MANY years ago my grandmother had an old clock that followed an unusual time schedule, or at least that's what I thought when I was a small child in her care. The sundown call to prayer was, at 12 o'clock, Isha (night prayers) at half past one, and dawn at 10 o'clock. Outside the house it left me baffled, as everything else followed a completely different time to that of my grandmother. When I asked her about this she said that her clock followed “Arab time” – known in those days as “Zawali” – a different schedule to the one everyone knows today, and it seemed that a lot of the women of my grandmother's age in the area followed this same time system that had been passed down through the years. And so it remained until our contact with the outside world grew, and the house I lived in grew and opened up to a world running on the other time system we all know today. If my grandmother was alive today, she would have to reset her clock, or become locked in her own special time zone. Why do I mention all this? Well, it's because what happened with my grandmother is the same as what's happening now with our use of the Hijri calendar in all our dealings. No one in the whole world but us does this, and it's my belief that if we can still manage to follow the Hijri calendar then it won't be long before we become – like my grandmother's clock – isolated from the world surrounding us, and locked in our own time-zone. Having just returned from spending some time abroad, I notice the effect of this difference particularly acutely, as every time I arrange to meet a friend or a relative in Saudi Arabia and they give me the date in Hijri, I have to do the calculations in the Gregorian calendar which I find easier and more practical. The world today is a small village, and we have a dependence on others in our imports and exports, even our clothes and food, and those same others known only the Gregorian calendar. We even come a cropper with our birth certificates when we match them up with the Gregorian calendar, as one may find oneself suddenly older than one thought, or vice versa, given that the difference in a year can be up to 13 days, a difference which can add up over the years. I am aware that our two Eids, Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha, are set by the Hijri calendar, but all other state business, including the National Day and the state budget, are set by the Gregorian, and if it weren't so then the nation's financial affairs with the rest of the world would be in a pickle, and our whole life rendered a mess. So let the Hijri calendar remain revered in our hearts and minds, but let the Gregorian calendar be the basis for our lives, our schools and all our other dealings great and small so we can keep up with the world in both time and life.
