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Configuring Mapping Data for the Islamic CalendarLocate this document in the navigation structure

You can customize the default mapping data for the Islamic calendar.

Prerequisites

The following authorization is required:
Table 1:
Authorization Object Field Value Description

S_ADMI_FCD

S_ADMI_FCD

 SCP1 Set character sets, languages, and character conversions.

Context

The Islamic calendar is strictly lunar. Therefore, an Islamic year of twelve lunar months does not correspond to the solar year used by most other calendar systems, including the Gregorian calendar. An Islamic year is, on average, about 354 days long, so each successive Islamic year starts about 11 days earlier in the corresponding Gregorian year. For example, the beginning of the Islamic year 1436 corresponds approximately to the Gregorian date 25 October 2014 and the beginning of the Islamic year 1437 corresponds approximately to the Gregorian date 15 October 2015. Each Islamic year has 12 months with either 29 or 30 days per month.

The mapping information for the Islamic and Gregorian calendars is stored in the database table TISLCAL. The beginning date of each Islamic month is defined by its corresponding Gregorian date in the table. As a default, the table contains date information which is calculated from a formula, the Tabular Islamic Calendar. The months are determined by arithmetic rules rather than by observation of the visibility of the new moon. The calculation is based on a 30-year lunar cycle where the length of the lunar months is defined alternatingly as 29 or 30 days. Every two or three years, an extra day is added at the end of the year to keep up with the phase of the moon. A leap day is added 11 times in a 30-year cycle.

You can change the default entries calculated according to this algorithm by adding a customized Gregorian date for table TISLCAL.

Procedure

  1. Launch the program I18N_MAINTAIN_TISLCAL.
  2. Select the date format corresponding to the Islamic calendar which you want to maintain:
    • Date format A for Islamic date 1
    • Date format B for Islamic date 2
  3. Select the range of Islamic years you want to maintain.
  4. Choose Execute.

    The database table TISLCAL containing the mapping information for the Islamic and Gregorian calendars is displayed. Each row in the table contains the mapping data for one month of the Islamic year.

  5. To customize the default entries of table TISLCAL, select a row and choose Edit entry.
  6. In the Edit entry dialog box, enter a date in the Gregorian Date (YYYYMMDD) field. This date defines the start of the Islamic month.

    All Islamic months must have a length of either 29 or 30 days. The length is indicated in the Days column.

    The Islamic year 1434 is a leap year in the Tabular Islamic Calendar, meaning that the twelfth month has 30 rather than 29 days. To adjust this, you edit the entry with Islamic date 14341201 and enter the value 20131005 in the Gregorian Date (YYYYMMDD) field. This defines that the twelfth month starts on 5 October 2013 rather than 6 October 2015 in the corresponding Gregorian year.

  7. Choose Continue.
  8. Choose Check consistency to check the consistency of the date you just entered with the date in the previous and following row.
  9. Choose Save to database.

    To remove the customized mapping information, you select one or more rows containing customized information and choose Remove customization.

Results

If the default for the date format is set to YYYY/MM/DD (Islamic Date 1) or YYYY/MM/DD (Islamic Date 2) in Maintain User Profile, the customized calendar configuration is used.