Sam Shamoun "The Quran’s Geographical Errors Pt. 1"(4)

Sam Shamoun "The Quran’s Geographical Errors Pt. 1"(4)

The pre-Islamic Arabs used a combined Lunar/Solar calendar, and would periodically add a month in order to compensate for the shorter lunar year as opposed to the solar year. This resulted in fixing their rituals, like the yearly pilgrimage, to more convenient times from certain aspects. However, Islam banned the addition of such months 9:36-7. This meant that the month of Ramadan is now rotating through the year in a 33 year cycle. 

This avoids the convenient fixation of certain religious practices according to human whims, for purely wordly motives, violating God's established sacred months and allowing an ordinary month to be observed as sacred and vice versa. 

For example the pre-Islamic Arabs used this practice to avoid the disadvantages for their trade. Banning the intercalary month opens up the way for spiritual improvement, training one to perform his duties at all times of the year and under all circumstances. Also, from the viewpoint of the universality of religion, it is obvious that the periods of fasting and performing Haj cannot satisfy all if they be fixed, always falling in the same season and month in different places-summer or winter or very hot or very cold or rainy or dry or harvesting or sowing-year after year. 

The Islamic time-keeping system is in fact the most scientifically relevant, because it does not require intercallation and thus making its precise reference point known to the day. Add to this the fact that the Islamic calendar is the only one that is divested from all elements of overt and parenthetical shirk, such as how the days of the week and the months of the year are named.

Much like the pre-Islamic pagan practice, the Hebrew month is based on the moon-cycle and therefore consists of 29/30 days. The year however is accounted for following the solarcycle, but because this creates a difference of +-11 days (Lunar year/354days vs solar year/365days), then adjustments needed to be made in order to allow the fixation of the different festivals (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot) to certain seasons (spring, summer and autumn respectively). The solution to having a lunisolar calendar is to periodically insert an extra 30-day month into a year, creating a 13-month year. The Torah however never reckons the time of the sacred rituals and festivals using the sun cycle, but always on a monthly basis according to moon sighting 

Numb28:14"This is the monthly burnt offering to be made at each new moon during the year" 

Ezek46:3"And the people of the land shall [also] prostrate themselves at the entrance of that gate on the Sabbaths and on the New Moons, before the Lord" 

see also Ps81:4,Ezra3:5etc. 

Neither is there mention of these practices and timing requirements. The reckoning of time is actually stated to be one of the primary function of the moon

 Ps104:19"He made the moon for the appointed seasons".

And a solar calendar isnt more practical that the lunar because of its alignement with the seasons. The lunar is based on the actual sighting of the phases of the moon which is pretty much visible everyday to determine the months. A solar calendar is meant at ensuring that, for those locations that experience several seasons in a year, their seasons will follow a predictable yearly pattern, regardless of scientific accuracy, hence the arbitrary decisions as to what the length of each month is going to be: 28, 29, 30, or 31 days. It is an irrelevant system outdated for our time and age.

 For instance because a solar year lasts more than 365 days, every once a while a day must be added to catch up with the seasons, it is called a leap year. That day is arbitrarily added to february. By contrast, there is nothing arbitrary about the Islamic calendar. Every month is either 29 or 30 days, because the average length of the synodic month is 29.531 days. The extra half day is absorbed into the consideration that each recordable month in terms of whole days will either be 29 or 30 days, and this is determined precisely by the visibility of the observable crescent: it is an observation, not a definition. 

Thus the time-keeper never has to worry about a cumulative error, and thereby never has a need for intercalation. 

Furthermore and as already said, because of the regular and consistent motion of the Moon with respect to the Earth, the visibility of the crescent is predictable to a very high degree of accuracy, especially with modern technologies and instrumentation.

Further reading answering Sam Shamoun "The Quran’s Geographical Errors Pt. 1"
CIRA international try astronomy; Quran says earth is flat?
Apostate prophet viewpoint confusion; Quran says Sun sets in muddy spring?
CIRA International making a mountain out of little; Mountain pegs stop earthquakes?
Apostate prophet a star wars fan; Quran says stars are missiles?
CIRA International looking up to heaven; what are the 7 Quranic heavens and earth?