continued HOWEVER, VIRTUE DOES NOT CONSIST IN YOUR ENTERING HOUSES FROM THE BACK, BUT VIRTUOUS IS HE WHO IS CONSCIOUS OF ALLAH (& HIS POWER PRESENCE ON EARTH). HENCE ENTER HOUSES THROUGH THEIR DOORS & REMAIN CONSCIOUS OF ALLAH SO THAT YOU MAY BE SUCCESSFUL (2:189). It appears that the society in which this Quran was revealed (Arabia) had some cultural accretions that were linked to the Moon’s phases. One of these is mentioned here by the Quran; & specific to the society in Madinah. To recount some history, the whole affair of Haj can be traced to Ibrahim & Ismail (a.s); & all the traditions & customs that grew out of the Haj became the cultural epic that the Arabians were so proud of. In this regard & by virtue of a tradition whose value may have lapsed, a strong argument, in the Jahili world of things, could be made for the demonstration of piety or purity in the conduct of people who approached residences from their back doors immediately after returning from Haj. Information has it that the Madinan Muslims were observing this post-Abrahamic or pre-Islamic tradition. It is reported in the 2 Sahihs that the Ansar, after performing their Haj, would not enter their homes by the front doors. One of them, though, did just that. He entered his home by its front door, only to have some people find fault with his non-conforming behavior on the basis of the pre-Islamic culture. To this end the Quran had to sweep out of the new Islamic ideological milieu such cultural & social traditions, so this ayah was revealed. Other narrations of hadith indicate the Madinan Muslims were in the habit of expressing their “virtue” not only in a “heads-down” entry into a home from the backdoor after Haj but also after returning from a long voyage. Whether they practiced this cultural norm after returning from a voyage or in the aftermath of the Haj, these Muslims who were tainted by culture assumed that in doing so they were expressing their virtue & moral excellence. There may be other societies around the world that tag on to the performance of Haj some of their own cultural habits, parallel to what the Muslims of Madinah did during that initial phase of Islam. But the Quran lays all such practices to rest. Such acts of “topical piety” have no basis & are of no substantial value. The Quran in this instance means to reposition virtue & moral excellence into its social framework, & away from traditional habits. Allah has no need for empty rituals that have no socially redemptive value. Just like in the ayah, “VIRTUE IS NOT IN YOUR (TOPICAL OR MECHANICAL) FACING TOWARD EAST OR WEST….” (2:177). Here the Quran wants Muslims to understand that Birr (virtue) is the behavior that man shows out of realizing the splendid & overwhelming power of Allah, that is, Taqwa. When Allah dwells in man’s conscience, in his private & public life, in his feelings & thoughts, in his intentions & purposes, then man has the ingredients of virtue in his attitude & deportment. No type of formality – cultural, social, or legal – can substitute for this fact. Such formalities become artificial or imitative. Allah wants Muslims to understand that what counts is the motivation & inspiration underlying one’s exterior or surface performance. It is the Taqwa impulse that sustains a person’s behavioral commitment to Allah. Cultural accretions are void of such inspirational depth & content of imaan. This ayah went from a physical focus on the phases of the moon to a mental focus on the fact of Taqwa. Between the 2 ends there were issues of timing, determining the beginnings & ends of months that are ritual or Ibadah-Specific, & the Haj; as well as virtue, outward behavior, & cultural practices. All this was done in one short ayah. Keeping time & managing time is an essential part of human life; it is a natural part of human existence altogether. Man depends on it as much as he needs air to breathe or water to drink. It is because of the passage of time that man is able to classify & catalogue events in the past, the present & the future. For this reason, man over the ages has used various systems to record the passage of time, to give a reference point to historical information, & to plan out his daily, weekly, monthly, & yearly activities. All ancient & modern time-keeping systems, to various degrees of accuracy, are keyed to the relative motions of the earth, the Sun, & the Moon. The fact that the motions of these 3 bodies in space are consistent & repeatable over a certain interval makes the notions of predictability in the future – for example, weather patterns over the course of the coming year - & extrapolation in the past – for instance, carbon dating for geological & anthropological purposes – possible. A calendar, which is based on the choice of a time-keeping system, is simply a time-scheduling mechanism that organizes days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, & years into centuries. All time-keeping systems are based on a reference point – usually a seminal event that is not necessarily coincidental with the starting point of the calendar associated with the system - & a reference interval, usually a solar year, lunar month, or some combination of the two. 5 of the major time-keeping systems in use today are listed Calendar Reference Point Interval Current Year Persian the Hijrah solar year 1393 Gregorian Easter solar year 2014 Chinese not agreed upon lunisolar 4711 Hindu not agreed upon lunisolar 5116 Jewish beginning of creation lunisolar 5775 Islamic the Last Message lunar month 1436 Typically lunisolar months follow the phases of the moon, the lunar year is used to mark the dates whereas the solar year is used to mark the months & maintain parallelism with the seasons. However these designations vary depending on the calendar. According to Hindu & Chinese time-keepers, these are good estimates, but not agreed upon. Of all these time-keeping systems, the only calendar for which the precise reference point is known to the day, & that requires no intercalation (the adding of days or months to a “leap” year in order to keep parallel with the solar year) is the Islamic calendar. In his farewell Khutbah, the Prophet (pbuh) was known to have said, O PEOPLE, THE DENIERS OF ALLAH’S POWER INDULGE IN TAMPERING WITH THE CALENDAR (intercalation) IN ORDER TO MAKE PERMISSIBLE THAT WHICH ALLAH FORBADE, & TO FORBID THAT WHICH ALLAH HAS MADE PERMISSIBLE. THE TIME HAS NOW RETURNED TO THE POSITION IT WAS IN WHEN ALLAH CREATED THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH WITH A YEAR OF 12 MONTHS. 4 OF THEM ARE SACRED: DHUL QADAH, DHUL HIJJAH, MUHARRAM, & RAJAB, WHICH LIES BETWEEN JUMADA & SHA’BAN (recorded by multiple sources, recorded by Bukhari, Muslim). This would make the Islamic calendar the one that is most scientifically accurate. Add to this the fact that the Islamic calendar is the only one that is divested from all elements of overt & parenthetical shirk, such as how the days of the week & the months of the year are named. However, Muslims still do not have the confidence in the use of this calendar, despite the fact that this is the one that is endorsed by Allah & His Messenger (pbuh). Every year Muslims typically rely on the Islamic calendar for the ritual observances of Ramadaan & Hajj, & the corresponding religious holidays of the 2 Id’s; for the rest of the year & for all their routine & other important activities, the majority of the Muslims around the world rely on the Gregorian calendar, & to a lesser extent the Persian & Chinese calendars. When the time for Ramadaan begins to roll around this year, the Muslims will be heard asking each other, “When is the first day of Ramadaan, 17, 18 or 19 June?” or is Id on the 17,18,19 July?” & because Islam for the majority of Muslims has become a set of empty rituals, the Islamic calendar has become a sort of bad universal joke that is used to poke fun at Islamic standards in a way that expresses their invalidity for the modern world. In point of fact, the first day of Ramadaan is the first day of the 9th month of the Islamic calendar; its beginning every year is determined by the sighting of the visible hilal, & so it is with all the other Islamic months. The delineation for the start of each month is determined by the relative position of the Moon with the Earth, such that the first visibility of the crescent moon is observable. It is not keyed to the Gregorian calendar, nor is it determined by the calendar, nor should it be. What excuses do Muslims offer for not using the Islamic time-keeping system in their daily lives? Some say there is too much of uncertainty in when the Islamic month start, & because this differs from country to country, to plan events & make schedules becomes problematic. Others say that it is just not used in their workplaces & in their other areas of association; in this case it would be cumbersome for them to switch back & forth all the time. & still others point to it being anachronistic in a world that has “switched” to the solar year as a “standard” interval for keeping time. The so-called “common” calendar in the world today is the Gregorian or Christian calendar. A closer look at the Western experience of keeping time, & why they do it as they do, in light of the above excuses offered by Muslims, will help to reveal what the right answers are. First, with regard to the issue of uncertainty, which is the basis of most of the arguments against the Islamic time-keeping system, those who choose the solar or lunisolar scheme to determine a year do so to stay in step with the seasons, meaning that a particular month will correspond, every year, to a precise position of the Earth with respect to its orbit around the Sun. This approach ensures that for those who have multiple seasons during the year, the Spring & Fall seasons will occur in roughly the same months each year. In order to achieve this pattern, the solar year of 365+ days, corresponding to one revolution of the Earth around the Sun, is divided into 12 semi-equal pieces, or months. Those who use the strictly solar scheme (Gregorian & Persian) arbitrarily decide what the length of each month is going to be: 28,29,30 or 31 days. Whether a particular month is going to be 30 or 31 days has no scientific basis; it is just a definition. Also, because the solar year is just a little bit longer than 365 days – 365.242 days to be exact – this extra one-quarter of a day begins to add up & thus to stay in step with the seasons, an extra, or intercalary, day has to be added every 4 years. In the Gregorian calendar, every year with 366 days is called a leap year; & the choice to add the extra day to February, making it 29 days in a leap year, is again arbitrary. Typically, in the lunisolar systems (Jewish, Hindu, Chinese), the lunar months are used to keep track of dates & the solar year is used to keep track of the seasons; thus in this scheme an Intercalary month is added every 2 or 3 years, with the result that some (solar) years end up having 13 months. Or said another way, lunisolar systems correct the accruing error, with respect to keeping track of the solar year & thus the seasons, every 2 or 3 years. However, in record-keeping, the intercalary month is given the same number as the month preceding it. By contrast, there is nothing arbitrary about the Islamic calendar. Every month is either 29 or 30 days, because the average length of the synodic month is 29.531 days (synodic month, this tracks the lunar phases, because the moons appearance depends on its position with respect to the sun as seen from the earth. The synodic month accounts for the progression of the earth’s motion around the sun, where as the sidereal month, the time the moon takes to complete one full revolution around the earth with respect to the background stars does not. Because the earth is constantly moving along its orbit about the sun, the moon must travel slightly more than 360 degrees to get from one new moon to the next. Due to slight perturbations in the orbits of the earth & the moon, the synodic month varies in the range of 29.27 to 29.83 days, with the long term average being 29.531 days. The sidereal month is a little shorter, with an average of 27.321 days). The extra half day is absorbed into the consideration that each recordable month in terms of whole days will either be 29 or 30 days, & this is determined precisely by the visibility of the observable crescent: it is an observation, not a definition. Thus the time-keeper never has to worry about a cumulative error, & thereby never has a need for intercalation. Furthermore, because of the regular & consistent motion of the moon with respect to the Earth, the visibility of the crescent is predictable to a very high degree of accuracy, especially with modern technologies & instrumentation. Second, all Muslims who live in the world today, need to ask themselves the question: what is the necessity in the modern world of keying the calendar to the change of the seasons? For ancient agrarian & migratory cultures, this may have been important because it was necessary to be able to accurately predict when to plan for the harvest, or when to get ready to move to warmer climates during the winter season. In the modern world, it may also be important due to seasonal movement of goods & seasonal trends related to the sale of clothing & the provision of services such as chimney cleaning, for instance. The 23.5-degree axial tilt of the Earth with respect to the Sun is responsible for the changes of seasons, the equinoxes & the solstices; but given the fact that modern science understands, to an extremely high degree of precision, the exact position of the Earth with respect to the Sun, & the fact that the solar calendar is keyed to these positions requiring the addition of intercalary days every 4 years, why is it still necessary to define months that arbitrarily have 28, 30 & 31 days? & further, now that the modern West is in the post-industrial information age, a round the clock 24/7 culture – no longer an agrarian one – why is it necessary to maintain a time-keeping system that stays in step with the seasons? The answer is simple: expense & a traditional psycho-social antipathy to Islam. The expense argument suggests that it would be too expensive to change over to another system, given that all the schedules, programs, technologies & institutions of society function with the Gregorian system as a time management basis. This argument has merit, but not for the Muslims. We are commanded to use the Islamic time-keeping system by the words of the Prophet (pbuh); it is the only system of maintaining time that is harmoniously integrated into the Islamic way of life. Using any other system would not only be too expensive for them, but more importantly it would signal an avoidance of their duty to Allah. As for the traditional psycho-social antipathy to Islam, consider the fact that the seminal reference point for the Gregorian calendar, Easter, never occurred. No crucifixion or execution of Jesus (a.s) ever took place. This is a fact according to Allah’s incontrovertible words in ayat 4:155-158, “& SO, (WE PUNISHED THEM) FOR THE BREAKING OF THEIR PLEDGE; & THEIR REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE ALLAH’S MESSAGES; & THEIR SLAYING OF PROPHETS AGAINST ALL RIGHT; & THEIR BOAST, “OUR HEARTS ARE ALREADY FULL OF KNOWLEDGE,” BUT RATHER, ALLAH HAS SEALED THEIR HEARTS IN RESULT OF THEIR DENIAL OF THE TRUTH, & (NOW) THEY BELIEVE IN BUT A FEW THINGS; & FOR THEIR REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUTH; & THE AWESOME CALUMNY WHICH THEY UTTER AGAINST MARY; & THEIR BOAST, “BEHOLD, WE HAVE SLAIN THE MESSIAH JESUS, SON OF MARY, (WHO CLAIMED TO BE) AN APOSTLE OF ALLAH!” HOWEVER, THEY DID NOT SLAY HIM, & NEITHER DID THEY CRUCIFY HIM, BUT IT ONLY SEEMED TO THEM (AS IF IT HAD BEEN) SO; & VERILY THOSE WHO HOLD CONFLICTING VIEWS THEREON ARE INDEED CONFUSED, HAVING NO REAL KNOWLEDGE THEREOF, & FOLLOWING MERE CONJECTURE. FOR OF A CERTAINTY, THEY DID NOT SLAY HIM: RATHER, ALLAH EXALTED HIM UNTO HIMSELF - & ALLAH IS INDEED ALMIGHTY, WISE. Yet this represents the start of the Gregorian calendar. What does this say about the accuracy of historical dates & records? In fact the Gregorian calendar is not based on Easter at all; rather it is based on human attempts to figure out when exactly Easter took place, the last one being the papal decree of Pope Gregory XIII (1582), after whom the calendar is named. He corrected the Julian calendar, which was being used for 1500 years, because it had a built-in error, causing it to gain one day for every 128 years; thus he shortened one year by 10 days & ordered a few other changes that would ensure accuracy to within one day for every 3323 years. Strangely enough, the Catholic Church used to maintain a tabular lunar calendar, primarily to calculate the date of Easter! & why were they doing this? Because, during Europe’s Middle Ages, when the Church & the Holy Roman Empire were busy adding to or subtracting hundreds of days from their solar time-keeping system, the only time-keeping system of record was the Islamic one. For a thousand years, this was the most accurate way of knowing when events occurred in the past, & when to plan for events in the future. & given its record of historical accuracy, its minimal but manageable uncertainty, & its quality of not needing intercalation, why would anyone want to trash the Islamic time-keeping approach? Given its obvious religious, scientific & historical value, why would anyone who has experience with it want to abandon it? Add to this all the cultural accretions that are a byproduct of the corruption of Christianity by virtue of its interaction with the secularism, animism, & hedonism of Rome. The major Christian holidays coincide roughly with the spring equinox (Easter) & the winter solstice (Christmas). Before Christmas, the pagan cultures used to characterize the winter solstice as the festival of the Sun, harkening in longer days alluding to the onset of Spring when seeding & planting would begin. These times of the year have nothing to do with the events of Easter or Christmas. Also consider the days of the week & the months of the year in the Gregorian system: Sun: Day OF THE SUN MONDAY: DAY OF THE MOON TUESDAY: DAY OF TIW, A god OF WAR WEDNESDAY: DAY OF WODEN, A CHIEF god THURSDAY: DAY OF THONAR, A god OF THE SKY FRIDAY: DAY OF FRIA, A goddess OF LOVE SATURDAY: DAY OF SATURN JANUARY: FROM JANUS, A god OF BEGININGS FEBRUARY: FROM FEBRUSS, AN ITALIAN god MARCH: FROM MARS, A god OF WAR & AGRICULTURE APRIL: FROM APHRO, A goddess OF HONOUR MAY: FROM MAIESTA, A goddess OF HONOR JUNE FROM JUNO, AN ITALIAN goddess JULY: AFTER JULIAS CAESAR AUGUST: AFTER AUGUSTUS CAESAR SEPTEMBER: FROM SEPTEM (SEVEN) OCTOBER: FROM OCTO (EIGHT) NOVEMBER: FROM NOVEM (NINE) DECEMBER: FROM DECEM(TEN) In all instances, shirk is interwoven in the whole approach, from the largest institution down to the smallest detail that people ordinarily dismiss as insignificant, such as how the entire society manages time. & when these people who think they know how to manage the world, along with the perfunctory Muslims who just follow along, are told to obey Allah & commit to the right way of doing things, they say the same thing that has been said for ages to those who speak the truth, & THUS IT IS: WHENEVER WE SENT, BEFORE YOUR TIME, A WARNER TO ANY COMMUNITY, THOSE OF ITS PEOPLE WHO HAD LOST THEMSELVES ENTIRELY IN THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURES WOULD ALWAYS SAY, “BEHOLD, WE FOUND OUR FOREFATHERS AGREED ON A DIRECTIONAL COURSE, &, VERILY, IT IS BUT IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS THAT WE FOLLOW!” (WHEREUPON EACH PROPHET) WOULD SAY, “WHY, EVEN THOUGH I BRING YOU GUIDANCE BETTER THAN THAT WHICH YOU FOUND YOUR FOREFATHERS ON?” (TO WHICH) THEY WOULD REPLY, “BEHOLD, WE DENY THAT THERE IS ANY TRUTH IN (WHAT YOU CLAIM TO BE) YOUR MESSAGES!” (43:23-24). & now after all this confusion in the Western experience of managing time, which is rooted in a proclivity for rejecting Allah’s guidance, those who control by means of institutional obfuscation are introducing more fitnah into the equation. With the emerging dominance of secularism are also coming new ways to “standardize” time-keeping. Whether they are proposing 13 month calendars or perpetual ones where every year starts on the same day, they still have to rely on intercalary days or weeks in order to make things work according to unsubstantiated desires to stay in step with the seasons. Why do not these people just listen to Allah? Things would be a lot simpler. & this is where Muslims can provide a sense of stability, presence, & distinctiveness. Allah makes it very clear, BEHOLD, THE NUMBER OF MONTHS, IN THE SIGHT OF ALLAH, IS 12 MONTHS, (LAID DOWN) IN ALLAH’S DECREE ON THE DAY WHEN HE CREATED THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH; (&) OUT OF THESE, 4 ARE SACRED: THIS IS THE EVER-TRUE LAW (OF ALLAH). DO NOT, THEN, SIN AGAINST YOURSELVES WITH REGARD TO THESE (MONTHS). & FIGHT AGAINST THOSE WHO ASCRIB DIVINITY TO ANY BESIDES ALLAH, ALL TOGETHER – JUST AS THEY FIGHT AGAINST YOU, (O MUSLIMS), ALL TOGETHER - & KNOW THAT ALLAH IS WITH THOSE WHO ARE CONSCIOUS OF HIM. THE INTERCALATION (OF MONTHS) IS BUT ONE MORE INSTANCE OF (THEIR) REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUTH, (A MEANS) BY WHICH THOSE WHO ARE BENT ON DENYING THE TRUTH ARE LED ASTRAY. THEY DECLARE THIS (INTERCALATION) TO BE PERMISSIBLE IN ONE YEAR & FORBIDDEN IN (ANOTHER) YEAR, IN ORDER TO CONFORM (OUTWARDLY) TO THE NUMBER OF MONTHS WHICH ALLAH HAS HALLOWED; & THUS THEY MAKE ALLOWABLE WHAT ALLAH HAS FORBIDEN. GOODLY SEEMS UNTO THEM THE EVIL OF THEIR OWN DOINGS, SINCE ALLAH DOES NOT GRACE WITH HIS GUIDANCE PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUTH (9:36-37). The main issue here for Muslims is uncertainty (about the beginning of each Islamic month) complicated by a historical lack of confidence in Allah & His Messenger (pbuh). It has been shown above that the Gregorian or common calendar has embedded right within it at least as much, if not a lot more, uncertainty than the Islamic calendar. The key point to be made for Muslims is that it is not uncertainty itself that is threatening, it is how you manage it that is important. There is uncertainty in everything; man only becomes comfortable with uncertainty once he learns how to manage it, & then he does not think about it again. This is what the proponents of the Gregorian calendar do better than the Muslims. They have figured out how to manage not only the inherent uncertainty of the motions of the Sun, the Moon & the Earth, but also the uncertainty that results from flawed assumptions. & on top of that, they have broadly communicated their management scheme to all sectors of society who deem this to be important, & because of this, few people rarely think about it. Why is it impossible for the Muslims to do the same thing? The main reason is that we do not have an Islamic executive authority that represents us. In order to pull this off on a universal level for all Muslims across the world, a universal Islamic leadership is needed. The other reason is that Muslims are not used to employing the Islamic calendar on a daily basis; they do not plan with it & they do not schedule with it. When Muslims begin to use the Islamic calendar to record, for example, a doctor’s appointment, the first day of school, a wedding, or business itineraries, then they will be on their way to demanding that an Islamic leadership institutionalize their way of keeping time. & this is the best way for Muslims. Islamic time-keeping is an integrated part of the Islamic totality; no other way of managing time will do. It is integrated into the greater Islamic imperative of universal justice, balance & equity for all people. Consider how Ramadaan occurs in a different season every decade. Those who have a short fast in some years will have a longer fast in others, & vice-versa. So, no Muslim on earth will be constrained to have a perpetually long fast if he stays in one place all his life, & no Muslim will have the luxury of having a perpetually short fast. Those who have ambulatory problems or are elderly could plan the Haj in a season where the weather in Makkah is relatively cooler compared to other hotter months. Then there are certain days that are more valuable than other days: all the days of Ramadaan, the last 10 nights of Ramadaan, Laylatul Qadr, the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah, & Yawm Arafat. But with the constant back-&-forth between the Gregorian & Islamic dates, & the unforgiveable callousness of governments in Muslim countries in this regard, it is almost impossible to place these mercy-filled days in the right spot. On these days, more of Allah’s mercy is made available to errant & wayward human beings. These are the days to be taken advantage of, & thus it is important to know exactly when they occur. & benefits like these are all in keeping with Allah’s plan of being meticulous about justice in the same way that He is liberal with His mercy. To end this discourse on the phases of the Moon, consider the fact that, central though this issue is to the times & days in which we render our Ibadat: fasting, hajj, zakah, iddah, divorce issues, etc., we, the Muslims of the world, do not have enough control of our own resources to have an observatory that belongs to us. There is not 1 single observatory with state-of-the-art instruments & cutting edge technology that we could rely upon to determine the visibility of the hilal (crescent). This situation begs the question yet again: what are officials in Muslim countries doing with Muslim wealth? How come Muslims the world over do not have the instruments, & associated buildings for conducting astronomical research of any kind? Why are they left to wonder & to be confused at least 3 times every year: the beginning & end of the month of Ramadaan, as well as the beginning of Dhul Hijjah (which would tell us when the 10th day, the day of Id al Adha is)? Independent & qualified Muslim scholars remain at a loss every year about why the Muslim public is not being given true & accurate information concerning the Islamic calendar. Muslims should begin to feel the need to take control of such decision-making, to take control of their wealth, & to take control of the media, so they will not have manifold Id’s. It is not enough to have an independent observatory supervised by trustworthy alims; Muslims also need an independent means to communicate such information to the rest of the Muslims in the world. So we must have radio transmitters, broadcasting stations, satellites, & so on. By now it should be common knowledge among all Muslims that none of this is possible unless an independent Islamic authority & government is representing Muslims. Some of the governments & regimes in Muslim lands today play politics with this issue. If for instance, the government in Egypt is on bad terms with the government in Saudi Arabia, each one of these governments during the seasons of Ramadaan & haj will disagree with the other about when the start or end of the month is. When these opportunistic regimes disagree about such things, they draw the Muslim populace into their ego-politics. Muslims have no choice but to think seriously about overturning these absconding governments, especially as they have demonstrated an incapability & an unwillingness to declare the beginning of a lunar month that is not in contradiction with shar’i or scientific facts. When the day comes in which Muslims will have their modern observatories situated on mountain tops, above the level of cloud & light pollution, with their altitude being particularly satisfactory for detecting the crescent; when Muslim astronomers working at large observatories welcome inquiries from the general Muslim public, & when many of these observatories open their doors for self guided tours; when local astronomical societies own observatories where it is possible to view the planets, stars, & galaxies on clear nights; when all this becomes available & accessible to ordinary Muslims, then we will rejoice because our resources & our talents will finally be where they should be: in the service of Allah. Compare where we should be with what we have today. Today, if anyone asks for the identities of those who sighted the crescent in Saudi Arabia, there is no answer. This is also the case with the overwhelming majority of regimes in the Muslim world; they will not tell us who saw the crescent lest some bright & sincere Muslims ask how a crescent can be sighted when it is still obscured by the Earth.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:03:26 +0000
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