Today's date - Gregorian and Hijri
The Gregorian calendar is the civil standard used worldwide for everyday business, contracts, and most digital systems. The Hijri (Islamic) calendar is the lunar calendar used for religious occasions in Islam and for many official Saudi documents. Both refer to the same physical day - they're just different ways of labelling it. This calculator shows you both labels side-by-side, plus the day of the week (Sunday through Saturday) which is identical in both systems.
The Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 as a refinement of the older Julian calendar. It's based on the solar year - the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun - with leap years every four years (except centuries not divisible by 400). It's the international civil standard today, used in virtually every country for business, science, and most government records.
The Hijri (Islamic) calendar
The Hijri calendar starts from the year of Prophet Muhammad's migration (hijra) from Mecca to Medina - corresponding to 622 CE in the Gregorian calendar. It's purely lunar: 12 months of 29 or 30 days, totalling 354 or 355 days per year. Because it doesn't sync with the solar year, Islamic months drift backward through the Gregorian seasons by about 11 days each year - Ramadan, for instance, moves through summer and winter over a 33-year cycle.
Major Islamic events and their Hijri dates
1 Muharram is the Hijri New Year, marking the start of the Islamic lunar year. 10 Muharram is the Day of Ashura, a day of fasting commemorating multiple events in Islamic and Jewish tradition. 1 Ramadan begins the holy month of fasting. 1 Shawwal is Eid al-Fitr, the festival concluding Ramadan. 9 Dhu al-Hijjah is the Day of Arafah, the climactic day of the Hajj pilgrimage. 10 Dhu al-Hijjah is Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice. Our calculator shows you how many days remain until each one's next occurrence.
Umm al-Qura - Saudi Arabia's official Hijri calendar
Saudi Arabia uses Umm al-Qura, an astronomical Hijri calendar maintained by the Institute of Astronomical and Geophysical Research at KACST. It bases month lengths on astronomical conjunction calculations at Mecca, with some additional rules. Tabular algorithms (like the one we use) approximate this very closely but can differ by 1-2 days at month boundaries. For official Saudi business and religious dates, refer to the published Umm al-Qura calendar; for everyday reference, our calculator is accurate within a day.
Converting any date between calendars
Switch to 'Other date' mode to see the dual-calendar form of any date - past or future, Gregorian or Hijri input. This is useful for looking up the Hijri equivalent of your civil birth date, calculating how old something is in the Hijri reckoning, or planning around a known Islamic date in advance. For a dedicated, more detailed conversion tool, see our Hijri ↔ Gregorian converter.
Frequently asked questions
We use the tabular Islamic algorithm - a fixed mathematical formula that's used in most global software. Saudi Arabia's official Umm al-Qura calendar uses astronomical moon-sighting at Mecca and a few specific rules. The two agree most of the time but can differ by 1-2 days near the start of certain Hijri months. For official Saudi religious or government use, refer to the published Umm al-Qura calendar.
From the Julian Day Number, which is a continuous count of days since a fixed reference date. Since both Gregorian and Hijri calendars label the same physical day, the day of the week is the same regardless of which calendar you read it from. If your device's locale settings affect the displayed weekday name, those names are translations of the same underlying day index.
The countdown cards below the date display show exactly that - the number of days until the next occurrence of each major Islamic event. Because the Islamic year is ~11 days shorter than the Gregorian year, these dates drift earlier in the Gregorian calendar by about that much each year.
Yes - switch to 'Other date' mode and enter any year/month/day in either Gregorian or Hijri. The calculator will show you both labels, the day of the week, and updated countdowns relative to that date. Great for finding the Hijri equivalent of a Gregorian birthday or vice-versa.
The date shown is based on your device's local clock, so it reflects the calendar day in your time zone. If you're traveling or working with a date in another time zone, the result reflects whatever your device's clock says - not Saudi local time specifically. For religiously sensitive timing (start of Ramadan, etc.) always defer to the official local announcement in your area.
Sources
- Umm al-Qura calendar— King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST)
- The Islamic and Gregorian calendars - algorithms and conversion— Encyclopedia Britannica
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