Provided by: itools_1.0-6_amd64 
NAME
ical - A Hijri/Islamic calendar (and converter)
SYNOPSIS
ical [--gregorian yyyymmdd] [--hijri yyyymmdd] [--umm_alqura] [--fixed_view] [--dual]
[--help]
DESCRIPTION
The ical program is a Hijri/Islamic calendar displayer. It utilizes and includes a
Gregorian to Hijri (and vice-versa) date converter. The application uses and offers
multiple calculation methods with not all of them agreeing at all times. The reason for
this multiplicity is due to not having one agreed upon method and so various entities
develop and advocate their calculations.
ical is able to comprehend and calculate both pre-epoch or pre-Hijrah, denoted as "B.H",
as well as post-epoch or post-Hijrah, denoted as "A.H", dates. ical also utilizes
Gregorian's pre-epoch "B.C" and post-epoch "A.D" dates and notes them per its output.
When entering pre-epoch years, negative numbers ought to be utilized.
ical when run without any command-line options uses the host machine's Gregorian date and
converts it to Hijri to display that month's view. Entries enclosed by [] denote exact
day specified.
OPTIONS
ical follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes
(`-'). A summary of all options is noted below:
-h, --help
Show summary of options
-g, --gregorian yyyymmdd
Specify the Gregorian date to be converted where 'y' stands for year, 'm' for month
and 'd' for day
-hi, --hijri yyyymmdd
Specify the Hijri date to be converted where 'y' stands for year, 'm' for month and
'd' for day
-u, --umm_alqura
Specify to use the Umm Al-Qura calculation method (used mostly in Saudi Arabia)
-f, --fixed_view
Show a fixed week view (ie. start on Sun and end on Sat) else default to showing
the preferred week view of the resulting calendar (Gregorian starts on Sunday,
Hijri starts on Saturday)
-d, --dual
Show both conversion from and to calendar months simultaneously
BACKGROUND
The Hijri calendar is used in most of the Arab world and is the symbolic calendar of the
Islamic faithed worldwide. This calendar is known as the "Hijri" (based on the word
"Hijrah" - denoting migration in Arabic) to signal Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) migration
from Makkah to Medinah on Thursday, July 15, 622 AD (Julian).
The Islamic Hijri calendar is strictly lunar (ie. moon-based) with twelve lunar months
which do not correspond or track their solar counterparts (the Gregorian calendar is a
solar or sun-based calendar). Lunar years and thus Hijri years are, on average, about 354
days long resulting in a Hijri year being roughly about 11 days shorter than its Gregorian
counterpart.
There is much discussion and confusion regarding how best to track the Hijri calendar. A
great deal of that confusion is based on the fact that many relay on a human moon sighting
to denote the start (or end) of a month (each month of the Hijri calendar starts when a
new moon's crescent is observed or is made visible at sunset) as opposed to using an
empirical mathematic certainty. The methods presented in this application and its
underlying ITL library are strictly arithmetic in nature and do NOT take moon-phases into
consideration (in short, observational approximation is not used).
LIMITATIONS
There is currently no Umm Al-Qura support.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs on the web using http://bugs.arabeyes.org
AUTHOR
Written by Nadim Shaikli as part of the Arabeyes.org project.
COPYRIGHT
ical is subject to the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Copyright © 2005, Arabeyes, Nadim Shaikli.
SEE ALSO
The ITL (Islamic Tools Library). It is the underlying requirement for ical to function.
The ITL library was created and is hosted at www.arabeyes.org.