Shahr/month in the light of the quran

ayman

Peace David, all,

"The visibility of the lunar crescent as a function of the Moon's "age" - the time counted from New Moon - is obviously of great importance to Muslims. The date and time of each New Moon can be computed exactly (see, for example, Phases of the Moon in Data Services) but the time that the Moon first becomes visible after the New Moon depends on many factors and cannot be predicted with certainty. In the first two days after New Moon, the young crescent Moon appears very low in the western sky after sunset, and must be viewed through bright twilight. It sets shortly after sunset. The sighting of the lunar crescent within one day of New Moon is usually difficult. The crescent at this time is quite thin, has a low surface brightness, and can easily be lost in the twilight. Generally, the lunar crescent will become visible to suitably-located, experienced observers with good sky conditions about one day after New Moon. However, the time that the crescent actually becomes visible varies quite a bit from one month to another. The record for an early sighting of a lunar crescent, with a telescope, is 12.1 hours after New Moon; for naked-eye sightings, the record is 15.5 hours from New Moon. These are exceptional observations and crescent sightings this early in the lunar month should not be expected as the norm. For Islamic calendar purposes, the sighting must be made with the unaided eye."

Here is another website which shows the phases of the moon

http//www.stardate.org/nightsky/moon/

Seems easier to determine if something is or is not visible, as opposed to determining perfect symmetry.

Thanks for providing the link.

The full-moon in picture 27 is not only perfectly symmetric but is equally bright on both sides. If one draws a line cutting the moon in half on the moons number 26 and 28, one will see that they are not perfectly symmetric. Moreover, the moon on the 26 is darker around the left edge than the right edge while the moon on the 28 is darker on the right side than on the left side. ONLY the moon on the 27 is equally bright on both edges. So not only symmetry but equal brightness on both edges clearly point to the full moon. On the other hand, even with optimal conditions the crescent will be seen about one day after the actual new moon.

Remember, it is those who witness "al-shahr" that must abstain NOT those who were told by someone who was by some guy who was told by a Mullah that he witnessed "al-shahr".

Peace and all best wishes,

Ayman

ayman

Salam brother Shuaib, all,

Allow me to demonstrate that you have not done the detective work, and WHO is the one that is making baseless assumptions.

Proper research and detective work involves more than typing an Internet search on Google and copying and pasting from a link. One has to read information intelligently and critically.

"Although echoes of the glorious past and great achievements of the Sabeans and other peoples of the south would continue to resonate in the literature of the Arab Muslim world throughout its long history, scholars of Arabic literary history have always focused their attention on the nomadic northern Arabs in their accounts of how this literature arose. The overriding reason for this is a linguistic one the tongue used throughout the Arab world today, and known as fusha or "Standard Arabic," is the same language used by these northern Arabs, crystallized in its written form in the revelations of the Qur?an as recorded in the early 600s C.E..
Though the major southern language, Sabaic, and Arabic are closely related to one another, they are definitely separate languages, as different as modern-day English and German, and probably just as often mutually unintelligible as not. Sabaic is almost certainly the older of the two languages, being used for inscriptions as early as 600 B.C.E., while the first evidence we have of Arabic as a written language occurs 900 years later, in an inscription dating to 328 C.E. When the two languages mixed and met after the rise of Islam, however, Northern (Mudari) Arabic--backed by the religious authority of the Qur?an--supplanted its older cousin completely as a language of high culture. Sabaic survives today only in isolated pockets of territory where various dialectical versions continue on a purely spoken level. Written communication in the south is all in Mudari Arabic."

http//www.indiana.edu/~arabic/arabic_history.htm

The full text can be found at the above link. But the excerpt should explain it all, that as I suggested to you, the language though closely related, is NOT Arabic.

Firstly, if you have done the proper research, you would have found that Sabaic is generally classified as an OSA (Old Southern ARABIC) dialect. On the web site that you refer to there is actually a MISSING picture which shows that Sabaic is part of the Southern Arabic DIALECTS not LANGUAGES. It is like Egyptian and Saudi Arabian dialects are BOTH Arabic and an Egyptian can understand MOST of what a Saudi says and vice-versa. Unfortunately, the graph link is broken but I know what it has because I have seen the original article published elsewhere.

The Sabaic dialect does have some differences to Northern Arabic dialects, however, once you know those difference then it becomes easy to match it to Northern Arabic. For example, in Sabaic the definite article is post-posed not pre-posed. You will see the definite article as an extra "n" at the end of a word compared to the "al" at the beginning in Northern Arabic dialects. Hence, Rahmanan is Al-Rahman. This archaic feature may have been the precursor of "tanween" in later Arabic.

Secondly, most of the research on Sabaic has only been done in the last 20 years so researchers are still developing their view of how this southern ARABIC dialect fits in the big picture. Hence, some people view that Sabaic is a completely separate language while others view that it is a dialect of Arabic. This confusion is clear in the fact that Deyoung, the author of the article, says that they are CLOSELY RELATED and YET DEFINITELY SEPARATE, which is an oxymoron (a contradictory statement). The fact is that they can't be completely separate and at the same time closely related. Moreover, if even 15 centuries later, you and I can make out most of what a transcription of the inscription says than a contemporaneous Arab would have certainly understood it far better than us.

Thirdly, and most importantly, we must use the great reading as the criteria because we know for sure that it is in a clear ARABIC language. Does the Sabaic inscription use words that are found in the great reading and in Arabic dictionaries?

We find that that answer is a resounding YES.

Doesn't the inscription speak of "Rahman", which is one of the names of The God in the great reading?

Doesn't it speak of "masu7ahu" (His Massiah) and other quranic terms such as "tawd" (mountain) (2663)?

Interestingly, Northern Arabic inscriptions call The God Allah/Al-Ilah and NEVER Rahman while Southern Arabic inscription call Him Rahman. We also hear from the great reading in 17110 that there were some people who called The God, Allah and others who called AlRahman. Hence, The God is resolving the differences by telling them that both are best names. So clearly, the great reading was addressed to BOTH Southern Arabs and Northern Arabs and used terminology from both dialects.

Interestingly, even after the great reading, in a few bilingual Northern Arabic - Greek and Latin inscriptions you see that the Arabs translated Rahim in "bism Allah Alrahman Alrahim" but not Rahman. This indicates that there continued to be some confusion on the meaning of Rahman on the part of the Northern Arabs because it was a Southern Arabic term. This confusion continues to this day, because from the inscription and the great reading Rahman means Almighty but from the Arabic dictionaries it is explained wrongly as merciful/compassionate.

And that also explains WHY we cannot find the word warkh as YOU describe it in the lexicons.

You are unable to find it because you are unable to read and here is the proof

I have checked hamza-ra-kha. I have ALREADY checked waw-ra-kha. I have the physical lexicons in my hands, not web versions. The section on waw-ra-kha is only a few lines long. And as I said before, it defines warkh as having to do with softness due to excess wetness. See taj ul aroos vol 2 page 384 about 4 lines worth, and lisaan ul arab vol 15 page 267 about 6 lines worth. I can SCAN the pages and send them to anyone who doubts this.

It is there in Lisan Al3arab and here is the full text copied from the Web version

. ; . ;

Moreover, here is what Al-Mo7it says

Anyone can check the online Lexicons that I provided the link to under the root W-R-Kh and see what you somehow missed and hence I have to spoon-feed you here. You are once again only demonstrating that you are unable to read or you only read what you want to read and are blind to the rest.

Now finally, I purposely asked you to provide the meaning of hilaal which you purposely did not. THAT would tell us what the Arabs thought of the hilaal, rather than what you thought of it. Here is the meaning

The word "hilal" doesn't occur in 2185. Had the verse said "man shahid minkum al-hilal falyasumh", then you would have a point. Therefore, you are bringing a word that is not in the verse to try to force your preconceived understanding.

Peace on who followed the guidance,

Ayman

shuaib

Salam Br. Ayman,

Thanks for your response. You know, through this discussions bits and pieces of who you are come through and you do seem to be a very interesting person. Hopefully the fact that we are on opposite sides of the fence on this particular issue does not sour you. And hopefully the touch of arrogance I am perceiving is only in my mind.

Our discussion has taken several fronts so I will respond in separate sections on those fronts.

SCIENTIFIC

Up to this point, we both assumed a linear progression and the discussion was whether or not we could pick up a 7% difference in the full moon or 85% symmetry (50% on one side and 43% on the other side).

However, if you examine br David's link, not just the pretty pictures but the data of PERCENTAGE illumination, you will find that the day before and after full illumination there is at most a 3% different (94 % symmetry) and very often only a 1% difference (99% symmetry). Surely you don't claim that you can tell if something is 99% versus 100% symmetric?

LINGUISTIC - SHAHR, HILAAL

Now in your last post you said

The word "hilal" doesn't occur in 2185. Had the verse said "man shahid minkum al-hilal falyasumh", then you would have a point. Therefore, you are bringing a word that is not in the verse to try to force your preconceived understanding.

Well I didn't refer to the Quran though did i? The discussion was whether or not the hilaal began the month.

Now, as I said and as you agreed to, it does not specifically say in the lexicographal entry on shahr, that shahr refers to full moon. You do claim that the nuances suggest full moon.

However, in the SAME lexicon, if you check under the heading of hilaal, you find that the Arabs themselves felt that the HILAAL denotes the beginning of the shahr, and that was the purpose of my reference. That is why the hilaal is called the hilaal. It's linguistic evidence of what the month begins with.

Linguistic - WARKH/SABAIC

As far as the lexicographal meanings go, bro I think we have a slight miscommunication. I now understand what your intention was to say, but it was different from what I was trying to say.

In the Arabic language, roots are a cornerstone of understanding words but WORDS are what is spoken/written, not roots. The meaning of the word warkh is provided, and it does not mean month. And in the entire description of the root, there is no mention of timing or month.

BUT, as you underline and now I understand what you meant to imply, taareekh is the common word for history BUT very uncommonly (according to the lexicons) the word used is tAWreekh, with waw instead of hamza.. from this obviously you can also get the word warrakha instead of arrakha.

The lexicons claim that this is a peculiarity in the language that arises from a small minority changing the hamza for a waw when it comes to those particular words.

For you to pretend that it's a common sense conclusion and that this means warkh simply refers to month and is totally interchangeable to arkh is a gross oversimplification at best and misleading at worst. I did not comprehend that THIS is what you were trying to use to justify your meanings, and frankly it is a great stretch to claim that this implies warkh is used in Arabic to denote month. The meaning of warkh is clearly completely different and tawreekh is mentioned as a peculiarity of the language.

As far as the Sabaic language, it seems that I underestimated your knowledge on the field but that is only because you so grossly oversimplify things. You COULD have mentioned that there are some people that do consider OSA and ONA to be different languages as I was initially suspecting, but then provided the info you did in your last post. I dont know enough about the topic to refute anything you said, but your claim that saying 2 languages are closely related but definitely separate is not necessarily an oxymoron. But then I guess it depends where exactly to draw the line between dialect and separate language. I have heard languages that are considered to be dialects of Urdu, and they were very difficult to make out though I could understand some of it. Anyway, it is still true that in dialects there MAY be some words that are not used in the other dialect. Also, the use of the word warkh for month, if this TRULY was a commonly used term throughout Arabia for month then it would be mentioned in the lexicons in that regard, JUST as shahr has been described as also meaning month. As I described above, it would not be mentioned as a peculiarity of the language in the word tawreekh/warrakha only.

Hence, Rahmanan is Al-Rahman. This archaic feature may have been the precursor of "tanween" in later Arabic.

Well, in my grammar book nahwa-al-wafi it describes this noon so apparently it's already established, but obviously in opposite usage compared to OSA.

Rahman means Almighty but from the Arabic dictionaries it is explained wrongly as merciful/compassionate.

Rahman doesn't mean almighty, and merciful/compassionate meanings are completely unwarranted if you look at the lexicons, and as far as i can tell was taken from christians.

Very interesting point though about 17110.

Ok well finally, I do have ask if you take shahr to strictly mean full moon, then do you take 2185 to mean to only fast on the night of the full moon? Obviously you must intend by full-moon the month indicated by the moon.

The only way I am aware of that Allah has indicated months or amount of time shorter than a year is by shahr (warkh is not in the Quran in any form). Whether it was ramadan/fasting, the sacred months not to fight, or 936 where Allah explains there are 12 shahr in one year, and even 3412 where to translate shahr strictly as full-moon would lead to an absurd meaning (it's stride was a full-moon).

Anyway, I don't mean to try your patience by this reply and I do respect your beliefs/thoughts. Hopefully we will be on the same side of the fence more often on other topics.

wassalam

marie

Peace all,

If we believe that the month of ramadhan is one of the four restricted month, then the verse 2189 is clear, the new moons are a timing mechanism for the people and not full moon.

Here the occurences of the word alqamara/the moon 677, 96, 754, 124, 132, 1433, 1612, 2133, 2218, 2961, 3129, 3513, 3639.

Allah often speaks about the sun and the moon at the same time. I think the word 'alqamar' represents the full moon which appears in stages until it returns to being like an old curved sheath/date-stalk;it is a logical evolution

Full moon----> 2)manazil (stages)----> 3)crescent like an old curved sheath.

And the moon We have measured it to appear in stages, until it returns to being like an old curved sheath.

Allah knows best

Marie

unknownuser

Peace be upon you all,

Does anyone think the following reminder gives us any further clues?

(251) And remember We appointed forty nights for Moses...

What are these forthy nights?

unknownuser

Salaams all,
if the translation is up to scratch then just see how allah mentions the "FULL MOON"

Waalqamari itha ittasaqa
And the Moon in her fullness

Salaam.

unknownuser

Peace be upon you MZ,

Transliteration Waalqamari itha ittasaqa
Y.Ali And the Moon in her fullness
R.Khalifa And the moon and its phases.
Pickthal And by the moon when she is at the full,
Shakir And the moon when it grows full,
Literal And the moon when/if it organized/evened/gathered.

I am not sure what this verse is saying about the moon, but I am leaning further and further towards Aymans understanding.

EVERYTHING in life is cyclical, everything goes by cycles.

It is beginnig to make prefect sense to me that the phases of the moon tell us about debating(hajj) while the full moon suggests time for us to abstain (it seems from sexual contact) during the days.

When we add the full moon of the hot time, I think about the play by Shakespeare which is called 'MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM'. This play is just another teaching about the Summer Solstice, where people would meditate for those days.

Here is a quote I found on a website

""Full Moons that occur close to the summer solstice are special because they follow the lowest path across the sky of all of the year's full Moons." explains Dr. George Lebo, a NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center Summer Faculty Fellow. "Moons seen just above the horizon look much larger than normal. It's an optical illusion, of course, but it's still a pretty sight."

Just brainstorming out loud hoping someone will make sense of all this.

unknownuser

Salams idol,

you said
"Does anyone think the following reminder gives us any further clues?

(251) And remember We appointed forty nights for Moses...

What are these forthy nights?"

We appointed for Moses thirty nights, and completed (the period) with ten (more)...........(e.t.c)
145.

And We ordained laws for him in the tablets in all matters, both commanding and explaining all things, (and said) "Take and hold these with firmness, and enjoin thy people to hold fast by the best in the precepts soon shall I show you the homes of the wicked,- (How they lie desolate)."

Isn't that when moses prepared the tablets ,i believe making and writing laws -hatched in stone couldn't be easy and requires a lot of time.

Salaams.

marie

Salam MZ, all,

Salaams all,
if the translation is up to scratch then just see how allah mentions the "FULL MOON"

Waalqamari itha ittasaqa
And the Moon in her fullness

Salaam.

Another verses which can bring an additional information

7116 And made the moon a light therein, and made the sun a radiant lamp.

Moon/Full moon through stages becomes ---->2)Crescent-------->3) Full moon invisible------->4) First new moon (hilal, singular form of ahilat 2189)------>1-----2)--------3)-----4) Second new moon.

We know Alhajj is in the months (ashhurun ) which have been appointed (2197) and the new moons are a timing mechanism for the people as well as for Alhajj (2189); we witness the four restricted months while witnessing the new moons. We witness the first restricted month at its beginning and no at its end. There is not any mention of full moon in these verses.

One cyle is between two new moons in the light of 2189

....................Full moon...................... Full moon........................

New moon....................... New moon..................... New moon

.....................Cycle 1.............................Cycle 2.......................

Marie

unknownuser

Salaams marie,
i don't know if you have seen the deity of hindues ,i think shiva, where the moon is inscripted on the forhead of the deity.

I think we are going too far simerlarly with the moon in the quran as it ,to me,doesn't appear in so many ayats as you people are making out.

New moon = AL-HILAAL QAMAR and its not AHAL THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT WORDS.
AHAL=family,family member,household,people belonging to a community
or locality.
AHILA = to get accustomed to, to welcome anyone.
AHALA = to marry

The one used in the ayat 2188 is a two eye H ,and therefore that it appears actualy comes from the usual word AHAL(used all over the quran) which has the two eye H

and this signifies a family,and slight changes in the word denotes people
and in the case of our ayat 2188 the word is actualy denoting/talking about the previous ayat (people in the previous ayat 2187)

(Mind you this word is mistranslated in a number of other ayats as well-i think,2173,53,6145 BUT STILL NEEDS CHECKING)

2187

it is talking about property owners ,usurping properties of others by bribing officials/authorities....

2188

Allah says "They ask you about such people"(about the property owners ,who cheat,in the previose ayat,AlAhlate),"Say arrange /or has been arranged a fixed time for them and the Haj.........." (Use lanes and qd)

And to me the Haj is when they will have to swear to uphold the quranic laws,and if they don't the prophet was ordered to saught them out ,obviously for very hienous crimes they would even be killed (sura 9)when found.

Full moons description in the quran.
084.018
YUSUFALI And the Moon in her fullness
PICKTHAL And by the moon when she is at the full,
SHAKIR And the moon when it grows full,

New moons description in the quran.
036.039
YUSUFALI And the Moon,- We have measured for her mansions (to traverse) till she returns like the old (and withered) lower part of a date-stalk.
PICKTHAL And for the moon We have appointed mansions till she return like an old shrivelled palm-leaf.
SHAKIR And (as for) the moon, We have ordained for it stages till it becomes again as an old dry palm branch.

Haj hasn't any connection to the moon,sorry but keep researching DON'T IMAGINE.

Salaams.

Grourself

Peace mz357

My research has led me to understand exactly as you say. The translations are corrupt and smack of pagan traditionalism. Just as ?white thread from black thread? has nothing to do with looking to the sky.

shuaib

105 It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light (of beauty), and measured out stages for her; that ye might know the number of years and the count (of time). Nowise did Allah create this but in truth and righteousness. (Thus) doth He explain His Signs in detail, for those who understand.

2189 They ask thee concerning the New Moons. Say They are but signs to mark fixed PERIODS OF TIME in (the affairs of) men, and for Pilgrimage. It is no virtue if ye enter your houses from the back It is virtue if ye fear Allah. Enter houses through the proper doors And fear Allah That ye may prosper.

696 He it is that cleaveth the day-break (from the dark) He makes the night for rest and tranquillity, and the sun and moon for the reckoning (of time) Such is the judgment and ordering of (Him), the Exalted in Power, the Omniscient.

unknownuser

Peace be upon you all,

In my area we have a full moon tommorrow night. I will try to make an effort to stay up and study and REFLECT, as the moon reflects the light of the sun.

I am thinking right now that there must have been a reason that many people began worshipping the sun and moon. Like most tools, people take them too far sometimes, but in our process to remove idols, I don't think we should totally disacrd thier purpose. Shuiab brought forth some verses which are relevant. One of them is disputed by MZ but the other two i don't think I have heard any dispute about.

I ask that if anyone else is getting the full moon soon, to do some observing and see if any information becomes more clear or not, just as a simple experiment.

marie

salam mz

I think we are going too far simerlarly with the moon in the quran as it ,to me,doesn't appear in so many ayats as you people are making out.

New moon = AL-HILAAL QAMAR and its not AHAL THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT WORDS.
AHAL=family,family member,household,people belonging to a community
or locality.
AHILA = to get accustomed to, to welcome anyone.
AHALA = to marry

Sorry, you confuse "Ahillat/hilaal 2189" and "Ahaalin(n)/Ahloona/Ahl 2105, 2126, 2196, 2217, 3121, 425"
The two words (ahillat and Ahla) are well explained in the light of the quran.

The one used in the ayat 2188 is a two eye H ,and therefore that it appears actualy comes from the usual word AHAL(used all over the quran) which has the two eye H

There is no "AHL" in 2188, we read the word "alhukkami" which means the judges

No offence intended, you need to revise seriously your courses of arabic language.

Peace
Marie

unknownuser

Salaams marie,
without any type od disrespect ,when a person is in mud he is so used to it he stops noticing it - dear you have to get out of it and look at it from the outside.

One thing i find confusing you here are trying to research but your minds are still closed to anything coming in from the ouitside and you still hold to your paganistic believes -and not just you but quit a few people here.

And no i havn't got it wrong if you have qd see page 36 and i think the AHAL is well explained and if thats not enough its explained even more in the lanes.

Salaams.

Thanks.

unknownuser

Peace be upon you all,

I hope someone else will jump in on this dilemma between MZ and Marie. I need to know if 2189 deals with the phases of the moon or with people.

MZ, regarding the context, for a quite a few verses after that, the "messenger" is being asked several different questions. I do not see it to be contextually wrong to be asking about the phases of the moon. But I am awaiting the solid proof of what this word means.

marie

mz,

Please express your self without calling name and verify your information in the light of the quran before spreading wrong information

Allah says "They ask you about such people"(about the property owners ,who cheat,in the previose ayat,AlAhlate),"Say arrange /or has been arranged a fixed time for them and the Haj.........." (Use lanes and qd)

Peace

unknownuser

Salaams,
i will add some info for anybody who has a lanes and qd could check something enlightening.

page 121 lanes

Inahum laahlo al-ahillati = verily they are sojourners ,or settlers,possessed of property.

so al-ahillati=sojourners ,settlers,property owners.
mawakeeto=time appointed for the performance.
Hee=though may prepare/arrange/he/it.

Now look at what the ayat 188 is talking about

And you see shooting the moondown,in ayat 189 and using the said translation makes it clear Allah is talking about the people ,possessers of property who are bribing the judges in the ayat 188
188.
And do not eat up your property among yourselves for vanities, nor use it as bait for the judges, with intent that ye may eat up wrongfully and knowingly a little of (other) people's property.
189.
Yas-aloonaka AAani al-ahillati qul hiya mawaqeetulilnnasi waalhajji walaysa albirrubi-an ta/too albuyoota min thuhooriha walakinnaalbirra mani ittaqa wa/too albuyoota min abwabihawaittaqoo Allaha laAAallakum tuflihoona
They ask thee concerning such people. Say It has been arranged/appointed for the people with the Haj,But it is no virtue that you enter the houses from their backs but It is virtue if ye fear Allah. Enter houses through the proper doors And fear Allah That ye may prosper.

May Allah guide/you /me and everybody to his dominion.

Salaams idolfree ,all.

marie

They ask thee concerning such people. Say It has been arranged/appointed for the people with the Haj,But it is no virtue that you enter the houses from their backs but It is virtue if ye fear Allah. Enter houses through the proper doors And fear Allah That ye may prosper.

"Wa Alhajj" is translated as "as well as for alhajj" or "and for Alhajj", with is a wrong translation for the letter "Wa"

You translate mawaqeet by "arrange, appoint", where is the notion of time (alwaqt) in your translation of the word "mawaaqeet?