Old Muslim Calendars of Southeast Asia

Director of the Malay Concordance Project, Proudfoot explains the peculiar form of the Muslim calendar that was widely used in Southeast Asia but is not so well known elsewhere in the Islamic world. They operated on an eight-year cycle, had been replaced by more orthodox versions of the Islamic calendar everywhere but in Java by the 20th century. Though his explanation may help correct errors in dating old texts, his main concern is to cast light on aspects of older Malay science and culture. The disk contains tools for converting Malay and Javanese dates to a range of variant calendars. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)