The Hijri calendar, or Arabic calendar also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to determine the proper days of Islamic holidays and rituals, such as the annual fasting and the annual season for the great pilgrimage. In almost all countries where the predominant religion is Islam, the civil calendar is the Gregorian calendar, with Syriac month-names used in the Levant and Mesopotamia but the religious calendar is the Hijri one.
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse.
Av is the eleventh month of the civil year and the fifth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a month of 30 days, and usually occurs in July–August on the Gregorian calendar.
Elul is the twelfth month of the civil year and the sixth month of the religious year in the Hebrew calendar. It is a month of 29 days. Elul usually occurs in August–September on the Gregorian calendar.
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar used in Mesopotamia from around the second millennium BCE until the Seleucid Era, and it was specifically used in Babylon from the Old Babylonian Period until the Seleucid Era. The civil lunisolar calendar was used contemporaneously with an administrative calendar of 360 days, with the latter used only in fiscal or astronomical contexts. The lunisolar calendar descends from an older Sumerian calendar used in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE.
Shish kebab or shish kebap is a popular meal of skewered and grilled cubes of meat. It can be found in Mediterranean cuisine and it may come from a dish called souvlaki, found in Greek cuisine.
Calpack, kalpak, or qalpaq is a Turkic high-crowned cap worn by Bulgarians, Turks, Circassians, Dagestanis, Chechens, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Cağ kebabı is a horizontally stacked marinated rotating lamb kebab variety, originating in Erzurum Province, Turkey.
The Arabic names of the months of the Gregorian calendar are usually phonetic Arabic pronunciations of the corresponding month names used in European languages. An exception is the Syriac calendar used in Iraq and the Levant, whose month names are inherited via Classical Arabic from the Babylonian and Hebrew lunisolar calendars and correspond to roughly the same time of year.
Qalat or kalata (قلعه) in Persian, and qal'a(-t) or qil'a(-t) in Arabic, means 'fortress', 'fortification', 'castle', or simply 'fortified place'. The common English plural is "qalats".
The Rumi calendar, a specific calendar based on the Julian calendar, was officially used by the Ottoman Empire after Tanzimat (1839) and by its successor, the Republic of Turkey until 1926. It was adopted for civic matters and is a solar based calendar, assigning a date to each solar day.
Yayla is a Turkic name given to settlements or areas which are suitable for summer mountain resorts and summer highland transhumance. The term is also cognate with the related Turkic term yaylak. Since in Oghuz languages the last -k or -ı(g) sounds generally drop as in examples such as yazı(g), dizi(g), dolu(g), ölü(g), with the last letter dropped as yayla, it is only in use in Turkish and other closely related languages such as Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Balkan Turkish and Azerbaijani.
Qurabiya also ghraybe, ghorayeba, ghoriba, ghribia, ghraïba, gurabija, ghriyyaba, or kourabiedes and numerous other spellings and pronunciations, is a shortbread-type biscuit, usually made with ground almonds. Versions are found in most Arab, Balkan and Ottoman cuisines, with various different forms and recipes. They are similar to polvorones from Andalusia.
The Solar Hijri calendar is the official calendar of Iran. It is a solar calendar and is the one Iranian calendar that is the most similar to the Gregorian calendar, being based on the Earth's orbit around the Sun. It begins on the March equinox as determined by the astronomical calculation for the Iran Standard Time meridian and has years of 365 or 366 days. It is sometimes also called the Shamsi calendar and Khorshidi calendar. It is abbreviated as SH, HS or, sometimes as AHSh, while the lunar based Islamic calendar is usually abbreviated as AH.
Höşmerim or hoşmerim is a Turkish dessert popular in the Aegean, Marmara, Trakya and Central Anatolia regions of Turkey. It is sometimes called peynir helva or "cheese halva". It is generally consumed after a meal as a light dessert and may be topped with ice cream, honey or nuts.
Several calendars have been used in pre-Islamic Arabia. Inscriptions of the ancient South Arabian calendars reveal the use of a number of local calendars, as do Safaitic inscriptions from the Harran desert in Syria and Jordan. At least some of the South Arabian calendars followed the lunisolar system, while the Safaitic calendar had fixed months and seasons and, very importantly, a seasonal star calendar strongly connected to the Zodiac and the position of the ʔanwāʔ. The ʔanwāʔ, a series of asterisms on or near the zodiac belt were the most important element in pre-Islamic astronomy. These stars were connected to the season, and they were used to forecast various phenomena such as rain, temperature, wind. Before the rise of Islam, diviners invoked these stars in rainmaking rituals called istisqāʔ. Rituals took place during specific times, when the sun was in one or the other of these ʔanwāʔ, some Safaitic texts speak of ritual cleansing while the sun is in Virgo (ngm) or Sagittarius (ṯbr); another text mentions a libation during the full moon of Gemini (gml). It is thus obvious that Zodiac constellations, the position of stars and the mansion of the Sun were very important criteria and had an important impact on the pre-Islamic Arabian calendar and ritual life.
Kalehjoosh or Kaljoosh is a popular traditional soup in Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.
Sevan Nişanyan is a Turkish-Armenian writer and lexicographer. Author of a number of books, Nişanyan was awarded the Ayşe Nur Zarakolu Liberty Award of the Turkish Human Rights Association in 2004 for his contributions to greater freedom of speech. He is also known for his work to restore Şirince, a semi-derelict village near Turkey's Aegean coast.
Saatchi is a Persian and Turkish surname and word. The word "saatchi" (sā'ātchi), which means "watchmaker", originates from Ottoman Turkish, derived from "saat" with the suffix "-çi". The Albanian surname Sahatçiu is also derived from the Turkish word "saatçi" as a result of the Ottoman rule in Albania.
Çökelek is a fermented and acid/heat coagulated fresh cheese from Turkey and Azerbaijan. It can be produced from heating fermented buttermaking by-products such as buttermilk (yayıkaltı), though skimmed milk yogurt can also be used as a starting material. It can also be obtained from yayık ayranı through heat exposure. Despite its similar appearance, it is distinct from Lor, a form of curdled whey product similar to cottage cheese. Keş, şor, ekşimik and minci are different local names associated with çökelek.
