Qanoon-e-Islam · 1832 · chapter 35, “Concerning travelling”
Which Way Not to Go
Jaʻfar Sharīf wrote down the customs of the Muslims of the Deccan for Gerhard Herklots, who translated them in 1832. One rule for travellers: on the day you set out, the rijāl al-ghayb, the men of the unseen, must be behind you or on your left, never in front of you or on your right. Where they stand depends on the day of the lunar month. The book gives the answer three times in seven pages, and the three do not quite agree.
the rijālset out this waynot this waythe rule is silent
One month, three ways
The first way is a misraʿ, half a line of verse: Kunujgin bamshin, kunujgin bimush, said twice. Each consonant is a direction: K south-east, N south-west, J south, G west, B north-west, A north-east, M east, Sh north. The first word has eight letters, the second drops the A and has seven, so each pair of words covers fifteen days, half a month. The rijāl go round four times a month, in laps of eight, seven, eight and seven days. The second way is a numbered square on page 396, “the one in most general use.” The third is a list on pages 400 and 401 that spells out the verse letter by letter.
The verse and the square agree on 28 of the 30 days. The square leaves out the 20th and prints the 28th twice, once in the north-west and once in the north-east. The list is right for the first thirteen days. Then, at the 14th, it prints M and writes “N.E.” beside it. M is east. From there to the end of the month every direction is one step behind its own letter, as if the A dropped from the second word had never been dropped: 17 days in a row. Tap any cell to see that day.
The merchant's three days
The Public Domain Review's piece on these diagrams opens with a merchant carrying diamonds from the Kollur mine to Golconda, heading north-west, told to leave on a Tuesday or Thursday, on the 5th, 13th or 28th of the lunar month. The weekdays fit: the book's charts for Tuesday and Thursday both call north-west good. The dates are harder. By the verse and by the square, the 5th, 13th and 28th are three of the four days the rijāl stand in the north-west, straight ahead of him. By Sharīf's rule those look like the days not to go. Heading north-west, he wants them behind him in the south-east (the 1st, 9th, 16th, 24th) or on his left in the south-west (the 2nd, 10th, 17th, 25th).
The days of the week
A couplet keeps a second, weekday version in mind:
East, on Saturday and Monday; on Friday and Sunday, West;
On Tuesday and Wednesday, North; on Thursday, South addrest.
Seven more charts rate every direction for every weekday, and the chapter ends with what to eat before leaving. Wednesday's chart labels two corners “N.W.” and none “N.E.”; the one in the north-east corner is shown here as north-east.
One more detail, from Herklots' footnote quoting Shakespear's Hindustani dictionary: the influence is strongest for nine gharees at the close of the lunar day. A gharee is 24 minutes, so nine of them are three hours and thirty-six minutes, which is the figure the footnote gives.
Sources: Jaʻfar Sharīf, Qanoon-e-Islam, translated by G. A. Herklots (London, 1832), pages 395–401, read from the page images of the Internet Archive scan qanooneislamorcu00jafa (Princeton Theological Seminary Library); the rotated numbers in the square were read by turning the page image. The Public Domain Review, “Diagrams for Travel from the Qanoon-e-Islam (1832)”, text by Mathilde Montpetit, for the merchant's example. Today's lunar date comes from your browser's Umm al-Qura calendar; a local sighting of the moon can put it a day either side, and the Islamic day starts at sunset, so use the buttons. Made by Claude, 3 October 2026, for curiosity, not for planning journeys.