Jewish, Christian and Islamic calendars and Ghadir and Aushura (‘Aashoora)!

Part 1

It is of utmost necessity to realize that the original biblical calendar was the God Commanded Lunar calendar; i.e. twelve months in each year based on the movement of the moon. The start of every month was marked by the observation of a new crescent moon.

 This means that all Prophets (PBUT) had always commanded the use of God Commanded Lunar calendar, and thus religious occasions were to be marked based on the Lunar calendar. But throughout centuries humankind, for worldly purposes, disregarded many of the teachings of the Prophets and their Allah Chosen Successors (PBUT). As one direct result this Prophetic command was also disobeyed and thus humankind changed the Lunar calendar to man defined and invented calendars such as lunisolar, solilunar and solar calendars; neglecting the very vital fact that special characteristics of each of God’s days or months is for that specific day or month only, and by moving days, months and thus years, the whole Divine meanings, characteristics, blessings and … of significant times are accordingly lost.

To understand better the gradual process of distortions which has been occurring, it is quite important to pay attention to the historically proven fact that when humankind -misguided by Sheytaan (Satan)- decided to disobey and disregard the Pure Divine teachings of Prophets and their God Chosen Successors (PBUT), a dark vacuum of knowledge -i.e. in regard to the Pure Divine Knowledge- was created; thus humankind gradually filled the vacuum with human thoughts, myths, philosophies, mysticism, personal desires and … and in this manner the inauspicious doors to distortions, self interpretations and … of the Word of God were opened, and ignorantly these distorted words and interpretations have been called as: divine knowledge; which in reality is merely impure human knowledge based on fallible human’s’ worldly desires and thoughts, while the True and Pure Divine Knowledge is that which is taught by Allah Himself to His Chosen and Infallible Prophets and Successors, Anbiya and Awsiya (PBUT).

As cited in the English Wikipedia encyclopedia:

“Contemporary scholarship suggests that various schools of Jewish esotericism arose at different periods of Jewish history, each reflecting not only prior forms of mysticism, but also the intellectual and cultural milieu of that historical period.”

“… Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism …] teaches doctrines that are accepted by some Jews as the true meaning of Judaism while other Jews have rejected these doctrines as heretical and antithetical to Judaism. After the Medieval Kabbalah, and especially after its 16th century development and synthesis, Kabbalah replaced "Hakira" (Jewish philosophy) as the mainstream traditional Jewish theology, both in scholarly circles and in the popular imagination …” (Megillah 14a, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:22, Ruth Rabbah 1:2, Aryeh Kaplan Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide pp.44–48)

Distorting the God commanded calendar has been one of the inauspicious results of human deviation from the Pure Divine teachings:

“[Bible, book of] Num 10:10 stresses the importance in Israelite religious observance of the new month (Hebrew: ראש חודש, Rosh Chodesh, "beginning of the month"): "... in your new moons, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings..." Similarly in Num 28:11. "The beginning of the month" meant the appearance of a new moon. In prophet Amos, the new moon seem to be described simply as Kadosh… According to the Mishnah and Tosefta, in the Maccabean, Herodian, and Mishnaic periods, new months were determined by the sighting of a new crescent, with two eye witnesses required to testify to the Sanhedrin to having seen the new lunar crescent at sunset.” (M. Rosh Hashanah 1.7)

Although the Bible absolutely does not mention the addition of "embolismic" or intercalary months, but since the solar year is about eleven days longer than twelve lunar months, the original Hebrew Lunar calendar was changed to different forms of lunisolar calendars, in order to be conveniently fixed for worldly business purposes:

“Originally the Hebrew calendar was used by Jews for all daily purposes, but following the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE, Jews began additionally following the imperial civil calendar, which was decreed in 45 BCE, for civic matters such as the payment of taxes and dealings with government officials … The Hebrew calendar has evolved over time. For example, until the Tannaitic [according to the Webster dictionary, the Tannaitic were one of a group of Jewish scholars, active in Palestine during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, whose teachings are found chiefly in the Mishnah.] period, the months were set by observation of a new crescent moon, with an additional month added every two or three years to keep Passover in the spring …” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 11b)

“The modern Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar, or fixed lunar year, based on twelve lunar months of twenty-nine or thirty days, with an intercalary lunar month added seven times every nineteen years (once every two to three years) to synchronize the twelve lunar cycles with the slightly longer solar year. Each Jewish lunar month starts with the new moon. Although originally the new lunar crescent had to be observed and certified by witnesses, the moment of the new moon is now approximated arithmetically …” (Josephus, Antiquities 3.248-251, Loeb Classical Library, 1930, pp. 437-438)

“Between 70 CE and 1178 CE, the observation based calendar was gradually replaced by a mathematically calculated one.” (Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community)

“… The calendar rules reached their current form by the beginning of the 9th century, as described by al-Khwarizmi in 823 … Most of the present rules of the calendar were in place by 823, according to a treatise by the Muslim astronomer al-Khwarizmi (c. 780–850 CE). Al-Khwarizmi's study of the Jewish calendar, Risāla fi istikhrāj tarīkh al-yahūd "Extraction of the Jewish Era" describes the 19-year intercalation cycle, the rules for determining on what day of the week the first day of the month Tishrī shall fall, the interval between the Jewish era (creation of Adam) and the Seleucid era, and the rules for determining the mean longitude of the sun and the moon using the Jewish calendar. (E.S. Kennedy, "Al-Khwarizmi on the Jewish calendar", Scripta Mathematica 27 (1964) 55–59)

“In 1000, the Muslim chronologist al-Biruni described all of the modern rules of the Hebrew calendar, except that he specified three different epochs used by various Jewish communities being one, two, or three years later than the modern epoch.” (The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries)

I.e. after the previous Prophets (PBUT), in spite of their commands, humankind not only disregarded the observation of a new crescent moon as the beginning of the month and thus actually lost the real start of each month, but also by adding intercalary months, humankind created years with thirteen months, and as the result the number of actual years have also been distorted!!!

THEREFORE THE DATES OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS AS STATED BY THE PEOPLE WHO AFTER MOSES (PBUH) CALLED THEMSELVES JEWS, ARE NO LONGER ACCORDING TO THE ORIGINAL GOD-COMMANDED TWELVE MONTH LUNAR YEARS AND THUS CAN NOT BE CONSIDERED ACCURATE AND VALID.

To be continued …