Indonesians are more familiar with the pronunciation of Sundays than Sundays? Actually the use of the word for that day originally was Sunday. Then why did Indonesia replace the use of Sunday with Sunday?
Since the first the names of days in the Almanac calendar or calendar in Indonesia have always used loan words from Arabic. All the names of these days follow the Arabic numerals, except the sixth day “Sittah” is replaced by the name Friday which means the day of gathering or congregation to perform Friday prayers.
The following are the names of the days taken from Arabic;
- Sunday (Sunday = day one)
- Monday (Itsnain = second day)
- Tuesday (Tsalatsa = third day)
- Wednesday (Arba’a = fourth day)
- Thursday (Khamsah = fifth day)
- Friday (Jumu’ah = sixth day)
- Saturday (Sab’ah = seventh day)
The names of these days have become customary and patterned in all kingdoms and sultanates in Indonesia. The Portuguese colonizers for approximately 85 years, from 1511 AD to 1596 AD interacted with the archipelago.
The legacy that still lingers to this day is the change in the mention of Sunday to Sunday. In fact, there are seven days in the national calendar which are derived from Arabic adaptations. But only one thing was changed, namely from Sunday to Sunday. Furthermore, the Dutch colonialists began to enter this week’s name in the national calendar system.
The word Sunday itself is an absorption from the Portuguese language, namely domingo which means the day of the Lord. This is based on the Christian belief that on the day Jesus was resurrected, in earlier Malay this word was spelled as doweekit wasn’t until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this word was spelled as Sunday.
On March 7, 321 AD Emperor Constantine 1 established Sunday as the day of rest for the Romans. Furthermore, for Christians, Sunday is synonymous with the day of the Lord and the day of the resurrection, in addition to a day of rest and a day of worship where children go to Sunday school.
This is the source of the Jewish tradition of the Sabbath or rest day which falls on the 7th day, Saturday. The rest day shifts to the first day since the event of Jesus’ resurrection which occurred on the first day or Easter day.
Currently almost all countries in the world use Sunday as a holiday but in some Muslim countries and also Israel Sunday is the first day of work. For Muslims the word Ahad itself means 1. This means that Sunday is the starting day for the following days of the week.
The word itself can also mean One who shows the nature of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. Does changing the name on Sunday to Sunday show that Indonesian Muslims have always been tolerant? Wallahu A’lam Bishwab
Image source: news.detik.com
