The lunar based Islamic calendar. The Arabic word ṣafar means “empty, vacate or void”, corresponding to the pre-Islamic Arabian time period when people’s houses were empty, as they were out gathering food. Ṣafar also means “hiss, toot or whistle”, even “whistling of the wind” as this was likely a windy time of the year.
Most of the Islamic months are named according to weather conditions of the time; however, since the calendar is lunar,the months shift about 11 days every year, meaning that the seasons do not necessarily correspond to the name of the month.
The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year,
Safar migrates throughout the seasons. The estimated start and end dates for Safar are as follows (based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia:
