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9.9.1.1
Structural Details |
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The Baha'i day begins at sunset and therefore varies with season and latitude. This definition more resembles the Islamic method than the Jewish, which distinguishes a definition of 6 p.m. for civil purposes, as opposed to sunset for religious purposes. |
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The Baha'i week is divided into seven days. The first day of the week is Saturday, as it is in traditional Persian calendars. Each day of the week is given an Arabic name (Table 9.27). The week structure is therefore essentially the traditional Islamic one and differs from both the traditional Gregorian week and ISO definition. |
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The year is divided into 19 months of 19 days each and an intercalary period, called the Ayyam-i-Ha, which is arranged to include an extra day in leap years and therefore consists of four days in common years and five days in leap years. |
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In the West, the Baha'i calendar is tied explicitly to the Gregorian calendar. This feature alone makes the Baha'i calendar interesting from a calendric perspective. Baha'i leap years occur whenever the corresponding Gregorian year is a leap year. Thus, there is an exact correspondence between Baha'i dates and Gregorian dates. |
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Table 9.28 outlines the Baha'i months. Note that the SCDTL system uses the convention that the index value for the intercalary period is 19 and therefore requires the index value of 20 for the 19th regular month. |
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The days of the month are also given names, and these names are the same as the names of the months of the year. The Ayyam-i-Ha, of course, does not figure in this system, so the index of 19 is used for the 19th day, Ala. The technique of naming days appears in only one other calendar in this work, and that is the Zoroastrian. Whether this tradition had an influence on the Baha'i system is not clear. |
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The Baha'i year adheres to Persian tradition by beginning with Naw Ruz (No Ruz), which is intended to be the vernal equinox. The date is fixed as the equivalent of 21 March in the Gregorian calendar, however, regardless of the date of the actual vernal |
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| Table 9.27 Baha'i day names. | | Day Number | Arabic Name | English Name | Day of the
Week | | Jalal | Glory | Saturday | | Jamal | Beauty | Sunday | | Kamal | Perfection | Monday | | Fidal | Grace | Tuesday | | 'Idal | Justice | Wednesday | | Istijlal | Majesty | Thursday | | Istiqlal | Independence | Friday |
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