Month of September has brough together religious festivals of Jews, Muslims and Hindus in the world. On September 18, 2009 Jewish population around the world celebrated Rosh Hashanah, while Muslims celebrated Eid Ul Fitr on September 20 and 21. For Hindus, one of the biggest religious festivals, Durga Puja is from September 26, 2009.

Rosh Hashanah:

Rosh Hashanah [literally "head of the year"] is a Jewish holiday commonly referred to as the "Jewish New Year." It is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, as ordained in the Torah, in Leviticus 23:24. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ["Days of Awe"], or Asseret Yemei Teshuva [Ten Days of Repentance] which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar [one of four "new year" observances that define various legal "years" for different purposes as explained in the Mishnah and Talmud]. It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years and sabbatical [Shmita] and Jubilee [Yovel] years. Jews believe Rosh Hashanah represents either analogically or literally the creation of the World, or Universe. However, according to one view in the Talmud, that of R. Eleazar, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man, which entails that five days earlier, the 25 of Elul, was the first day of creation of the Universe.

The Mishnah, the core text of Judaism's oral Torah, contains the first known reference to Rosh Hashanah as the "day of judgment." In the Talmud tractate on Rosh Hashanah it states that three books of account are opened on Rosh Hashanah, wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed "to live." The middle class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous; the wicked are "blotted out of the book of the living."

Hebrew Calender:

The Hebrew calendar or Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used by Jews, the followers of Judaism and in recent decades, by a growing number of Messianic Jews and Christians. Today, the calendar is predominantly used for religious observances, but is also employed by Jewish farmers in Israel as an agricultural framework.

The calendar is used to reckon the Jewish New Year and dates for Jewish holidays, and also to determine appropriate public reading of Torah portions, Yahzeits [dates to commemorate the death of a relative], and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses. Originally the Hebrew calendar was used by Jews for all daily purposes. Following the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE, Jews began additionally following the imperial civil calendar [which was decreed in 45 BCE] for civic matters such as the payment of taxes and dealings with government officials.

The principles of the Hebrew calendar are found in the Torah, which contains several calendar-related commandments, including God's commandment during the Exodus from Egypt to fix the month of Aviv as the first month of the year. The Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE influenced the calendar, including the adoption of Babylonian names for the months.

During Temple times and through the Tannaitic period, the Hebrew calendar was observational, with the beginning of each month determined by the high court based on the testimony of witnesses who had observed a new crescent moon. Periodically, the court ordered an extra month added to keep Passover in the spring, again based on observation of natural events. Through the Amoraic period and into the Geonic period, the purely empirical calendar was displaced by calendrical rules, which finally became systematically arranged into a computed calendar. The principles and rules of the current calendar are fully described by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah.

Because of the roughly eleven-day difference between twelve lunar months and one solar year, the year lengths of the Hebrew calendar vary in a repeating 19-year Metonic cycle of 235 lunar months, with an intercalary lunar month added according to defined rules every two or three years, for a total of 7 times per 19 years. Seasonal references in the Hebrew calendar reflect its development in the region east of the Mediterranean Sea and the times and climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The Hebrew calendar's year is longer by about 6 minutes and 25+25/57 seconds than the present-day mean solar year, so that every 224 years, the Hebrew calendar will fall a full day behind the modern fixed solar year, and about every 231 years it will fall a full day behind the Gregorian calendar year.

Years in the Hebrew calendar are labeled with the era designation Anno Mundi [Latin for "in the year of the world"], abbreviated AM and A.M., and are numbered from the epoch that, by Rabbinical reckoning, is a year before the date of Creation. Early 2009 corresponds to Hebrew year 5769; the Hebrew year 5770 began at sundown on the evening of 18 September 2009.

Eid Ul Fitr:

Eid ul-Fitr, often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fiṭr means "to break fast"; and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. It is celebrated after the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, on the first day of Shawwal.

Eid ul-Fitr is a day long celebration and is sometimes also known as the "Smaller Eid" as compared to the Eid ul-Adha that lasts four days and is called the "Greater Eid" [Arabic: al-'īdu l-kabīr‎].

Typically, Muslims wake up early in the morning and have a small breakfast [as a sign of not being on a fast on that day] of preferably the date fruit, before attending a special Eid prayer that is performed in congregation at mosques or open areas like fields, squares etc. Muslims are encouraged to dress in their best clothes [new if possible] for the occasion. No adhan or iqama is to be pronounced for this Eid prayer, and it consists of only two raka'ahs. The Eid prayer is followed by the khutbah [sermon] and then a supplication [dua'] asking for forgiveness, mercy and help for all living beings across the world. The khutbah also instructs Muslims as to the performance of rituals of Eid, such as the zakat. It is then customary to embrace the persons sitting on either side of oneself, whilst greeting them. After the prayers, people also visit their relatives, friends and acquaintances and some people also pay visits to the graveyards.

Hijri Calender:

The Islamic calendar or Muslim calendar or Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar based on 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days, used to date events in many Muslim countries [concurrently with the Gregorian calendar], and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals. Its first year was the year during which the Hijra, i.e. the emigration of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, occurred. Each numbered year is designated either H for Hijra or AH for the Latin anno Hegirae [in the year of the Hijra]. A limited number of years before Hijra [BH] are used to date events related to Islam, such as the birth of Muhammad in 53 BH.

Some scholars, both Muslim and Western, think that the pre-Islamic calendar of central Arabia was a purely lunar calendar similar to the modern Islamic calendar, differing only when the sanctity of the four holy months were postponed by one month from time to time.

Other scholars, both Muslim and Western, concur that it was originally a lunar calendar, but about 200 years before the Hijra it was transformed into a lunisolar calendar containing an intercalary month added from time to time to keep the pilgrimage within the season of the year when merchandise was most abundant for Bedouin buyers. This intercalation was administered by the Nasa'a of the tribe Kinana, known as the Kalomis, the plural of Kalammas, who learned of it from Jews. The process was called Nasi or postponement because every third year the beginning of the year was postponed by one month. The intercalation doubled the month of the pilgrimage, that is, the month of the pilgrimage and the following month were given the same name, postponing the names and the sanctity of all subsequent months in the year by one. The first intercalation doubled the first month Muharram, then three years later the second month Safar was doubled, continuing until the intercalation had passed through all twelve months of the year and returned to Muharram, when it was repeated. Support for this view is provided by inscriptions from the south Arabian pre-Islamic kingdoms of Qataban [Kataban] and Sheba [Saba] [both in modern Yemen], whose lunisolar calendars featured an intercalary month obtained by repeating a normal month. The prohibition of Nasi was revealed when the intercalated month had returned to its position just before Nasi began.

If Nasi meant intercalation, then the number and the position of the intercalary months between 1 AH and 10 AH are uncertain, western calendar dates commonly cited for key events in early Islam such as the Hijra, the Battle of Badr, the Battle of Uhud and the Battle of the Trench, should be viewed with caution as they might be in error by one, two or even three lunar months.

The Islamic calendar is not to be confused with the lunar calendar. The latter is based on a year of 12 months adding up to 354.37 days. Each lunar month begins at the time of the monthly "conjunction", when the Moon is located on a straight line between the Earth and the Sun. The month is defined as the average duration of a rotation of the Moon around the Earth [29.53 days]. By convention, months of 30 days and 29 days succeed each other, adding up over two successive months to 59 full days. This leaves only a small monthly variation of 44 mn to account for, which adds up to a total of 24 hours [i.e. the equivalent of one full day] in 2.73 years. To settle accounts, it is sufficient to add one day every three years to the lunar calendar, in the same way that one adds one day to the Gregorian calendar, every four years. The technical details of the adjustment are described in Tabular Islamic Calendar.

The Islamic calendar, however, is based on a different set of conventions. Each month has either 29 or 30 days, but usually in no discernible order. Traditionally, the first day of each month is the day [beginning at sunset] of the first sighting of the hilal [moon] shortly after sunset. If the hilal is not observed immediately after the 29th day of a month [either because clouds block its view or because the western sky is still too bright when the moon sets...], then the day that begins at that sunset is the 30th. Such a sighting has to be made by one or more trustworthy men testifying before a committee of Muslim leaders. Determining the most likely day that the hilal could be observed was a motivation for Muslim interest in astronomy, which put Islam in the forefront of that science for many centuries.

This traditional practice is still followed in the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries. Each Islamic State proceeds with its own monthly observation of the new moon [or, failing that, awaits the completion of 30 days] before declaring the beginning of a new month on its territory. But, the lunar crescent becomes visible only some 15–18 hours after the conjunction, and only subject to the existence of a number of favourable conditions relative to weather, time, geographic location, as well as various astronomical parameters. Given the fact that the moon sets progressively later than the sun as one goes West, Western Muslim countries are likely to observe the new moon one day earlier than Eastern Muslim countries. Due to the interplay of all these factors, the beginning of each month differs from one Muslim country to another, and the information provided by the calendar in any country does not extend beyond the current month. Continued    Source: Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury