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Muslim Calendar Mohamed Nabeel Tarabishy[1] Abstract: This paper examines the
benefits of the Higri calendar and ways to achieve it by choosing suitable
criteria for deciding the beginning of the lunar month. The criteria should be simple, consistent
with visual sighting of the Moon, and predictable. The resulting calendar would unite Muslims in
their religious duties in Fasting and Pilgrimage, and be useful for use in
everyday life as a complementary to the solar calendar. Introduction: The customary calendar is the
Gregorian calendar which is solar based.
It uses the motion of the earth around the sun or the apparent Sun
motion in the sky to decide the time so that the seasons come at the same time
every year. It has 12 months, each has
30 or 31 days except for February that has 28 days and it has 29 days on a leap
year to make the calendar in step with the seasons-the tropical (actual) year
is 365.24220 days whereas the calendar year is 365.2425 days on average. The Moon motion inspired the
lunar calendar. For example, the concept
of the month originated from the phase cycle of the moon. The Muslim calendar is an example of a purely lunar calendar and that makes it very
unique among other calendars. It has 12
months where each is 29 or 30 days long (on average it is 29.5 days per month)
The lunar year is shorter than the Gregorian year by 11 days which makes the
lunar months float with respect to the seasons in a 33 years cycle. Another type of calendar is
the Luni-solar calendar like the Jewish and Chinese calendars. The benefits of the lunar
calendar are: 1- It enables the Muslims to
perform their religious duties like Fasting Ramadan (9th lunar month), and
performing Pilgrimage (Haj) in Zil-higa (12th lunar month), as well as other
voluntary worships at other specific times.
In addition it gives Muslims a better connection with their history. 2- It is beneficial for
people who need to know the timings of the tides for fishing or marine
transportation. 3- The possible effect of the
moon on people -research results in this area are mixed. However, it is useful
to be aware of this natural rhythm. Therefore it is really
important to have a practical and reliable lunar calendar. Purpose
of Religion: At this point it is important
to remind the Muslims of the importance of unity and state one of the most
important strategic objectives of the faith. If we examine the rituals of
Islam we find that it tries to gather people in one place to do things in
unison. Take for example the daily
prayer, it is strongly recommended that people gather in one place, choose a
leader and follow him worshiping together in harmony. Similarly, the Friday prayer is geared toward
a larger number of people. The Eid
occasion seeks an even bigger crowd. The
ultimate gathering of Muslims is during the Haj where people from around the
globe trek to Mecca at the same time, wearing the same cloth, and doing the
same rituals, and being part of this great event. Similarly, Fasting should be
along these lines where people (everybody and everywhere) are immersed together
in this endeavor without being divided. It is clear that the intent
of the faith is to gather the people as much as possible and to let them do the
noble task of worshiping God jointly so that a sense of community and belonging
is created, and strong relations between the individuals are cemented, creating
a force of good for the individuals, their community, and the world at large. CONDITIONS FOR GOOD CRITERIA: To choose a criterion for use
in a unifying calendar, it should have the following conditions: 1- It should be simple. 2- It should not contradict
the visual sighting. 3- It should be predictable. Simplicity and the ease of
understanding are very important for adoption of the chosen criteria. At the time of the Prophet Mohamed (P), the
simplest and most reliable criteria deciding the new month was the visual
sighting of the new moon. We should be
able to keep the spirit of the tradition and incorporate some of the new
science we have learned. As with any criteria, it will
not be perfect, and therefore great care should be paid to the possible
errors. There are two types of errors: a- False
positive: To indicate the beginning of the month when it is not the case
(impossible to see the new Moon). This
type of error should be minimized below an acceptable limit. b- False
negative: To state that it is not the beginning of the month when in fact the
new moon had been sighted somewhere in the world. Such an error should be eliminated because it
causes confusion and the loss of credibility. Predictability is important
for the use of the calendar in daily activities, transactions, and
planning. Otherwise the calendar will
not have any practical value outside the religious use. This condition necessitates that the calendar
be based on calculations. Some of the criteria that are
used these days are: Um-Alkura criterion: The new moon (geocentric conjunction)
occurs before sunset at This criterion is vulnerable
to false negative error. ISNA (Islamic Society of
North America), ECFR (European Council for Fatwa and Research) criteria: Initially, ISNA used the
condition that the moon is born before 12:00 Noon GMT , later it adopted the
ECRF criterion which is the same as Um-Alkura. Other criteria that can be
used is the time elapsed after the new moon is born where the record times for
observing the crescent after the new moon birth is 15.5 hours with the naked
eye, and 11.67 hours for aided sighting.[2] These limits could be used
for the criteria, and while it is possible that those records might be broken,
it is highly unlikely. Another indicator that can be
used as criteria is the solar elongation (arc of light) which is the angle
between the lines of sight from Earth to the Sun and from Earth to the Moon
(angular separation). It is largely
accepted that moon sighting is possible only for elongations greater than 7
degrees (Danjon’s limit). This criterion is more difficult
to implement. More elaborate criteria have
been used like Yallop’s criteria which uses the angular separation between the
sun and the moon, the best time (sunset + 4/9 moonset lag), and the width of
the crescent to generate the “q” parameter that describes the possibility and
ease of observation. Variants of this
criterion has been used by Monzur Ahmed and Khalid Shaukat. Of course we advocate the use
of simple criteria that can be easily understood and implemented by non
specialist. CONCLUSION: We have argued for a
practical and unifying calendar that unite the Muslims in a great worship like
fasting, and be of practical value so that it can be used for daily activities
and as a complement of the solar based calendar in use (It would be a nice contribution
of Muslims to the world). In making the
calendar, it is crucial to choose the criteria for the beginning of the lunar
month carefully to meet the three stated conditions: simplicity, consistency
with the visual observation, and predictability, and we talked about the
possible errors. In the end, if we don’t
resolve this problem, the alternative would be chaos, confusion, and
divisiveness. REFERENCES: Lieber, Al.; "Homicides
and the lunar cycle”, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 39(5):385-92, May, 1978. Xin, et al.; “Lunar
Visibility and the Islamic Calendar”, Dept. of Math. US Naval Observatory; web
site, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/index.html Islamic Society of North
America; web site, http://www.isna.net/ Khalid Shaukat; web site, http://moonsighting.com Monzur Ahmed, web site, http://www.starlight.demon.co.uk |
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