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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38230 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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The 11th and 12th of September are auspicious dates in political Islam as they represent the Caliphate's "high water mark" and end of the Islamic golden age. While it has largely passed from conscious memory in the West, the day that King Sobieski of Poland broke the Siege of Vienna (September 12th 1683) is remembered by many in the Islamic world as a bloody and shameful anniversary, the day that Islam lost it's way.

Do you have a source for that? Because that sounds very unlikely, given that the battles at the end of the Siege of Vienna happened on the 19th and 20th of Ramadan 1094 (9/19) and 9/11 happened on the 23rd of Jumada al-Thani 1422 (6/23) in the Islamic calendar. The correct date would have been the 5th of December 2001 (19th of Ramadan 1422) if the terrorists were after a symbolic message.

Could be a Julian vs. Gregorian calendar conversion issue?

Apparently, the Battle of Vienna happened on the 1st of September 1682/83 in the Julian calendar (both years are possible depending on where the locality in question puts the date border between years). Mistakenly treating this as a Gregorian date and converting it to the Islamic calendar yields either Shaban 29, 1093 (8/29) or Ramadan 10, 1094 (9/10). However, as stated above 9/11 2001 is 6/23 in the calendar that matters for the terrorists and the Islamic world that is supposedly aggrieved about this date, so neither one fits.

The other way around also doesn't work: mistaking September 11, 1683 for a Julian date converts to Shawwal 3, 1094 (10/3) or Shawwal 15, 1095 (10/15) Islamic.

Maybe I'm getting something wrong or there's another way to spin this, but I don't see it.

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