Peace,
Here is the issue as I see it. The Quran is not outdated but we have been looking at this all wrong. The Quran used words like Ramadaan, Kaabah, Mecca and Bakka and Holy months being ma'loomat, and ahillat knowing that the Arabs at the time or those focused on their practices could either choose the universal application of the Quran or not. The Quran says that it also leads astray but it only leads astray those who have wrong in their hearts. It would seem that most of the Arabs of Muhammad's day, or atleast the ones that won out, had wrong in their hearts so they opted for the meanings of words like Makkah and Kaabah that confirmed their established Arab traditions. But this was wrong.
In accordance with the Old Arabic language that the Quran is written in
Ramadaan = A season or lasting time of Heat
shah-r = Literally all the periods of time that it might take from one new moon to the next. It literally is a standard of time based off of a lunation which can vary from 29.27 to about 29.83 days. This calculation takes into account 24 hour days and not sightings of the moon based on days that start from sundown to sundown like the jewish day or sunrise to sunrise like the Quranic day. In which case if the moon was sited during the day time on the 29.27th day the next day wouldn't start until sundown making the month 30 days. So depending on where this 29.27 to 29.83 days cycle ends (and was cited) an old-school Arabic shahr could have been 29 or 30 days.
The Quran prefers the 30 day opinion, when it equates missing a day's fast with feeding a needy person and mising 2 months of fast with feeding 60 people. 584 and 2184 "And an acceptable substitute for those who are able to rough through a daily-fast is the feeding of someone in need."
Ka'bat = true honor/glory
Makkat= true destruction
Bakkat= High rank, a cut above the rest, distinguished, crowding
Ahillat= Things that are selected to be consecrated. from haleel, from maa uhilla bihi (2174).
Ma'loomat= tu'lamu= "is to be (should be) dinstinguished, well known, discerned"
So if we put all the pieces together we don't need the old Arabic calendar. Because during the hot seasons in any place that we may be we are to fast for 30 days.
"God, with true glory(al-ka'bata), will make (the)sacred houses ((the)sanctuaries Al-baitul-haraamu) an upliftment for mankind" 597
"They will ask you about the consecrations (ahillatun, from haleel, from maa uhilla bihi 2174)
The consecrations are to be timed for the people and not at random during the Hajj, and instead of that whole entering through the back doors thing that verse can be understood as 'By the pilgrimage! Righteousness isn't entering the houses of God just to make your appearences there(bi'an ta'too al-buyoota bidhuhoorihaa). The righteous individual is the one who is worried about his well-being (attaqaa). So go through the doors of these houses (al-buyoota) and worry about God so that you can succeed." 2189
"The season(s) of pilgrimage should be (are to be) months that will (are to) be well-known, distinguished, discernable" 2197 That means we can chose them, and that we should make them clear and widely known.
"The count of (30 day) months as far as God is concerned is to be 12 (no more no less). This was his decree the day he made the heavens and the earth. Four of them should be (are to be) sacred, and that will be (is to be) how it stands. (the standing order/rule)." 936
In a year there are 365 days which means 12.16 or 12 months and 1/6 of a month. But the Quran established the counting in UNITS. When you count in Units for instance if your going through the units of a book and you are half way through Unit 11 and I ask you "what unit are you in in the book?" Your going to say Unit 11, because I set the measurement in Units, even if the book has chapters and sections. There can be 12 months and 6 days in a year, but if I ask you how many months are in this year, what will your answer be? 12. That is why 5 extra days don't matter. We would love for the world to be even in everything but that is not how it is. And honestly why should it matter?
"And when you are fully vulnerable (bi batni makkata(literally "in the belly of perdition/destruction)), it is God who would hold your forces (yadhand,support,power, backing) back from them and their forces back from you, discounting (min ba'da an, in its sense of ibti&aadan an) the possiblity (or on top of the possibility) that he may empower you so that you can defeat them." 4824
(There are times when both sides in times of struggle are on edge and damages may be fatal to both sides, but it is God through his book (and us following his decrees) and through his divine will that maintains those tentative times of peace that we may need and appreciate)
Taking all this into account the Arabs could have understood Makkah as the city of Makkah and The Ka'bah as the Holy shrine in Mecca. They could have, with reason, kept the traditional months of pilgrimage as they were widely known. (which unkoranically they preferred to understand as literal lunations, and not its other meanings as periods of 29 days or periods of 30 days)
And they could have grammatically and through their unkoranic understanding continued to understand ahillat as moon phases. But with linguistic analysis and analyzing the Quran they didn't have to. The Arabs of that time had all of the tools to understand the Quran right if they would have analyzed the Quran more. As well as those who learned Classical Arabic later and paid more attention to Christian, Jewish, or traditional Pre-Quranic Arab trends of thought. As well as the Rumorous literature of the Hadeeth. I'm sure some Arabs had it right on, but the righteous are always few, amongst all people. In addition to that speakers of languages are often tricked by their own language, often not recognizing the subtle differences that 1 word can have depending on the context, or the different meanings a word can take on.
You can easily take a word like 'light' in english and use it in a way that would confuse the native and make him confront the fact that he has become accustomed to using one word in a number of different ways, all of which he was not fully-conscious of. That is why the dictionaries like lisaanul-Arab and others, as insightful as they might be are limited by the analytical potential of their authors. Arabs have traditionally used the word shah-r to refer to the period between one hilaal(new crescent) and the other, but have always just associated it with the new moon. Like an english speaker might not realize that a month can also be 28 or 29 or 31 days, because he usually associates it with the average 30. Or he may not realize other subtleties because he usually thinks of the word in the context of the names April, may or june. Most times he automically assumes all of the meanings and then deduces later as he learns more from the context of the conversations.
But over all despite the mistakes of our forefathers we now have the correct understanding which we see frees takes alot of burden off of us.
Godlbess,
Anwar
I still would like it if anyone could come up with examples were the evocative 'a' in bakkata and makkata can over-ride prepositions like 'bi, fee' or possession constructions (al-idaafat)
