Re: Deciding on the Moon
Peace All
We can't follow the first person who calls the sighting of the moon, without questioning the validity. This is my point entirely. It is not a matter about trust either. How can you trust someone who has announced something that is scientifically impossible?
Following people purely on trust is fanaticism or foolishness it is not what Islam requires from us.
Since science has become increasingly more distant from the Islamic teachings the knowledge of such things has become stunted in the religious circles.
You will notice that all first sightings come from Saudi, at times when scientifically no one one should see the moon. From an experts point of view that has an odour and should be looked into.
NASA and Greenwich are indeed the authorities in the current day. However, with more statistical research things can become more accurate. We are already to an accuracy of within a couple of minutes regarding moon phase angle sightings and within seconds for solar positions.
Again people cannot perform Eid on the same day throughout the globe it is a phsyical impossibility, this is because when it is Maghrib for one country in Europe it is approaching sunrise for people in Australia of the following day.
I have a class of Muslim students and part of their syllabus I have set them is to learn the science of timetabling and calendar determination for Islamic purposes.
Please read up on the equations provided by Dr. Monzur Ahmed together with his limitations on them. He has made a few applets one called MoonCalc and there are others also.
These are preset with the Yallop's criterion for moon crescent sighting, which is based on angle of declination of the sun and the angular distance between the sun and the moon at the point of sunset. The latitude of the observer location are all factors which affect the sighting. The apogee and perigee of the moon determines whether the parabola will form over the central regions across the Earth, the southern or northern hemispheres. It is more or a less a precise science, but this methodology has not found it's way and accepted with the people in charge in Saudi yet.