1.
Islamic calendar
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The Islamic, Muslim, or Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries and it is also used by Muslims to determine the proper days of Islamic holidays and rituals, such as the annual period of fasting and the proper time for the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Islamic calendar employs the Hijri era whose epoch was retrospectively established as the Islamic New Year of AD622, during that year, Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib and established the first Muslim community, an event commemorated as the Hijra. In the West, dates in this era are usually denoted AH in parallel with the Christian, in Muslim countries, it is also sometimes denoted as H from its Arabic form. In English, years prior to the Hijra are reckoned as BH, the current Islamic year is 1438 AH. In the Gregorian calendar,1438 AH runs from approximately 3 October 2016 to 21 September 2017, four of the twelve Hijri months are considered sacred, Rajab, and the three consecutive months of Dhū al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Ḥijjah and Muḥarram. As the lunar calendar lags behind the solar calendar by about ten days every gregorian year, the cycle repeats every 33 lunar years. Each month of the Islamic calendar commences on the birth of the new lunar cycle, traditionally this is based on actual observation of the crescent marking the end of the previous lunar cycle and hence the previous month, thereby beginning the new month. Consequently, each month can have 29 or 30 days depending on the visibility of the moon, astronomical positioning of the earth and weather conditions. However, certain sects and groups, most notably Dawoodi Bohra Muslims and Shia Ismaili Muslims, use a tabular Islamic calendar in which odd-numbered months have thirty days, in Arabic, the first day of the week corresponds with Sunday of the planetary week. The Islamic weekdays, like those in the Hebrew and Baháí calendars, the Christian liturgical day, kept in monasteries, begins with vespers, which is evening, in line with the other Abrahamic traditions. Christian and planetary weekdays begin at the following midnight, Muslims gather for worship at a mosque at noon on gathering day which corresponds with Friday. Thus gathering day is regarded as the weekly day of rest. A few others have adopted the Saturday-Sunday weekend while making Friday a working day with a midday break to allow time off for worship. Inscriptions of the ancient South Arabian calendars reveal the use of a number of local calendars, at least some of these calendars followed the lunisolar system. For Central Arabia, especially Mecca, there is a lack of epigraphical evidence, both al-Biruni and al-Masudi suggest that the Ancient Arabs used the same month names as the Muslims, though they also record other month names used by the pre-Islamic Arabs. Nevertheless, the Islamic position equating Nisan with Dhū al-Ḥijja has prevailed, for a comparison between the Islamic and pre-Islamic months, see Islamic and Jahili months. The Islamic tradition is unanimous in stating that Arabs of Tihamah, Hejaz, the forbidden months were four months during which fighting is forbidden, listed as Rajab and the three months around the pilgrimage season, Dhu al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, and Muharram
2.
Monday
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Monday is the day of the week between Sunday and Tuesday. According to the international standard ISO8601 it is the first day of the week, the name of Monday is derived from Old English Mōnandæg and Middle English Monenday, originally a translation of Latin dies lunae day of the Moon. The names of the day of the week were coined in the Roman era, in Greek and Latin, in the case of Monday as ἡμέρᾱ Σελήνης, most languages use terms either directly derived from these names, or loan-translations based on them. The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin lunae dies, japanese and Korean share the same ancient Chinese words 月曜日 for Monday which means day of the moon. In many Indo-Aryan languages, the word for Monday is Somavāra or Chandravāra, Sanskrit loan-translations of Monday. In some cases, the names are used, a tradition of numbering the days of the week in order to avoid the pagan connotation of the planetary names. In many Slavic languages the name of the day translates to after Sunday/holiday, russian понедельник, Croatian ponedjeljak, Serbian понедељак, Ukrainian понеділок, Bulgarian понеделник, Polish poniedziałek, Czech pondělí, Slovak pondelok, Slovenian ponedeljek. In Turkish it is called pazartesi, which means after Sunday. Historically, the Greco-Roman week began with Sunday, and Monday was the day of the week. It is still the custom to refer to Monday as feria secunda in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. Quakers also traditionally referred to Monday as Second Day, the Portuguese and the Greek also retain the ecclesiastical tradition. Likewise the Modern Hebrew name for Monday is yom-sheni, in modern times, it has become more common to consider Monday the first day of the week. The international ISO8601 standard places Monday as the first day of the week, Monday is xīngqīyī in Chinese, meaning day one of the week. Modern Western culture usually looks at Monday as the beginning of the workweek, in Judaism Mondays are considered auspicious days for fasting. The Didache warned early Christians not to fast on Mondays to avoid Judaizing, in Judaism the Torah is read in public on Monday mornings, one of three days the Torah is read each week. Special penitential prayers are recited on Monday, unless there is an occasion for happiness which cancels them. In the Eastern Orthodox Church Mondays are days on which the Angels are commemorated, the Octoechos contains hymns on this theme, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Mondays throughout the year. At the end of Divine Services on Monday, the dismissal begins with the words, May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the honorable, Bodiless Powers of Heaven…
3.
Gregorian calendar
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The Gregorian calendar is internationally the most widely used civil calendar. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582, the calendar was a refinement to the Julian calendar involving a 0. 002% correction in the length of the year. The motivation for the reform was to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes and solstices—particularly the northern vernal equinox, transition to the Gregorian calendar would restore the holiday to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when introduced by the early Church. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe, the last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923. Many countries that have used the Islamic and other religious calendars have come to adopt this calendar for civil purposes. The reform was a modification of a made by Aloysius Lilius. His proposal included reducing the number of years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Lilius also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the moon when calculating the date of Easter. For example, the years 1700,1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are. The canonical Easter tables were devised at the end of the third century, when the vernal equinox fell either on 20 March or 21 March depending on the years position in the leap year cycle. As the rule was that the full moon preceding Easter was not to precede the equinox, the date was fixed at 21 March for computational purposes, the Gregorian calendar reproduced these conditions by removing ten days. To unambiguously specify a date, dual dating or Old Style, dual dating gives two consecutive years for a given date, because of differences in the starting date of the year, and/or to give both the Julian and the Gregorian dates. The Gregorian calendar continued to use the calendar era, which counts years from the traditional date of the nativity. This year-numbering system, also known as Dionysian era or Common Era, is the predominant international standard today, the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. A regular Gregorian year consists of 365 days, but as in the Julian calendar, in a leap year, in the Julian calendar a leap year occurs every 4 years, but the Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years. In the Julian calendar, this day was inserted by doubling 24 February. In the modern period, it has become customary to number the days from the beginning of the month, some churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, delay February festivals after the 23rd by one day in leap years. Gregorian years are identified by consecutive year numbers, the cycles repeat completely every 146,097 days, which equals 400 years
4.
Muharram
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Muḥarram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year, since the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, Muharram moves from year to year when compared with the Gregorian calendar. It is held to be the second holiest month, following Ramadan, some Muslims fast during these days. The tenth day of Muharram is the Day of Ashura, which to Shia Muslims is part of the Mourning of Muharram, Shia Muslims during Muharram do different things and with different intentions. Not only Shia people, Sunni sect of Muslim especially the lover of Ahl al-Bayt and they observe and respect Muharram as the month that martyred Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad and son of Ali, in the Battle of Karbala. They mourn for Hussein ibn Ali and refrain from all joyous events, unlike Sunni Muslims, Shias do not fast on the 10th day of Muharram. In addition there is an important Ziyarat book, the Ziyarat Ashura about Hussein ibn Ali. In the Shia sect it is popular to read this ziyarat on the Day of Ashura, although most of the Shias try to read Ziyarat Ashura every day, Muharram of Sunni peoples of Bengal-especially the Sufi and Ahl al-Bayt lovers are very well known. These Sunni sects do the mourning of Imam Hussain and his Ahl al-Bayt from the first day of Muharram till the forty days after Ashura, with the sighting of the new moon the Islamic New Year is ushered in. The first month, Muharram, is one of the four sacred months that Allah has mentioned in the Quran, Muharram, Rajab, Dhu al-Qidah, and Dhu al-Hijjah. Even before Islam came, Quraish and Arabs as a whole knew the sanctity of the months and were forbidden to wage wars on those months, Muharram is a month of remembrance and modern Shia meditation that is often considered synonymous with Ashura. Ashura, which means the Tenth in Arabic, refers to the tenth day of Muharram. It is well-known because of historical significance and mourning for the murder of Hussein ibn Ali, shiite begin mourning from the first night of Muharram and continue for ten nights, climaxing on the 10th of Muharram, known as the Day of Ashura. The surviving members of Imam Husseins family and those of his followers were taken captive, marched to Damascus, the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, the estimated start and end dates for Muharram are as follows The approximate dates for the next Muharram is from 21 September 2017 to 20 October 2017. 01 Muharram, anniversary of the death of Hazrat Ammasaheb Bibi Habiba Qadri in India, Birth of the Báb in 1235 AH.02 Muharram, Hussein ibn Ali enters Karbala and establishes camp. Birth of Baháulláh in 1233 AH.07 Muharram, Access to water was banned to Husayn ibn Ali by Yazids orders,10 Muharram, Referred to as the Day of Ashurah was the day on which Hussein ibn Ali was martyred in the Battle of Karbala. 15 Muharram, Birth of Muhammad Sirajuddin Naqshbandi in 1297 AH25 Muharram, Zayn al-‘Ābidīn,28 Muharram, Death anniversary Urs of Ashraf Jahangir Semnani in 808 AH a great Sufi saint in India
5.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
6.
Pashto
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Pashto, known in Persian literature as Afghānistani and in Urdu and Hindi literature as Paṭhānī, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans and it is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas are almost 100% Pashto-speaking, while it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide, Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian. Pashto has two main groups, “soft” and “hard”, the latter known as Pakhto. As a national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, the exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan. In Pakistan Pashto is spoken as a first language by about 15. 42% of Pakistans 170 million people and it is the main language of the Pashtun-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province and in Islamabad, modern Pashto-speaking communities are found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in Tajikistan, and further in the Pashtun diaspora, there are also communities of Pashtun descent in the southwestern part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari. Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a “sophisticated language, king Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials. Thus Pashto became a language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism. The status of language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari. The lyrics of the anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages, Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the language of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas
7.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
8.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
9.
March equinox
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In the Northern Hemisphere the March equinox is known as the vernal equinox, and in the Southern Hemisphere as the autumnal equinox. On the Gregorian calendar the Northward equinox can occur as early as 19 March or as late as 21 March. For a common year the computed time slippage is about 5 hours 49 minutes later than the previous year, and for a leap year about 18 hours 11 minutes earlier than the previous year. Balancing the increases of the years against the losses of the leap years keeps the calendar date of the March equinox from drifting more than one day from 20 March each year. The March equinox may be taken to mark the beginning of spring and the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere but marks the beginning of autumn, in astronomy, the March equinox is the zero point of sidereal time and, consequently, right ascension. It also serves as a reference for calendars and celebrations in many human cultures, the March equinox is one point in time commonly used to determine the length of the tropical year. The mean tropical year is the average of all the tropical years measured from every point along the Earths orbit. The following table shows the small variations in timing over a period of time. The point where the Sun crosses the equator northwards is called the First Point of Aries. However, due to the precession of the equinoxes, this point is no longer in the constellation Aries, by the year 2600 it will be in Aquarius. The Earths axis causes the First Point of Aries to travel westwards across the sky at a rate of one degree every 72 years. It passed by a corner of Cetus at 0°10′ distance in the year 1489. In its apparent motion on the day of an equinox, the Suns disk crosses the Earths horizon directly to the east at dawn—rising, the March equinox, like all equinoxes, is characterized by having an almost exactly equal amount of daylight and night across most latitudes on Earth. Due to refraction of light rays in the Earths atmosphere the Sun will be visible above the horizon even when its disc is completely below the limb of the Earth and these conditions produce differentials of actual durations of light and darkness at various locations on Earth during an equinox. This is most notable at the extreme latitudes, where the Sun may be seen to travel sideways considerably during the dawn. The Persian calendar begins each year at the equinox, observationally determined at Tehran. The Indian national calendar starts the year on the day next to the equinox on 22 March with a 30-day month. The Julian calendar reform lengthened seven months and replaced the intercalary month with a day to be added every four years to February
10.
Nowruz
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It has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in Western Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea Basin and the Balkans. It marks the first day of the first month in the Iranian calendar, Nowruz is the day of the vernal equinox, and marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It usually occurs on 21 March or the previous or following day, the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year, and families gather together to observe the rituals. Although having Iranian and religious Zoroastrian origins, Nowruz has been celebrated by people from diverse ethno-linguistic communities for thousands of years and it is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians. The term Nowruz is a Persian compound word, consisting of the words now, now, which means new and descends from Proto-Indo-European *néṷos, is cognate with English new, German neu, Latin novus, Russian novyj and Sanskrit náva. Ruz, which day in Modern Persian, is descended from Proto-Iranian *raučah-. The original meaning of the word, however, was light and it is related to Armenian loys, English light, Latin lux, Sanskrit rúci and Slovenian luč. The Persian pronunciation differs in the dialects of the language. While the eastern dialects have preserved the diphthong nau, the western dialects usually pronounce it with the diphthong now, a variety of spelling variations for the word Nowruz exist in English-language usage. Random House provides the spelling Nowruz, merriam-Webster recognizes only the spelling Nauruz. Nowruz is partly rooted in the tradition of Iranian religions, such as Mitraism and Zoroastrianism, in Mitraism, festivals had a deep linkage with the suns light. The Iranian festivals such as Mehrgan, Tirgan, and the eve of Chelle ye Zemestan also had an origin in the Sun god, Zoroastrian practices were dominant for much of the history of ancient Iran. In Zoroastrianism, the seven most important Zoroastrian festivals are the six Gahambar festivals and Nowruz, between sunset on the day of the sixth Gahambar and sunrise of Nowruz, Hamaspathmaedaya was celebrated. This and the Gahambars are the only named in the surviving text of the Avesta. The 10th-century scholar Biruni, in his work Kitab al-Tafhim li Awail Sinaat al-Tanjim, besides the Iranian calendar, various festivals of Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Sabians, and other nations are mentioned in the book. In the section on the Iranian calendar, he mentions Nowruz, Sadeh, Tirgan, Mehrgan, according to him, It is the belief of the Iranians that Nowruz marks the first day when the universe started its motion. It has been suggested that the famous Persepolis complex, or at least the palace of Apadana and it was an important day during the time of the Achaemenids, where kings from different nations under the Achaemenid Empire used to bring gifts to the King of Kings of Iran. It was, therefore, an auspicious occasion for the ancient Iranian peoples
11.
Iran Standard Time
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Iran Standard Time or Iran Time is the time zone used in Iran. Iran uses a UTC offset UTC+03,30, IRST is defined by the 52.5 degrees east meridian, the same meridian which defines the Iranian calendar and is the official meridian of Iran. Between 2005 and 2008, by decree of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and it was reintroduced from 21 March 2008. Iran is unusual in that the dates of DST transitions arent based on a such as the third Monday in September. So in most countries, DST transitions occur on the same every year
12.
Meridian (geography)
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A meridian is the half of an imaginary great circle on the Earths surface, terminated by the North Pole and the South Pole, connecting points of equal longitude. The position of a point along the meridian is given by its latitude indicating how many degrees north or south of the Equator the point is, each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude. Each is also the length, being half of a great circle on the Earths surface. Most maps show the lines of longitude, the position of the prime meridian has changed a few times throughout history, mainly due to the transit observatory being built next door to the previous one. Such changes had no significant practical effect, historically, the average error in the determination of longitude was much larger than the change in position. The adoption of WGS84 as the system has moved the geodetic prime meridian 102.478 metres east of its last astronomic position. The position of the current geodetic prime meridian is not identified at all by any kind of sign or marking in Greenwich, but can be located using a GPS receiver. The term meridian comes from the Latin meridies, meaning midday, the same Latin stem gives rise to the terms a. m. and p. m. used to disambiguate hours of the day when utilizing the 12-hour clock. Therefore, a compass needle will be parallel to the magnetic meridian, the angle between the magnetic and the true meridian is the magnetic declination, which is relevant for navigating with a compass. Searchable PDF prepared by the author, C. A. White, resources page of the U. S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management Meridian
13.
Astrological sign
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In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30° sectors of the ecliptic, starting at the vernal equinox, also known as the First Point of Aries. The order of the signs is Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius. The concept of the zodiac originated in Babylonian astrology, and was influenced by Hellenistic culture. According to astrology, celestial phenomena relate to human activity on the principle of as above, so below, beyond the celestial bodies, other astrological points that are dependent on geographical location and time are also referenced within this ecliptic coordinate system. Various approaches to measuring and dividing the sky are currently used by differing systems of astrology, although the tradition of the Zodiacs names, Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points, while Jyotiṣa or Vedic astrology measures along the equatorial plane. In Western and Indian astrology, the emphasis is on space, in Chinese astrology, by contrast, the emphasis is on time, with the zodiac operating on cycles of years, months, and hours of the day. A common feature of all three traditions however, is the significance of the Ascendant — the zodiac sign that is rising on the horizon at the moment of a persons birth. While Western astrology is essentially a product of Greco-Roman culture, some of its basic concepts originated in Babylonia. Isolated references to signs in Sumerian sources are insufficient to speak of a Sumerian zodiac. Specifically, the division of the ecliptic in twelve equal sectors is a Babylonian conceptual construction, by the 4th century BC, Babylonians astronomy and their system of celestial omens were influencing the Greek culture and, by the late 2nd century BC, Egyptian astrology was also mixing in. Association of the signs with Empedocles four classical elements was another important development in the characterization of the twelve signs. The following table enumerates the twelve divisions of celestial longitude, with the Latin names and the English translation. The longitude intervals, being a division, are closed for the first endpoint and open for the second — for instance, 30° of longitude is the first point of Taurus. Association of calendar dates with astrological signs only makes sense when referring to Sun sign astrology, Empedocles, a fifth-century BC Greek philosopher, identified Fire, Earth, Air, and Water as elements. Different mixtures of these produced the different natures of things. Empedocles said that those who were born with equal proportions of the four elements are more intelligent and have the most exact perceptions. The four astrological elements are considered as a direct equivalent to Hippocrates personality types. A modern approach looks at elements as the substance of experience
14.
Leap year
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A leap year is a calendar year containing one additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected, a year that is not a leap year is called a common year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, each year has 366 days instead of the usual 365. In the Bahai Calendar, a day is added when needed to ensure that the following year begins on the vernal equinox. For example, Christmas Day fell on a Tuesday in 2001, Wednesday in 2002, the length of a day is also occasionally changed by the insertion of leap seconds into Coordinated Universal Time, owing to the variability of Earths rotational period. Unlike leap days, leap seconds are not introduced on a regular schedule, in the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar in most of the world, most years that are multiples of 4 are leap years. In each leap year, the month of February has 29 days instead of 28, adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a tropical year by almost 6 hours. Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a tropical year is slightly less than 365.25 days. For example, the years 1700,1800, and 1900 were not leap years, over a period of four centuries, the accumulated error of adding a leap day every four years amounts to about three extra days. The Gregorian calendar therefore removes three leap days every 400 years, which is the length of its leap cycle and this is done by removing February 29 in the three century years that cannot be exactly divided by 400. The years 1600,2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1700,1800,1900,2100,2200 and 2300 are common years, by this rule, the average number of days per year is 365 + 1⁄4 − 1⁄100 + 1⁄400 =365.2425. The rule can be applied to years before the Gregorian reform, the Gregorian calendar was designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter remains close to the vernal equinox. The Accuracy section of the Gregorian calendar article discusses how well the Gregorian calendar achieves this design goal, the following pseudocode determines whether a year is a leap year or a common year in the Gregorian calendar. The year variable being tested is the representing the number of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Care should be taken in translating mathematical integer divisibility into specific programming languages, if then else if then else if then else February 29 is a date that usually occurs every four years, and is called leap day. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, the Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a calendar and named many of its days after the syzygies of the moon, the new moon. The Nonae or nones was not the first quarter moon but was exactly one nundina or Roman market week of nine days before the ides and this is what we would call a period of eight days
15.
Islamic Consultative Assembly
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The Islamic Consultative Assembly, also called the Iranian Parliament, the Iranian Majlis, is the national legislative body of Iran. The Parliament currently has 290 representatives, changed from the previous 272 seats since the 18 February 2000 election, the most recent election took place on 26 February 2016 and the new parliament was opened on 28 May 2016. Before the Islamic Revolution, Majlis was also the name of the house of the Iranian Legislature from 1906 to 1979. It was created by the Iran Constitution of 1906 and first convened on 7 October 1906, women were not allowed to vote or be elected to the Parliament until 1963, as part of reforms under the Shahs White Revolution. The twenty-first National Consultative Assembly, which included female representatives, opened on 6 October 1963, the last session of the Pre-Revolution Parliament was held on 7 February 1979. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Senate of Iran was abolished and was replaced by the Guardian Council thus the Iranian legislature remained bicameral. In the 1989 revision of the constitution, the National Consultative Assembly became the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Parliament of Iran has had six chairmen since the Iranian Revolution. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was the first chairman, from 1980 to 1989, then came Mehdi Karroubi, Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, Mehdi Karroubi, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and Ali Larijani since 2008. The Islamic Consultative Assembly can legislate laws on all issues within the limits of the Constitution, the Assembly cannot, for instance, enact laws contrary to the canons and principles of the official religion of the country or to the Constitution. Government bills are presented to the Islamic Consultative Assembly after receiving the approval of the Council of Ministers, the Islamic Consultative Assembly has the right to investigate and examine all the affairs of the country. International treaties, protocols, contracts, and agreements must be approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly, receiving and issuing national or international loans or grants by the government must be ratified by the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The President must obtain, for the Council of Ministers, after being formed and before all other business, all legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly must be sent to the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council must review it within a maximum of ten days from its receipt with a view to ensuring its compatibility with the criteria of Islam, if it finds the legislation incompatible, it will return it to the Assembly for review. Otherwise the legislation will be deemed enforceable, currently, there are 290 members of Parliament, fourteen of whom represent non-Muslim religious minorities, and are popularly elected for four-year terms. About 8% of the Parliament are women, while the average is 13%. The Parliament can force the dismissal of cabinet ministers through no-confidence votes, although the executive proposes most new laws, individual deputies of the Parliament also may introduce legislation. Deputies also may propose amendments to bills being debated, the Parliament also drafts legislation, ratifies international treaties, and approves the national budget. All Peoples House of Iran candidates and all legislation from the assembly must be approved by the Guardian Council, candidates must pledge in writing that they are committed, in theory and in practice, to the Iranian constitution
16.
Pahlavi dynasty
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The Pahlavi dynasty was the ruling house of Iran from 1925 until 1979, when the monarchy was overthrown and abolished as a result of the Iranian Revolution. He was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, at the death of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi on 27 July 1980, his son Reza Pahlavi became the head of the Pahlavi royal family. His successor, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, announced in 1959 that both Persia and Iran were acceptable and could be used interchangeably, Rezā Shāh tried to avoid involvement with Britain and the Soviet Union. Though many of his development projects required foreign expertise, he avoided awarding contracts to British. This created problems for Iran after 1939, when Germany and Britain became enemies in World War II, Rezā Shāh proclaimed Iran as a neutral country, but Britain insisted that German engineers and technicians in Iran were spies with missions to sabotage British oil facilities in southwestern Iran. Britain demanded that Iran expel all German citizens, but Rezā Shāh refused, on 13 September 1943 the Allies reassured the Iranians that all foreign troops would leave by 2 March 1946. At the time, the Tudeh Party of Iran, a communist party that was influential and had parliamentary representation, was becoming increasingly militant. This promoted actions from the side of the government, including attempts of the Iranian armed forces to order in the Northern provinces. While the Tudeh headquarters in Tehran were occupied and the Isfahan branch crushed, thus, by November 1945 Azerbaijan had become an autonomous state helped by the Tudeh party. This puppet government of the Soviet Union only lasted until November 1946, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced his father on the throne on 16 September 1941. In 1951, the Majlis named Mohammad Mossadegh as new minister by a vote of 79–12. Mossadegh was opposed by the Shah who feared a resulting oil embargo imposed by the West would leave Iran in economic ruin, the Shah fled Iran but returned when the United Kingdom and United States staged a coup against Mossadegh in August 1953. Mossadegh was then arrested by pro-Shah army forces, the Shahs government suppressed its opponents with the help of Irans security and intelligence secret police, SAVAK. Such opponents included members of the Communist Tudeh party, by the mid-1970s, relying on increased oil revenues, Mohammad Reza began a series of even more ambitious and bolder plans for the progress of his country and the march toward the White Revolution. But his socioeconomic advances increasingly irritated the clergy, the Pahlavi regime collapsed following widespread uprisings in 1978 and 1979. The Islamic Revolution dissolved the SAVAK and replaced it with the SAVAMA, Mohammad Reza fled the country, seeking medical treatment in Egypt, Mexico, the United States, and Panama, and finally resettled with his family in Egypt as a guest of Anwar Sadat. On his death, his son Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi succeeded him in absentia as heir apparent to the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Pahlavi and his wife live in the United States in Potomac, Maryland with three daughters. Under the Qajar dynasty the Persian character of Iran was not very explicit, the Pahlavi rule was instrumental in Irans nationalisation in line with Persian culture and language which, amongst other ways, was achieved through the official ban on the use of the Azeri language
17.
Sidereal and tropical astrology
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Sidereal and tropical are astrological terms used to describe two different definitions of a year. They are also used as terms for two systems of coordinates used in astrology. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the two systems do not remain fixed relative to each other but drift apart by about 1.4 arc degrees per century, the tropical system was adopted during the Hellenistic period and remains prevalent in Western astrology. A sidereal system is used in Hindu astrology, and in some 20th century systems of Western astrology, the actual positions of certain fixed stars as well as their constellations is an additional consideration in the horoscope. The classical zodiac was introduced in the neo-Babylonian period, at the time, the precession of the equinoxes had not been discovered. Classical Hellenistic astrology consequently developed without consideration of the effects of precession, the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes is attributed to Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer active in the later Hellenistic period. Ptolemy, writing some 250 years after Hipparchus, was aware of the effects of precession. He opted for a definition of the based on the point of the vernal equinox. While Ptolemy noted that Ophiuchus is in contact with the ecliptic, the Hindu Jyotisha system opted for defining the zodiac based on the fixed stars, i. e. directly tied to the eponymous zodiacal constellations, unlike Western astrological systems. Traditional Hindu astrology is based on the sidereal or visible zodiac, the difference between the Vedic and the Western zodiacs is currently around 24 degrees. This corresponds to a separation of about 1,700 years, when the vernal equinox was approximately at the center of the constellation Aries, the separation is believed to have taken place in the centuries following Ptolemy, apparently going back to Indo-Greek transmission of the system. Some western astrologists have shown interest in the system during the 20th century. Most sidereal astrologers simply divide the ecliptic into 12 equal signs of 30 degrees, a small number of sidereal astrologers do not take the astrological signs as an equal division of the ecliptic, but define their signs based on the actual width of the individual constellations. They also include constellations that are disregarded by the traditional zodiac, stephen Schmidt in 1970 introduced Astrology 14, a system with additional signs based on the constellations of Ophiuchus and Cetus. In 1995, Walter Berg introduced his 13-sign zodiac, which has the sign of Ophiuchus. Bergs system was received in Japan after having his book translated by radio host Mizui Kumi in 1996. For the purpose of determining the constellations in contact with the ecliptic, for example, the Sun enters the IAU boundary of Aries on April 19 at the lower right corner, a position that is still rather closer to the body of Pisces than of Aries. The IAU defined the boundaries without consideration of astrological purposes
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