Add a Yearly Hijri Event to Your Phone Calendar
Phone calendars let you repeat an event "every year", but they repeat it by the Gregorian calendar. If you add an anniversary on 20 Shawwal using its Gregorian date, you will not know where it falls next year, because the Gregorian date changes annually. The solution is a separate event for each year on the correct day, which is what the My events and reminders tool in hijriGO does.
What the tool produces
It produces an ICS file, a standard format understood by Apple, Google, Outlook and other calendars. The file holds one event for each coming year (1, 3, 5 or 10 years), each on the Gregorian day matching the Hijri date that year. In each event's description we write both dates and note that the date is calculated by Umm al-Qura and may differ by a day from your country's announcement. You can add an alert one day before.
Steps
- Open My events and reminders.
- Choose the date type, Hijri or Gregorian, then the day and month.
- Type a title (up to 80 characters), such as "Ahmed's birthday" or "Wedding anniversary".
- Choose the number of coming years and switch on the alert if you want it.
- Press the button to show the dates; a list of the Gregorian days for each year appears. Check it.
- Press "download calendar file" to save the .ics file.
The file is created inside your browser and sent to no server, and your events are stored nowhere (see the privacy policy).
A complete example: a Hijri birthday
Salem creates a file for his Hijri birthday (20 Shawwal) for five years with the alert on. The tool lists the Gregorian dates: 28 March 2027, then 16 March 2028, 5 March 2029 and 23 February 2030, computed by the site's engine for that Hijri day. After importing the file he sees a separate event on each date, with an alert the day before.
Importing the file
Option names vary a little by version, but the idea is the same:
- iPhone and iPad: open the file from the Files app, Mail or Downloads. A preview of the events appears with an option to add them to a calendar; choose the one you want.
- Android: open the file from Downloads and choose your calendar app (Google Calendar, for example) to add the events, or import it from the calendar's settings.
- Google Calendar on a computer: in Settings choose "Import & export", then "Import", and select the .ics file and the calendar.
- Outlook: open the file or use the import command in the calendar menu.
Why an ICS file and not a simple reminder?
- It works with every calendar: the format is standard, so no special app is needed.
- No external account: the file is on your device, and we keep no copy.
- You can edit it: after import it is an ordinary event, so you can change the time or add a note.
Ideas
- Family birthdays in Hijri (see How to convert your birthday to the Hijri date).
- A wedding, a death anniversary or a family event you keep by Hijri date.
- Yearly religious dates you follow: fasting on Arafah and Ashura, or a reminder that Rajab and Sha'ban are arriving.
- You can also download the whole Hijri year's events as one ICS file from the year calendar page.
If an official announcement changes the date
The dates in the file are calculated by Umm al-Qura, and your country may announce Ramadan or Eid on a different day. After the announcement, move the event by hand in your calendar by one day, or create the file again after setting the "day adjustment" and delete the old events. Why announcements differ at all is explained in Moon Sighting or Calculation.
What if you change your mind?
To remove imported events, delete them in your calendar app (usually by deleting the calendar the import created, or the events one by one depending on your app). The website cannot delete them because it has no access to your calendar.
A note on day 30
If you choose Hijri day 30 and in some year that month has 29 days, the event is placed on day 29 and its description says the day was adjusted because the month is shorter, so the event is not lost.
Common questions
Does the event renew after the years end? No, the file holds only the number of years you chose. Create a new file near the end.
Do I need an account? No. The tool works in the browser without one.
Could an event appear on the wrong day? Events are saved as all-day events on a calculated Gregorian date, so a change of time zone rarely affects them. If your country's announcement differs by a day from the calculation, edit the event by hand.
In short
Calendars do not repeat a Hijri date automatically, so the tool creates an event for each year on its correct day by Umm al-Qura and packs them into an ICS file you can import anywhere, with no data sent to a server.