"The Year according to the Reckoning of the Believers": Papyrus Louvre inv. J. David-Weill 20 and the Origins of the hijrī Era

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the enigmatic phrase snh qaḍāʾ al-muʾminīn that appears in a papyrus sheet from early Muslim Egypt. It takes issue with the earlier interpretations of the phrase, arguing that it is indeed a dating formula that is probably to be read as sanat qaḍāʾ al-muʾminīn and understood as ‘the year according to the reckoning of the believers’. Based on the testimony of this papyrus fragment, it is further argued that the epoch of the Muslim calendar was, in all likelihood, originally meant to count the years from Muḥammad’s foundation of a new community and polity at Medina, a momentous event that the early Muslims conceived of as the dawn of a new age.