Shabbir's findings on Ramadan
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Peace,
The main issue I see is here
440 CE Then came the powerful Qussayi in the generation of Adnan. As the chief of Hijaz he instituted some reforms of his own. One of those reforms was to keep the names of the months unchanged but detach them from the seasons. Therefore, every month started coming in different seasons, regardless of what it meant to the crops.
Qussayi's decisions became effective in 440 CE, that is, 130 years before the blessed birth of the exhalted Prophet and so it is to this day.If this is true than what was the reason for the outlawing of adding an extra-month (937)? Supposing that they weren't adding an extra-month during the prophet's time goes against the Quran's assumption that they were. So this story seems to contradict the Quran.
Godbless
Anwar -
Peace, we simply CANNOT trust history books. History has been manipulated by Satan. We find therein great many contradictions. Even in today's world, we cannot trust media to report correct information. Each station has its own version. Now imagine history that dates 1600 years or more.
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Physical history doesn't lie, however.
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Peace
Although I see that ramadan can mean intense heat and that the Quran infers that month is also a period of 30 days. The calendar of Adnan's time ( I know it is post-Islamic but there are pre-Islamic histories that predate Islam especially if they are histories pased on by the ruwat/riwat (reciting class of Pre-islamic and Islamci times) is accurate as well if we understand ramadan to just be name of the month. Despite the fac that there is no linguistic inferences with the words that the word ramadan chagned from when it was given to when it became an official name of a month. Despite that adding 11 days a year is still legal. Even 22 is legal to only have to do this twice a year. However there would have to be some backtracking to the year when this and the practice of adding an extra month was stopped to get an accurate calendar.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace,
Let me make this clear again. Adding 11 days would not be illegal or a bad thing. Using the moon phases and adding 11 days would be a valid calendar.
However that still does not take away the fact that a shahr can still be 30 days and it also does not solve the problem of backtracking. We would have to back track the Islamic calender to when the change from the solar/lunar to purely lunar calendar was made and then count back up to now to have an accurate calendar. I would be in agreement with such a calender if it were dated back and then counted out until now. Addign 11 days is not transposing and month and is therefore Quranically legal. The back tracking is needed for us to have the correct pre-Islamic Ramadan. That is fair and would solve the problem for people who see ahillat as only moon phases.Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace
why complex things to consider the lunar in calendar? just use solar or gregorian, we use the Lunar is only for ramadhan and the 4 forbidden month only right (correct me if i'm wrong)? so whenever one witnesses the hottest month just fast for 30 days and be aware of the forbidden month. That's only it from my understanding. And yes The sunni calendar is of the hook. Their Ramadhan changes every year.
For me Islam is simple. Now i'm just waiting anxiously to witness the big moon.
May god bless us handshake
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Peace,
The issues here are
The calendar in the last prophet's time was luni-solar, however using an illegal (not approved by God) sysemt of adding an extra month.
The purely lunar calender (the Islamic one, Sunni and Shiite) does not represent the calendar during the time of the last prophet, because when the Quran was revealed duirng Ramadan that Ramadan was a solar calendar modified to coincide with lunary cylcles for months. So are we following the Ramadan and Holy months of the time of the Quran and that the last prophet knew?
The Quran outlawed the addition of an extra month to make the lunar cycles coincide with months for the lunar year. However, before this extra month was added (many years before) only 11 days were added giving the same effect (I really don't know how as when I think about it doesn't make sense to me).
So what's the main issue? The Islamic calendar, being the lunar one is not the same calendar (and hence not the same Ramadan) in which our last prophet was given the Quran (God bless him). So something should be done about that. We need to go back to that original calendar to know the true Ramadan.
In any case Ramadan can be understood as season of heat (this theory needs to consider tajweed and the doubling of the ra in ramadan after shahru, and the consideration that the fat-hatain can be pronounced with the tanween or just as an alif/fat-hatun. This allows it to mean shahrun ramadaanan which is a month during a season of heat). Also as it concerns the use of ahillat in the Quran, its meanings as haleel corresponding to maa uhilla bihi would have to be considered to allow this aspect of the Quran to be consistent as it concerns the calendar and pilgrimage.
Godbless,
AnwarLet's be careful to not be too obsessed with simplicity that we oversimplify things without fully analyzing them. Is simplicity a Quranic virtue, or the pursuit of truth and using our minds, according to the Quran?
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Peace all,
All history has been trashed since it is a traditional conspiracy. How do you drive the name of months, number of days in a week and a solar calender using Quran alone without referring to the classical arabic dictionaries written by the same corrupt sectarians and finding out a flavour of the root meaning you think is logical again by only subjective judgement. When you say that all history is unreliable so how do you know that the dictionaries you are using are reliable or only what you say is reliable without Quranic evidence. Dictionaries are not protected by God and has been written by the same historians so how can you vaguely connect some root word meaning with your own logics and say it is from God.
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Dictionaries and history books have two separate functions. History books are dedicated to stories and those stories are often too tempting not to touch by people who have some investment in the story; Ethnocentrism, Egocentrism etc etc. But dictionaries only seek to record how people use words. No stories involved. They also tag on well known usages to solidify the research. That's it. Sometimes a story of the origin of the word pops up but that is a back track for how the word was already being used. It is of no importance. There's no ego or ethnocentrism involved in finding out how people use words by getting them to use them. In the end if the only sources we have for the meanings of Arabic words used in the Quran and in other literature is falsified and corrupted you might as well throw your Quran in the fire because it is no more than hieroglyphs on paper. You cannot read unless you have a reliable source for the meanings of the words used. Open up your Quran, look at the Arabic and say to yourself that every meaning of these words before me has been lost and corrupted (unless you choose to be a hypocrite and justify how the words you like or need to further your own agenda were somehow magically saved from this conspiracy). Then ask yourself how you will find out what they mean in order to read the book if all the meanings have been corrupted. Change your name Abrar, because what you are thinking and saying is far from birr and not mubarrar in any way.
Godbless,
Anwar -
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree. The calendar is based on a Sumerian (Ur III) precedecessor preserved in the Umma calendar of Shulgi (ca. 21st century BC).
The year begins in spring, and is divided into re? ?atti "beginning", mi?il ?atti "middle", and k?t ?atti "end of the year". The name for "month" was arxu (status constructus arax). That the calendar originates in Babylonian, not Assyrian times is shown by the fact that the chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month. During the 6th century BC Babylonian exile of the Hebrews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar.
The names of the months were
Arax Nis?nu, Sumerian ITU BARAG.ZAG(.GAR) "month of the sanctuary", zodiacal sign KU (Aries) , dedicated to Anu and Bel
Arax ?ru, Sumerian ITU GUDDA.SIDI "month of the righteous bull", dedicated to Ea
Arax Simanu, dedicated to Sin, zodiacal sign BI(KA?) Gemini
Arax Du'uzu (DU.ZID, Dumuzi), dedicated to Adar
Abu, Sumerian NE.NE.GAR, zodiacal sign A (?ru, Leo)
Ul?lu, dedicated to Ishtar
Ti?-ri-tum, the Piel of ?urru "to begin", viz., "beginning of the second half-year", dedicated to Shamash. Sumerian ITU DU.U.AZAG
Arax-samna, Palrymenian Kan?n, Sumerian ITU APIN.GAB(.BA) "month of laying foundations", dedicated to Marduk, associated with Scorpio
Arax Kislimu, Sumerian ITU KAN.KAN.NA, dedicated to Nergal, associated with Sagittarius
Arax eb?tum, Sumerian ITU AB.BA.UD.DU "month of the forthcoming of water", dedicated to Pap-sukkal, zodiacal sign sax "ibex" (Capricorn?)
Arax ?abau, Sumerian ITU A?.A.AN, dedicated to Ramman, zodiacal sign GU q? (Aquarius?)
Addaru, Ad?r, Sumerian ITU ?E.KIN.DUD, dedicated to Dibbara the god of pestilence. In this month, Marduk is called "the fish of Ea", and the constellation/sign of Pisces may derive its name from this.
The inter-calary arax makaru?a Addari (Ve-ad?r), dedicated to Ashur
Until the fifth century BC the calendar was fully observational, but beginning about 499 BC the months began to be regulated by a lunisolar cycle of 19 years equaling 235 months. Although usually called the Metonic cycle, Meton (432 BC) probably learned of the cycle from the Babylonians. After no more than three isolated exceptions, by 380 BC the months of the calendar were regulated by the cycle without exception. In the cycle of 19 years, the month Adaru 2 was intercalated, except in the year that was number 17 in the cycle, when the month Ululu 2 was inserted. During this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) continued to be the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted?the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month.References
Parker, Richard A. and Waldo H. Dubberstein. Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75. Providence, RI Brown University Press, 1956.
Structure of the Babylonian calendar
W. Muss-Arnolt, The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and Their Regents, Journal of Biblical Literature (1892).
Sacha Stern, "The Babylonian Calendar at Elephantine" in Zeitschrift f?r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 130 (2000) 159-171 (PDF document, 94KB)]See also Zoroastrian calendar and hebrew calendar
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian_calendar
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During which seasons were the months (Muharram, Ramadan, etc.) before intercalation was abandoned?
And what about in year 1 AH? -
Ramadan was decreed on us as it was on the people before us
There must be something in the past before Islam.
Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord wrote the terms of the covenant?the Ten Commandments ?on the stone tablets. (NLT)
Deuteronomy 918Then, as before, I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the Lord hated, provoking him to anger. (NLT)
2 Samuel 1216-17David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground. 17 The elders of his household pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused. (NLT)
Nehemiah 14When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. (NLT)
Ezra 821-23And there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble ourselves before our God. We prayed that he would give us a safe journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to accompany us and protect us from enemies along the way. After all, we had told the king, ?Our God?s hand of protection is on all who worship him, but his fierce anger rages against those who abandon him.? So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care of us, and he heard our prayer. (NLT)
Ezra 106Then Ezra left the front of the Temple of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. He spent the night there without eating or drinking anything. He was still in mourning because of the unfaithfulness of the returned exiles. (NLT)
Esther 416Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die. (NLT)
Psalms 3513Yet when they were ill, I grieved for them. I denied myself by fasting for them, but my prayers returned unanswered. (NLT)
Psalms 6910When I weep and fast, they scoff at me. (NLT)
Isaiah 586No, this is the kind of fasting I want Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. (NLT)
Daniel 93So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I also wore rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes. (NLT)
Daniel 103All that time I had eaten no rich food. No meat or wine crossed my lips, and I used no fragrant lotions until those three weeks had passed. (NLT)
Joel 215Blow the ram?s horn in Jerusalem! Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. (NLT)
Matthew 42For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. (NLT)
Matthew 616And when you fast, don?t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. (NLT)
Matthew 915Jesus replied, ?Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. (NLT)
Luke 237Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. (NLT)
Acts 133So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them and sent them on their way. (NLT)
Acts 1423Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church. With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. (NLT)
Prophets
After the Israelites were defeated by the men of Ai (Joshua 76), Joshua and the elders of Israel remained prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant from morning until evening without eating.
On one occasion, the 11 tribes that had taken up arms against Benjamin, seeing that they would not stand against the inhabitants of Gibeah, fell before the Ark on their faces and so continued until the evening without eating (Judges 2026).
David fasted while the first child he had by Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, lay dying (2 Samuel 1216).
Moses fasted 40 days on Mount Horeb before God gave him the two tables of testimony (Exodus 3428-29), during which time he neither ate bread nor drank water.
Elijah fasted for 40 days during a trip from the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God (1Kings 19.
Jesus Christ fasted 40 days and nights in the wilderness while being tempted by Satan the devil (Matthew 41-3; Luke 42).Fasting in the Bible
The religious practices of Islam (Salat, Zakat, Fasting, and Hajj) were given to Abraham and practiced by all messengers that followed him, including Jesus.
Fasting is almost always mentioned in the Bible along with special prayers of petition. Examples of such fasting are in the time of Esther (Esther 43 and 931), in the experience of Daniel (Daniel 618 and 93), and in the advice of Jesus (Matthew 1721 and Mark 929). The words of David especially connect fasting with prayer of petition ?While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again?? 2 Samuel 1222-23.In this text we see that fasting appears in the Bible along with weeping. Dressing in sackcloth, sitting in ashes, and not wearing perfume are also mentioned (Nehemiah 91; 1Kings 2127). Proclaiming a fast
is often associated with a solemn assembly as well (Joel 114; 215 et al.). It appears that special months of fasting were instituted during the Babylonian captivity of Judah, probably in view of the crisis (Zechariah 819). ?Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.? This verse clearly suggests that these months of fasting would no longer be observed when the reason for their existence, the Babylonian captivity, disappeared.But there is no specific legislation dealing with fasting. It is assumed in the Bible text that everyone already knows that fasting is a valid practice and how it should be done.
Although many of the fasts mentioned in the Bible are certainly personal vows and not general practice, some general fasting practices are found. A specific fast day in mentioned in Jeremiah 366. ?Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lord?s house upon the fasting day and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities.? Here we find a definite practice of fasting.
The following verses will show that this is not just a day of fasting, but precisely a month. More detail on this day of fasting is given in verse nine ?And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem.? This is not a special fast proclaimed by a religious ruler, because this particular king was wicked. Nevertheless, he did follow the formality of what was practiced the month of fasting. The time given for this fasting is stated to be the ninth month.
The season of the fast in this particular year, thought by many scholars to be 604 B.C., is stated
to be in the winter. Jeremiah 3622, ?Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.? Now the present Jewish calendar adds a thirteenth month from time to time to match the solar year, so that the ninth month of the civil year (used in the dates of kings? reigns) falls in May or June, summer in Palestine. If we project the lunar calendar presently used in the Middle East back in history, we find that the ninth month falls in November of the year 604 B.C. It appears that during Bible times a purely lunar calendar was used, and the ninth month was a month of fasting.Bible fasting includes more than just not eating and drinking, however. Isaiah 58 is the great fasting chapter of the Bible. ?Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labors. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread
to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?? Isaiah 583-7. From this we see that fasting includes avoiding certain pleasures on one hand, and doing acts of charity and justice on the other. That is, there are some other pleasures besides food and drink that must be avoided. Also, the central meaning of the fast has to do with feeling for the hunger of the hungry and doing something to alleviate it. In addition, especially the practice of using sackcloth and ashes seems to be condemned. We find the same condemnation, because of its connection with hypocrisy, mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 6.So we find fasting a basic, though unlegislated, practice throughout the Bible, from Moses to Peter and Paul (Acts 1030; 1423; 2733; and 1Corinthians 75). In sum-mary, we can say that Biblical fast-ing is the complete abstention from eating and drinking and some other pleasures during the daylight hours of the days of the ninth month of the lunar calendar. It includes acts of charity, alms and justice, and the especial avoidance of anger and quarreling.
Excerpts from Chapter Seven of the book Islam in the Bible by Thomas McElwain
http//www.masjidtucson.org/publications/books/sp/1998/dec/page1.html
It seems like it was 40 days.
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WOW! Very informative Bigmo, thanks!
I also agree with fasting the whole month of Ramadan, not just 10 days. And that we should use the lunar calendar which we have right now for the dates.
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Peace Ayman,
Ayman said
Ayman this is not true. The meaning of fully moon is not there, this is your interpretation of the meaning of 'moon' and 'famous and prominent.' You combined prominent and moon to get prominent moon which you associated with full moon. Could you translitarate or post the Arabic of the entry in Lisaan al-Arab that says 'full moon.'
Godbless,
AnwarCan you respond to the above allegation?
Yours truly,
K.Vivekanandan
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http//books.google.com/books?id=lceqd9FKhsAC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=shahr+full+moon&source=bl&ots=dPrgWo_Z9j&sig=cLi9C9biXyq0VShpxskQDAOQKk0&hl=es&ei=pLR3SrXLOMeptgf1udmWCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=shahr%20full%20moon&f=false
Godbless,
Anwar