A Pakistani family in London calls their relatives in Karachi on the evening of the 29th of Sha'ban. The family in London has just made their moon-sighting declaration: Ramadan begins tomorrow. Their relatives in Karachi respond: we are still in Sha'ban — we will start the day after.
This is not a dispute. Both families are right, according to their respective scholarly traditions. And it happens every year, across dozens of Islamic dates, in Muslim communities around the world.
The Global Hijri Calendars directory exists to make sense of these differences — and to give every Muslim the correct Hijri calendar for their specific country, state, or city.
The Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar — each month begins with the confirmed sighting of the new moon crescent. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is calculated centuries in advance, each Hijri month begins when the moon is actually seen.
Three scholarly approaches exist for moon sighting:
1. Global Sighting — If the moon is sighted anywhere in the world, the new month begins for all Muslims globally on the same day. Saudi Arabia and several Gulf countries generally follow this approach.
2. Regional/Local Sighting — The new month begins only when the moon is sighted locally (within the same geographical region or country). Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Morocco historically follow this approach, which means their Islamic dates may differ from Saudi Arabia by one day.
3. Astronomical Calculation — The month begins based on pre-calculated astronomical data (when the new moon conjunction occurs and the moon becomes theoretically visible). Several Western countries and Turkey follow this approach for practical predictability.
The result: on any given Islamic date, a Muslim in Riyadh, one in Karachi, and one in Morocco may each be observing a different Gregorian date as the same Islamic date — and each is following a legitimate scholarly position.
The Global Hijri Calendars directory is organized by Country → State/Province → City, giving each location its own calendar that reflects:
This means a user in London gets the Islamic calendar as observed by UK moon-sighting authorities, while a user in Karachi gets the calendar as observed in Pakistan — not a generic global calendar that may be a day off for either of them.
The Global Hijri Calendars directory complements the Islamic Hijri Calendar — the GPS-based calendar for your current location. Use the worldwide directory for planning and reference, and the live calendar for day-to-day use.
For the prayer times at a specific destination city (whether or not you need the calendar), the Global Prayer Times directory provides the same geographic depth with daily-updated prayer times for every city.
The Global Hijri Calendars directory is free, requires no account, and is accessible from any browser. Whether you need the Hijri calendar for Karachi, London, New York, or Kuala Lumpur — every city, every region, every country — the correct calendar for that location is one search away.
