Safar (Arabic: صَفَر) is the second month in the Islamic calendar.
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Safar means to be yellow. When the names of the months were being given it was the season of autumn and the leaves of the trees were yellow.
This word means "whistling of the wind". When this name was assigned to this month, it was probably a windy time of the year. Most of the Islamic months were named according to weather conditions at the time. However, since they are based on the moon, the months shift about 11 days every year. So, the seasons do not necessarily correspond to the name of the month anymore.
Timing
The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and months begin when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, Safar migrates throughout the seasons. The estimated start and end dates for Safar are as follows (based on the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia):