Islamic Calendar - Days of The Week

Days of The Week

In Arabic, as in Hebrew, the "first day" of the week corresponds with Sunday of the planetary week. The Islamic and Jewish weekdays begin at sunset, whereas the medieval Christian and planetary weekdays begin at the following midnight. The Christian liturgical day, however, kept in monasteries, begins with vespers (see vesper), which is evening, in line with the other Abrahamic traditions. Muslims gather for worship at a mosque at noon on "gathering day" (Yaum al-Jumu‘ah, yawm يوم means ‘day’) which corresponds with Friday. Thus "gathering day" is often regarded as the weekly day of rest. This is frequently made official, with many Muslim countries adopting Friday and Saturday (e.g. Egypt) or Thursday and Friday (e.g. Saudi Arabia) as official weekends, during which offices are closed; other countries (e.g. Iran) choose to make Friday alone a day of rest, and few others (e.g. Morocco) adopted the Western Saturday-Sunday weekend while making Friday a working day with a long midday break to allow time off for worship.