December 29.2008 or Muharram 1st.1430 Hijriyah is very important day for Muslim around the world. It is an Islamic New Year. As Islamic calender is a lunar calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. It is used to date events in many predominantly Muslim countries, and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals. This lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holy days, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, such as a year of the Gregorian calendar. Islamic years are also called Hijriyah or Hijra years.
On the same date, it is also a Javanese New Year. The Javanese calendar is a calender that is still used by the Javanese people of Indonesia concurrently with two other important calendars, the Gregorian calendar and the Islamic calendar.
With this post, I would like to say Happy Islamic New Year 1430 Hijriyah. Also, being a 50 percent of Javanese descendant, I would like to say Sugeng Warsa Enggal 1942. This sentence means Happy New Year in Javanese.
Source: wikipedia and http://bambangpriantono.multiply.com/
