I hope insha allah this question reaches u in good health. My question is I have noticed when a non muslim asks about the age islam after prophet hood we as Muslims answer only withthe years after hijrah, my question is why do we always leave out the first 13 years of prophet hood before hijrah. I know the year of Hijrah was a great year yet we all know that prophet hood started 13 years before this so when answering why dont we mention this like now we are 1433 AH yet when answering why dont we say islam after prophet hood is 1446 adding the 13 years before the period. insha allah you can explain why we dont add the first 13 years into our answer.
Praise be to Allaah.
No doubt the years that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) spent in Makkah before the Hijrah (migration to Madinah), when he was calling people to the path of his Lord, enduring persecution and patiently putting up with the annoyance and accusations of the foolish, could is part of the age of Islam; indeed they are among the greatest years of Islam because during this time the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) was relying completely upon his Lord, thinking positively of Him, and patiently bearing persecution for His sake.
This is something that no wise person would doubt and no one would deny it at all, whether he is Muslim or otherwise.
But the reason why the people adopted the Hijri calendar as a means of defining the year in whicha particular event took place, which is something that people need to do, is that this date is the one that the Sahaabah unanimously agreed to take as the beginning of their calendar. This decision was made at the time of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allah be pleased with him), because it is the actual date of the founding of the Islamic state, when the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and migrated and settled in Madinah, and the people gathered around him and supported him, and he built the mosque, and other events that followed the Hijrah. So the features of the Islamicstate began to develop and it took on a clear form geographically, socially, militarily and politically. Before that the Muslims did not have a state or any political system to unite them.
The Sahaabah (may Allah be pleased with them) reached a unanimous decision in 16 AH – or, it was said, 17 AH or 18 AH – during ‘Umar’s caliphate,to make the Islamic calendar begin with the year in which the Hijrah occurred. That was because a case was referred to Ameer al-Mu’mineen ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) concerning a contract that one man had with another, saying that what he owed him became due in Sha‘baan.
‘Umar said; Which Sha‘baan? The Sha‘baan ofthis year we are in now orof last year or of next year? Then he summonedthe Sahaabah and consulted them about adopting a calendar from which they could determine when debts became due and the like.
Someone suggested adopting the Persian calendar, but he did not like that. Someone else suggested adopting the Byzantine calendar, but he did not like that. Others suggested dating itfrom the birth of the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), or from the beginning of his mission, or from his migration (Hijrah) or fromhis death.
‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) was inclined to choose the date of the Hijrah becauseit is known when it occurred, and they agreedwith him.
The point is that they made the beginning of the Islamic calendar the year of the Hijrah, and they made the first monthof the Islamic year Muharram, as was narrated from them. This is the view of the majorityof imams, so that people could conduct their business on that basis, with no confusion.
See: al-Bidaayah wa’n-Nihaayah, 3/251-253
Al-Bukhaari narrated in his Saheeh (3934) that Sahl ibn Sa‘d said: They did not start the calendar from the beginning of theProphet’s mission or from his death; they only started it from the time ofhis arrival in Madinah.
Al-Haafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
The incidents that are connected to the life of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and that could have been taken as the start of the calendar are four: his birth, the start of his mission, his migration (Hijrah) and his death. They thought it was best to start the calendar from the Hijrah,
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