Re: Hijri calendar system

[Gregg Reynolds <arabink at earthlink dot net>]

 On Wednesday, December 4, 2002, at 04:32  AM, Hans Petter Bieker wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I'm working on better calendar support in KDE, and in that context I have
> a few questions for you:
> * In which countries are the Hijri calendar used?
> * Is the Hijri calendar used for all purposes or just for religious
> purposes? For instance, would it make sense to have Konqueror using
> Hijri dates when listing files?
> * If any, which other calendars are being used in your region?

Most newspapers and other periodicals use both systems - e.g. the date on each page of the newspaper Al-Haya reads something like:

Wed. 14 tishreen al-awwal (november) 2001 corresponding to 29 sha at baan 1422 h.

And this is how most dates in the body of a story will be written, using both notations.  So users can take their pick.  This seems like a good indication to me that there are lots of people in the Arab world who prefer to keep track of their days using the traditional calendar.

G. Reynolds