud, and the Trench. Sometime after the latter battle and after Muhammad had successfully eliminated the three major Jewishtribes from Medina, he reportedly stopped making raids on the Quraysh, at which point he mostly focused his attention on the north, where he raided Banu Lihyan and Banu Mustaliq, to name a few.” Perseverance66 (talk) 10:47, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Hemiauchenia, Iskandar323, Kaalakaa, Anachronist, and Gråbergs Gråa Sång:, can anyone advise as it is way above my pay grade. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
"Keenly interested in attacking" just sounds sloppy to me. Why not simply "attacked"? Either he attacked Meccan caravans or he didn't. Other than that, I am having trouble seeing what's non-neutral about it, unless this passage is stating a minority historical viewpoint in Wikipedia's voice. ~Anachronist (talk) 13:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Specifically, Perseverance66, all the statements are supported by citations. Maybe it would help us understand your concern if you would propose a replacement paragraph that you would regard as neutral without losing the historical basis? In the meantime, I will change "keenly interested in" to "began". --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)Reply