It started with my mom.
Not a pitch deck. Not a market research document. Not a monetization strategy.
Just my mom, asking me — again — what today's date is in Hijri.
The Real Origin Story
My mom is not a tech-savvy person. She doesn't open five apps before breakfast. She doesn't maintain a productivity system. She just wants to know — is today a fasting day? What's the Hijriah date? Is Ramadan close?
Simple questions. And every single time, she had to either open a browser, dig through a calendar app, or ask someone.
I watched her do this for months before it finally clicked: this shouldn't be hard. This information should just be there, on her home screen, waiting for her — the way the clock and the weather are.
So I built it. Not because I saw a gap in the market. Because I saw a gap in my mom's morning.
That's Hijri Today — or "Hijri Hari Ini" as we say in Indonesian.
What It Does (And Why It's Different)
A lot of Islamic calendar apps exist. Most of them require you to open the app. You unlock your phone, find the icon, tap it, wait for it to load, see the date, close it, and go on with your day.
That's friction my mom doesn't need.
Hijri Today is a home screen widget. No tapping required. No opening required. The Hijriah date is just there, on your home screen, updated automatically — the same way your wallpaper clock is.
It sounds small. It isn't.
From 1.0.0 to 1.0.6: The Real Changelog
Building in public means being honest about the journey. Here's what actually changed across every release — no spin, no invented features.
v1.0.0 — It Works
The first version did one thing: show the Hijriah date on your home screen. That's it. One widget style. English and Arabic only. No customization, no settings to get lost in.
It was rough. But my mom could see the date without opening anything, and that felt like everything.
I shipped before I was ready, because the alternative was never shipping.
v1.0.1 — First Iteration
Small fixes, polish on the first release. Getting the foundation stable before adding anything new.
Fixed Islamic event notifications that weren't firing correctly — which matters, because missing Eid notifications is not a minor bug. Also added a sponsor portal plugin as infrastructure for sustaining development without charging users or running ads.
This was the first version that made me realize the app could reach beyond Indonesia.
Added localization support for 13 languages: Malay, Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Hausa, Yoruba, Somali, French, Spanish, and Hindi — alongside the existing English, Arabic, and Indonesian.
The Islamic community doesn't live in one country. It felt wrong to keep the app feeling like it was built only for mine.
Also in this version: the widget system was refactored for improved stability, dynamic color theming was introduced, and the configurable Hijri date offset (±2 days) landed — allowing users to adjust the displayed date to match the moon-sighting authority followed in their region. A small toggle with real religious significance: the difference between showing Ramadan starting on the right day or the wrong one.
Added vertical scroll to the widget update flow to handle overflow better on different screen sizes.
Also built out a proper share message — so users who want to recommend the app to family have something worth sending:
"Hijri Today is a beautiful and lightweight Android widget displaying the current Hijri date, Islamic events, and Sunnah fasting reminders. 100% Free, No Ads, No Analytics."
That share copy is also a mission statement. It's what I want every person who finds this app to understand in 10 seconds.
The biggest release. A lot moved in this one.
17 new languages added, bringing the total to 30:
Persian, Swahili, Pashto, Punjabi, Tamil, Russian, Uzbek, Kurdish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Filipino/Tagalog, Amharic, Kazakh, Albanian, and Bosnian.
Every language represents a Muslim community that can now see their Hijri date without switching to English first.
Javanese Pasaran days landed as an optional toggle — the five-day traditional Javanese cycle (Legi, Pahing, Pon, Wage, Kliwon) shown alongside the Hijri date. My app was born in Indonesia, and Javanese Muslim culture has always carried both calendars at once. This made that official.
5 widget styles introduced: Standard, Minimalist, Jawa, Arabic, and Terpadu (Integrated). Because one design was never going to fit 30 language communities across different visual cultures.
The UI was also rolled back to the v1.0.3 design — the v1.0.4 UI experiment didn't hold up. Shipping an update sometimes means admitting the previous update was a step backwards and fixing it.
v1.0.6 — Full Islamic Events Restored & Navigation Redesign
Two things changed in this version, and both matter.
Islamic events restored in full. An earlier release had trimmed the events list down — which quietly broke something important. If you're fasting on Arafah or watching for Mawlid an-Nabi, you need the app to actually tell you. This version brought back the complete set: Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Islamic New Year, Mawlid an-Nabi, Yawm Arafah, Ashura, and more.
Tab bar moved from top to bottom. Small UX change. Big difference in one-handed usability, especially on larger phones. The navigation now sits where your thumb already is.
The Philosophy Behind the Product
There are things I decided early and held firm on through every version:
Free. No hidden costs, no premium tier. The Hijriah date is not a feature — it's something every Muslim deserves access to, without a subscription.
No ads. I didn't want anyone's spiritual morning routine interrupted by a banner ad. Clean experience, always.
No unnecessary permissions. The app only asks for alarm scheduling permission — nothing else. No location tracking, no contacts, no analytics. Your phone, your data.
Lightweight. This is a widget. It should be invisible, unobtrusive, and fast. Not another battery drain.
What's Next
I don't have a roadmap to announce. What I have is a commitment to keep shipping.
Every version so far came from a real observation — something missing, something broken, something that mattered to real people using the app daily. That's how the next version will happen too.
If you use the app and something bothers you, or something's missing that should be there — leave a review. That's where the next changelog starts.
Download It
Hijri Today is available now on the Google Play Store — free, ad-free, and built with care.
Get it on Google Play
To Every Muslim Who Downloads This
Barakallahu fiikum.
I hope this widget makes your morIt started with my mom.
Not a pitch deck. Not a market research document. Not a monetization strategy.
Just my mom, asking me — again — what today's date is in Hijri.
The Real Origin Story
My mom is not a tech-savvy person. She doesn't open five apps before breakfast. She doesn't maintain a productivity system. She just wants to know — is today a fasting day? What's the Hijriah date? Is Ramadan close?
Simple questions. And every single time, she had to either open a browser, dig through a calendar app, or ask someone.
I watched her do this for months before it finally clicked: this shouldn't be hard. This information should just be there, on her home screen, waiting for her — the way the clock and the weather are.
So I built it. Not because I saw a gap in the market. Because I saw a gap in my mom's morning.
That's Hijri Hari Ini — which literally means "Hijri Today" in Indonesian.
What It Does (And Why It's Different)
A lot of Islamic calendar apps exist. Most of them require you to open the app. You unlock your phone, find the icon, tap it, wait for it to load, see the date, close it, and go on with your day.
That's friction my mom doesn't need.
Hijri Hari Ini is a home screen widget. No tapping required. No opening required. The Hijriah date is just there, on your home screen, updated automatically — the same way your wallpaper clock is.
It sounds small. It isn't.nings a little simpler. I hope it helps you catch the fasting days you'd have missed. I hope it connects you, just a little more gently, to the Islamic calendar that structures so much of spiritual life.
And if it helps your mom know what day it is in Hijri — without having to ask anyone — then it's already done its job.
Built by Flagodna — small apps, real purpose.