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Selected Islamic Observances

This data service calculates the civil dates for the first day of Ramadân, first day of Shawwál, and Islamic New Year, according to the tabular Islamic calendar, for the years 622 C.E. (which corresponds to A.H. 1) and later. Enter the year of interest and click the "Get Data" button. No data will be given prior to A.H. 1 in 622 C.E.

Year For example: 1986

The Islamic dates provided are tabular dates, which begin at sunset of the previous evening and end at sunset on the date tabulated. In practice, the dates of Islamic fasts and festivals are determined by visibility of the crescent Moon.

Notes

The count of years for the Islamic calendar begins with 1 Muharram A.H. 1 (Anno Hegira), which corresponds to Friday, 16 July 622 C.E. (Julian calendar).

This application assumes that the changeover from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar occurred in October of 1582, according to the scheme instituted by Pope Gregory XIII. Specifically, for dates on or before 4 October 1582, the Julian calendar is used; for dates on or after 15 October 1582, the Gregorian calendar is used. For all dates, the first day of the calendar year is 1 January.

For more information about the Islamic calendar, please see our Information Center page.

See Introduction to Calendars for other calendars.

For further information on calendars, see Richards, E.G. 2012, "Calendars," from the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, 3rd edition, S.E Urban and P.K. Seidelmann eds., (Mill Valley, CA: University Science Books), Chapter 15, pp. 585-624.

Application Programming Interface

This data service uses one of our Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The API returns data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format for users who wish to manipulate data into a customized format. For more information on the API, please see the documentation page.