What are some of the key festivals in Islam?
Islam uses a lunar calendar, but does not synchronise with the solar year and so years tend to be 354 or 355 days long. Year 1 AH (Anno Hegira) occurred when the prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina. This corresponds to 622 AD (or 622 CE – Common Era or Christian Era, for less religious connotations). This means that the date of Islamic festivals changes each year when using the Gregorian (Western) calendar. They also move within the Islamic calendar as they are all subject to the visibility of the new moon at Mecca – each new month begins only when the new moon has been sighted.
