510 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1788. 



the circumstances immediately attending it, was, 18 years after, distinguished 

 by the Caliph Omar, as the crisis of their new religion, and established as an 

 epoch, to which the dates of all the transactions of the faithful should have 

 reference in future. Before this, the people had been accustomed to compute 

 from the commencement of a particular war, the day of a remarkable battle, or 

 other occasional event of importance to their little communities. Accordingly, 

 Mahomet is said to have been born in the first year of the era of the elephant, 

 so called from an attack on the city and temple of Mecca, by a king of 

 Abyssinian race, in which those animals were employed ; and 20 years after this, 

 the impious war, in which the animosity of two contending tribes occasioned 

 them to violate the sacred or interdicted months, appeared of consequence suffi- 

 cient to give rise to a new era. The uncertainty and confusion produced by 

 this fluctuation demanded a reform, and more forcibly in proportion as the 

 interests and concerns of the growing empire extended themselves. A dispute 

 between two individuals, respecting the year in which the term of an obligation 

 for money should be understood to expire, the parties being agreed as to the 

 month, pointed out to the Caliph, to whose tribunal it was referred, the imme- 

 diate necessity of enjoining the observance of a determinate era, in which the 

 strongest prejudices of the people should be made to concur with the sovereign 

 authority. The date of the Hejera was thenceforth expressed in all the public 

 acts and letters. 



It must be understood, that though the account of the years, collectively 

 considered, was vague, that of the months was certain, and their succession at 

 all times scrupulously attended to. Omar did not think it expedient to attempt 

 any innovation as to the time of beginning the year, against which the ideas of 

 the people would have revolted ; and therefore, though the escape of Mahomet 

 from the indignation of his fellow citizens was effected, according to their 

 records, on the first day of the 3d month, or rabee prior, on the I'Zth day of 

 which he reached Medina, yet the Hejer^ takes date from a period of 2 months 

 antecedent to this flight, namely, from the first day of Moharram, being the 

 day on which immemorial custom had established the celebration of the festival 

 of the new year. 



The Arabian and Syrian Christians, and the Mahometan astronomers in 

 general, appear to have fixed this day to Thursday the 15th of the Syro-Mace- 

 donian month Tamooz, answering to our July ; but some among the latter, and 

 most of their historical writers, refer it to the next day, Friday the l6th, and 

 this latter date has, in modern times, obtained almost universal acceptance. A 

 religious preference which Friday claims above the rest of the week, seems to 

 have given effect to the arguments in its favour. The difference of opinion on 

 this subject has arisen, in the first place, from the uncertainty unavoidably 



