THE MOON THE SUN AND TIME

THE CRESCENT MOON

As we all know, the moon is the second most visible object in the sky, with the sun being the first, both of them sources of light. The difference between them, is that the moon revolves around the earth, while the earth along with its moon revolves around the sun. The moon provides us with a steadily increasing amount of light at night in stages leading towards full moon and a steadily declining amount as its crescent shrinks towards new moon. The sun only provides us with light between sunrise and sunset whereas the moon is often visible at day. 

However, both of them are essential for time keeping, for counting days, the weeks and months, birthdays, special events, holidays, menstrual periods, appointments, dates, Christmas, new year, etc. Virtually the entire western world adopted the solar calender as its measure of time whereas the some middle eastern regions religions  adopted the lunar calender as its measure of time. The difference between them is that the solar year  has three hundred sixty five & a quarter days (365¼) whereas the lunar year has three hundred and fifty four days (354). A discrepancy of eleven (11) whole days. The problem lies with the solar calender that needs to rectified every four years because of the quarter day (¼). Since four quarter days  makes a whole day, every four years has an additional day which is given to February, an term it as a leap year, hence every four years is a leap year. Funny thing is that a solar year has twelve (12) months but the amount of days in each differs indiscriminately throughout the year. Requiring some sort of mnemonic to remember it by. The one that comes to mind is "30 days has September, April, June and November, all the rest has 31 except February which has 28 and 29 every four years". What a mouth full. 

The lunar calender on the other hand has no fractions and consists of six (6) months with thirty (30) days each, which amounts to one hundred and eighty (180); and six (6) months with 29 days each which amounts to one hundred (18) and seventy four (174), in no particular order. Adding one hundred and eighty to one hundred and seventy four (174) give you exactly three hundred and fifty four (354) days. No remainder to remember, no leap year, no month with a variable amount of days. This implies, that if February gets and extra day then all the successive days of the year are pushed back one day. Meaning Christmas is a day late, or the you celebrating your birthday a day late, to mention just two. This is messed up because some philosopher of the middle ages came up with the idea of a solar year which was perpetuated by the ruling Romans of the time which the west came to inherit. The solar calender however was ordained by God Almighty since all of the chronologies in the bible with references to dates, days, months and years, are expressed in terms of the Lunar Calendar. The Jews followed the lunar calender for thousands of years in their religious practices and so have the Muslims for the last one thousand four hundred and thirty six (1436) years. 

When the crescent moon is sighted the month commences and some 29-30 days later when the new crescent is sighted a month commences.  We witnessed the month of Rajab and Sha`bān and are currently in the month of Ramadan hence a Ramadan Kareem to all the Muslims.

Prophet Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: “Rajab is the month of Allah, Sha`bān is my month, and Ramadan is the month of my Ummah.” And he would seek its blessings, saying:

اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ لَنَا في رَجَبٍ وَ شَعْبَانَ وَ بَلِّغْنا رَمَضَانَ

“O Allah bless us in Rajab and Sha`bān and enable us to reach Ramadan!”