Very aptly, and according to plan, we restarted our reading group last Wednesday with the final session devoted to al-Mahrī’s Qilādah. As far as we are aware, it must be the first time that any shared Western academic initiative has focused on this work in particular, and perhaps even on any work by al-Mahrī. We are grateful to our colleagues in London, Berlin, Leipzig and Abu Dhabi for joining us.
I say very aptly because, as mentioned before, this little treatise is all about the beginning of the year in different calendars, thus about the relations between different calendar eras, and thus about the ever-baffling relations between the paths of sun and moon. To a certain extent it echoes the concerns of computists in medieval Europe for the calculation of the epact.
More specifically, the Qilādat al-shumūs, written by a Muslim pilot, addresses the crucial question of how to reconcile the lunar calendar with the various solar calendars in usage around the Indian Ocean in the late Middle Ages. It was not a theoretical concern, but the very practical one of ascertaining sailing seasons in a region where postponing a departure a few days might have lead to months of delay.
There is one insight from this latest session which has stayed with me after a few days: for most calendrical calculations described, it was necessary to be aware of the number of days elapsed from the first day of the solar year (mā dakhala min al-sanah). This is not unlike the financial “year to date” count, and what in specialised algorithms is nowadays called the dayno. January 11 is simply Day 11, February 1 is Day 32, and March 1 would be Day 60 (i.e. 31+28+1, unless it’s a leap year!) and so on and so forth.
This way of counting the days of the solar year is eminently practical and, remarkably, it does away cleanly with all the layers of mythical and lunar divisions which seem so inseparable from the calendar. It is like stripping the calendar bare and leaving a pure clean sequence of numbers, from 1 to 365. Aniconic, straightforward, arithmetical, almost iconoclastic: what could be more practical?
I wonder if knowing that you were born on the 69th day of the year is of any use at all, or a mere idle curiosity. But when a pilot knew that a certain asterism rose in the morning on the 100th day of the year, he knew unequivocally where this fitted within the cycle of the seasons, and where he was within the rhythm of the monsoons and other seasonal winds.
So let’s get ready and practise: What day of the year were you born, sailor? Don’t give me a date, but what is your birthday’s dayno? [JA]
No comments:
Post a Comment