and the reckoning.” For counting the months of the year and the years in succession is fundamentally based on the moon’s appointed phases. The same applies to knowing the reckoning: months are counted by the crescent moon to determine the deadlines and other appointed times that fall within them. Likewise, the Most High says:

“Say, ‘They are markers of time for people and for the pilgrimage.’”

What we have explained thus makes clear that the crescent moon determines the timing of the month and the year, and that nothing whatsoever can take its place. It is readily visible, as is the count based upon it; this method is easy and accessible to everyone, and offers other benefits free of harmful consequences.

Whoever recognizes the confusion, hardship, and other harmful consequences that have affected the followers of the two Scriptures, the Sabians, the Magians, and others in their festivals, worship, calendars, and other affairs will become more grateful for the blessing of Islam. They themselves agree that the prophets prescribed none of this. Rather, it came to them through the Sabian philosophizers, who introduced these things into their religion and prescribed for them religious practices that Allah had not authorized.

We have therefore set out this discussion to safeguard this religion against the intrusions of those who would corrupt it, for this is among the matters whose alteration is to be feared. Indeed, in their pre-Islamic ignorance, the Arabs had altered the religion of Abraham through the intercalation they invented: they added a month to the year, making it an intercalary year, for purposes of their own.