“Why does al-Aḥad, meaning ‘the first,’ refer to Sunday, when one might expect Friday or Saturday to open the week?”
One day in middle school, as usual, I began class by randomly selecting—on my computer—the student who would write the date in Arabic on the board. The chosen student hesitated over the name of the day, got it wrong at first, then corrected himself. I turned the moment into a small game for the class: “Why does al-Aḥad, meaning ‘the first,’ refer to Sunday, when one might expect Friday or Saturday to open the week?”
A brief silence followed—part curiosity, part confusion. Then came a few tentative hypotheses: “To do like in Europe,” “just a habit,” or “someone had to pick a day.”
Next, I asked them to copy side by side the names of the days in Arabic and Hebrew. Very quickly, the kinship between the two became evident:
1️⃣ Sunday = al-Aḥad = yom rishon – In both, yawm (Arabic) and yom (Hebrew) mean “day.”
2️⃣ Monday = al-Ithnayn = yom sheni – Ithnayn means “two” in Arabic.
3️⃣ Tuesday = aṯ-ṯulaṯāʾ = yom shlishi – ṯalāṯa is “three.”
4️⃣ Wednesday = al-Arbiʿāʾ = yom reviʿi – arbaʿa means “four.”
5️⃣ Thursday = al-Ḫamīs = yom ḥamishi – ḫamsa means “five.”
“As the words lined up, the students realized that this system is neither Muslim nor Jewish—it is fundamentally Semitic.”
Five days in both languages follow the same numerical logic. The weekend diverges slightly: al-ǧumuʿa, “the day of assembly,” corresponds to yom shishi, “the sixth day,” and as-sabt aligns perfectly with yom shabbat, “the day of rest.” The shared root S–B–T means “to rest” or “to cease” in both tongues. As the words lined up, the students realized that this system is neither Muslim nor Jewish—it is fundamentally Semitic.
The final question was why “the first” had become Sunday. I told them about the Late Antique Near East, where Syriac Christianity counted Sunday as the first day of the week: ܚܕ ܒܫܒܐ (ḥad b-šabbā), “the first of the week.” Arabic, long established in the same region well before Islam, simply inherited this order. When Muhammad made Friday the day of communal prayer, he did not overturn the older structure. Over time, societies adapted their rest days—Thursday–Friday, Friday–Saturday, Saturday–Sunday—but the language preserved the ancient memory.
“By the end of class, their notebooks displayed two nearly identical columns…The week itself had become a fragment of memory, where each day still carries the echo of a shared world.”
Then a student raised his hand:
“But sir, rishon isn’t al-Awwal (‘first’) in Arabic…”
I explained that rishon comes from the root R–ʾ–Š, meaning “head” or “beginning,” just like raʾs in Arabic. The Jewish New Year is Rosh ha-Shana; in Arabic, Raʾs al-Sana means “the head of the year.” To say rishon or aḥad is to name the same gesture of beginning. Across the Semitic world, the first day is the day of the head—the opening point of the cycle.
By the end of class, their notebooks displayed two nearly identical columns. Seven words—and behind them, a palimpsest: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim layers inscribed in language more faithfully than in any theological text.
The week itself had become a fragment of memory, where each day still carries the echo of a shared world.