I have often heard that the people, especially prophets, in early days lived hundreds of years. One such example can be found in Muslman’s post, “stories of prophets” about Hazrat Sheth, that he passed away at the age of 912 years.
My question is this: What constituted a “year” at that time? How many months were in a year?
We know that western calendar at one time had 10 months in it. July was added to honor Julius Cesar and later, Augustine added the month of August, making it 12 months in a year. Did the Islamic Calendar come to existence at the time of Prophet Mohammed (SWA), or was it adopted
from an earlier time.
I am not hinting that I disagree with the facts given about people’s age at that time. I just want to know if one “year” at that time was as long as one “year” now days.
Please forgive my ignorance on this matter. I really am curious.
Thank you
[This message has been edited by Pungay_Baaz (edited January 17, 2001).]
Pungay_Baaz,
I cannot tell you how many months there were in years in those times because I don't know but I can tell you that people in those times certainly did live a lot longer.
This is evident by the fact that when the Prophet(pbuh)used to tell sahabas about the stories of the earlier prophets,the sahabas used to get sad.They said to the prophet(pbuh) that the earlier ummah's(i.e. followers of the earlier prophet's)would get more sawab than themselves becuase they lived a lot longer and had more oppurtunity to do good deeds.
It is as a result of this that Allah as his special mercy on the ummah of prophet Mohammad(pbuh) revealed Shab-e-Qadr and set the status of worship during Shab-e-Qadr in ramzan to be equal to worship of 1000 months.
This makes one thing clear that the earlier people did use to live a lot longer.
About the Hijra year,the 12 months in this year existed before the time of the prophet(pbuh),muslims just started counting the years from HIjrah,and chose Muharram as the starting point.But the same 12 months were in use among Arabs for a long time before the prophet(pbuh).
Another thing,I don't know much about the christian calendar but you mentioned 10 months in the christian calendar...but does this mean less than 365 days in a year or just longer months but still 365 days in a year?