Hijri Date +Moon Phase Widget [for Android]

● Displays Hijri date & moon phase of the selected calendar on the "Home Widget".
● Compare the Gregorian and 6 Islamic lunar calendars.
● View actual moon phase for the selected date.
● Fast selection of past and future dates.
● All Calendars are accurately calculated and researched.
● Regular updates of new Calendar data when needed.
● Website with extended research information available.

Introduction to Islamic Calendars

For several decades Saudi Arabia has employed a calculated lunar calendar that is commonly referred to as the ‛Umm al-Qura calendar’. It is also followed by several neighbouring states on the Arabian Peninsula such as Bahrain and Qatar.

Many Muslim communities in non-Islamic countries also tend to follow the Umm al-Qura calendar as its use in mosques funded by Saudi Arabia and in modern computer software (it is the default Islamic calendar in the Arabic setting of Microsoft Vista) becomes more and more prevalent. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) and the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) have announced in the recent past that they will also follow the lunar calendar of Saudi Arabia.

Nevertheless, the Umm al-Qura calendar is often criticized by other Muslim communities who base their calendar on the actual sighting of the lunar crescent (hilāl). Especially around the month of fasting (Ramaḍān) and the month of pilgrimage (Dhū ’l-Ḥijja) the Umm al-Qura calendar often causes confusion when the dates observed by different Muslim communities for these major Islamic festivals are found to differ by one, two or even three days.

In the past, details of how the Umm al-Qura calendar was actually regulated were difficult to obtain but the general consensus of most specialists was that it was not based on the actual sighting of the lunar crescent.

Only recently has more information become available which now makes it possible to reconstruct the calendar adopted on the Arabian Peninsula in the recent past and to predict its future course for many years in advance.