A Solution to the Moon Controversy
By Khalid A.
London, UK
Allama Iqbal, in his poem Hilal-e-Eid , addresses the Eid moon and asks it to have a look at the miserable Muslim Ummah living on the planet Earth in the following painful words:
Firqa araai ki zanjeeron mein hai Muslim aseer
Apni azadi bhi dekh, in ki griftaari bhi dekh
May I appeal to our clerics to be realistic and pragmatic and not to waste their energies on non-issues. There are more important issues in our nation’s life. Other nations are getting ready to populate the moon and yet we are busy in a meaningless debate that would be laughable, were it not so painful and harmful for the Pakistani nation. Allama Iqbal’s advice to Ummah was:
Isee roz-o-shub mei ulajh kar nah reh jaa
Keh teray zaman-o-makan aur bhi hain
Most people will be wary of complicated mathematical calculations involved in predicting the moon sighting. However the following simple explanation should suffice to convince the general public that scientists are not trying to ‘invent’ artificial birth of the moon:
1. The first common misconception is the myth that the length of lunar month varies between 29 and 30 days. Allah says in the Holy Quran that the journeys of moon are fixed and accurate. How can then there be such a big difference in the journey time of the moon? In actual fact the moon always goes around the Earth in 29 ½ days. As we cannot have a date as 1½ or ½, we choose to count the 1st day either after 29 days or 30 days. If a month is chosen as 29 days, the next month is already longer by the extra ½ day. So 29 ½ plus ½ = 30 days for the next month.
2. When the month is 30 days, the new moon will always be thicker because it is 1½ days old. This unnecessarily makes people suspicious that moon sighting has been mistakenly delayed, which is not true.
3. On any day there is always greater probability of moon sighting in Europe and America compared to Asia. This is because the moon is getting thicker by the hour, and evenings in Europe and America are 5 to 10 hours later than those in Asia.
4. Scientists are not trying to invent a moon sighting. Nor are they trying to see it through telescopes. That is unnecessary. All they are doing is to make a simple calculation and inform us that the age of the new moon will be 0.2 day or 0.8 day or 1.3 day etc when the evening arrives at a particular spot on Earth. They also tell us how long it will remain above the horizon, during the twilight. It is then for us to lay down some rules to decide whether we should start the new month or postpone it by one day. For example, if the age of the moon is less than 0.4 day, the new month may be postponed by one day. This way, the lunar calendar can be easily and accurately produced for the next 100 years or more.
Above is a simplified narrative for the general public. Of course, there is a small occasional variation in the above explanation because the lunar month is not exactly 29½ days. It is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes. So there is an occasional adjustment. This is similar to the adjustments made for solar years. The solar year is 365¼ days and we need a leap year every 4 years to adjust for the extra day that has accumulated.
