Re: FreeHijri

[Roozbeh Pournader <roozbeh at sharif dot edu>]

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Youcef Rabah Rahal wrote:

> >First of all, let me tell you about the real problems:
> >
> >   1) The Hijri calendar is based on the location of the reference point on
> >   the Earth. So we can't have a single calendar for everybody on Earth.
> 
> Normally, a single calendar is possible, [...]

You may be correct, IANAA (I Am Not An Astronomer). But what I know, is
that this calendar is more based on the political lines than natural ones.

> What is absolutely illogical, is that sometime an Islamic Country starts
> Ramadhan and the one at its west is still in Shaaban !

It is. But we can't do *anything* about that. We don't have any power to 
persuade the governments to do something else.

> I mostly agree here (points 2 to 5). However, I am (personally) for a
> calendar that should be followed in all Islamic countries, a calendar
> that is to be determined by the High Islamic Council for example. But I
> think I am talking about utopy here, [...]

You are. :)

> Well, I don't know if you are aware about the Islamic Tools Library 
> developed by Yousef Al Harthi ?
> 
> http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=ITL
> 
> Maybe a collaboration could be envisioned ? (just a thought,
> because your project seems kind of different from ITL)

Well, I can't tell what does "Islamic Tools" really mean. I'm not
interested in the code to compute, say, prayer times. I'm interested in
the official Hijri calendars of all countries where the Hijri calendar is
one of the official calendards.

But from the code I saw, it's currently only the Saudi Arabia's Hijri 
calendar for Qt.

> Well, I am interested to give a hand. I actually study Astrophysics, but
> I have no real experience with calendars, which is a whole and a huge
> subject by itself.
>
> Maybe some more details about the implementation are needed (and the human 
> part) (or a first shot ?).

Then get your hand on the book I mentioned, if you could. We can have your
advice on the astronomical parts of algorithm.

On the human part, we need a "calendar liberation" team in each country. 
People who can go to officials and ask for the algorithm. People who can 
go and find old calendars to see if they use a trivial pattern (like 
alternating 29- and 30-day months). People who can go and search the 
archives for the starting days of Ramadan and Shawwal in each of the 
these countries for a few years into the past. People who ...

roozbeh