The Islamic calendar is based on the lunar cycle rather than the solar one that was adopted for the Gregorian calendar. Each of the lunar months has 29 or 30 days and therefore the lunar year is about 11 days less than the year in the Gregorian calendar. The total number of days in an Islamic calendar are therefore 354 rather than the 365 days in the Gregorian calendar.
The Islamic calendar is officially used in many Islamic countries such as Saudi-Arabia. The calendar is used by all Muslims around the world to determine the religious holidays and activities. One of the Eid days (An Islamic holiday that falls after the month of Ramadan) for example falls on the 1st of Shawwal, the ninth month of the 12-month Islamic calendar.
The Islamic calendar is also referred to as the “Hijri calendar”. This is because the Islamic calendar started on the first day of “Hijra” or the year that Prophet Muhammad migrated to the city of “Al-Madina Munawwara” in Saudi-Arabia.
The twelve months of the Islamic calendar are as follows:
The current year is 1428, which will mostly fall in the year 2007 of the Gregorain calendar.