March 11, 2003
LUNAR POLITICS:
Dark side of the moon: How confusing is it to figure out when a new moon is sighted? For Muslims all over the world trying to nail the date of this year's Eid al-Adha, it was a contentious--and some believe political--matter, indeed. And it's not over yet. (Najeeb Hasan, 3/06/03, Metro San Jose)Two weeks ago, when Tahir Anwar, the imam of San Jose's downtown mosque on Third Street, just about a two-minute stroll north from St. James Park, returned home after almost three weeks on the Arabian peninsula, it was a bit difficult for him to swing right back into his daily routine, and jet lag wasn't the only factor. The imam had just performed the hajj, for most Muslims not only a cleansing but also the ultimate confirmation of religion before death itself.The word hajj, in fact, is linguistically related to the word hujah, which is translated as "proof," teaches a Bay area scholar. And so, visiting the Kaaba--the empty black cube (once full of idols, now cleansed) in the center of Mecca that Muslims believe Abraham built--confirms, by its very emptiness, the impossibility of conceptualizing the divine, the incapability of the finite to capture the infinite.
Meanwhile, many of Imam Tahir's own confirmations came, like so many pilgrims before him, through the swarming masses of humanity surrounding him. "The greatest sight is the people." The imam shakes his head in disbelief of the memory. "What's more amazing is the different countries that people come from--Indonesia, Thailand, Bosnia. ... When you're walking between groups of people, it's like you're walking from one country to another in a matter of minutes."
It's this social egalitarianism, this unity, that Muslims pride themselves on. It was, of course, an awed Malcolm X who wrote home about sitting sincerely with "fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond and whose skin was the whitest of white."
But while unity overwhelms in the sanctuary of Mecca, back in the United States, the second and final holiday season of the Islamic calendar has, again, brought with it a jurisprudential tiff that Muslims still can't seem to resolve. The celebration of Eid al-Adha, the holiday that honors Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son and then being restrained by God, falls during the hajj season, but Muslims are (still) having a nasty time figuring out exactly when it should be. [...]
Ask ordinary Muslims what this disagreement is all about, and they'll likely shrug it off not as a disagreement but as a "difference of opinion." Ask conspiracy theorists, and they might spout off something about Sheik George W. and the United States exerting political pressure to evacuate the pilgrims from the Middle East early to gain time in their plans for invading Iraq.
From the Christian perspective, it's rather like not being able to come to a consensus on when Christmas should be (although, because of the accepted ambiguity of the Islamic lunar calendar, not exactly). But, perhaps more interesting than the problem itself are the spiritual implications inherent to the disagreement.
The crux of the difficulty lies in the sighting of the new moon, which marks the beginning of the 12th Islamic lunar month, Dhul-Hijjah.
As conservatives, we vote for the actual sighting. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2003 10:23 AM
Every time I try to come up with an argument against organized religion, I find it has beat me to the punch.
Regards,
Jeff Guinn
Well, since you people always get the timing of Easter wrong . . .
Posted by: David Cohen at March 11, 2003 11:43 AMJeff:
Rather this is an argument against disorganized religion. Islam may need a Pope.
There comes a time when even the most devout conservative has to admit that procedures which worked for a bunch of goat-herds in the middle of a desert on the edge of nowhere who believed their local temple was at the center of the universe, that those procedures do not scale properly. Yet another example of how Islam fails to adapt to a world in which not all knowledge is contained in a single book.
There's also something about conservatives and their infatuation with anachronism that gets tiresome-- "It's old, so it's gotta be good" is as grating as the leftitst's "This is new, so of course it's better." In both cases, they are usually talking about things they themselves would never consider doing.
(as for the author's comments about "human enslavement by artificially structured time," I can't think of anything more artificially structured than the idea that one's prayers are only heard at five times in a day.)
Timing of Easter-- That depends on what you are trying to achieve-- commemorate the day of the week (Sabbath), or the day of the month (by the Jewish calendar), and the two can't be reconciled, in part because the 14th isn't always on a Sabbath. Especially when you don't want rabbis in Alexandria fixing your non-Jewish holiest day. The Quartodecimians lost the argument.
"Mapping Time" by E.G.Richards, "Calendar" by David E.Duncan and "Marking Time" by Duncan Steel are three places to read about the controversies, especially the last.
Yeah, but you guys get the Sabbath wrong, too.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 11, 2003 12:17 PMNot to mention that the Universe is only four thousand years old.
Posted by: oj at March 11, 2003 12:46 PMUh, that's 5,764.5 years old (minus one month)....
Posted by: Barry Meislin at March 11, 2003 1:36 PMThe only one of these superstitions that I like to promote is the one against eating lobsters. There are not enough lobsters to go around, so if I could get everyone else to be Jewish on this one issue, I would benefit.
But, Orrin, what if it's cloudy for days around Eid? Put it off until January?
And what are Muslims on a space station supposed to do? The Orthodox Jews have apparently considered this problem
(and nearly everything else, it seems).
Raoul O:
You can pray as much as you want and God will hear you. Five times is the prescribed minimum. And a little research into Islam's early centuries of expansion will reveal a rich history of adapting and adopting foreign influences and practices from lots of different civilisations.
oj: I think we can do without a pope unless you'd like to see the Caliphate resurrected.
mike earl: They'd probably take whatever day Eid is being celebrated on in Saudi Arabia which would probably be the appropriate default option if you're in a Muslim minority area like deep space.
I think a lot of the difference in opinion is due to the sheer geographical spread of Islam and whether Eid should be celebrated according to when it's being done in Saudi Arabia or according to the individual countries.
It'S really only a matter of disagreement if you live in a Muslim minority area since everyone tends to celebrate Eid on the same day if you're in a country like Pakistan.
In England though you have to decide whether to take the country you live in as a reference, Saudi Arabia or the nearest Muslim majority country.
David - We know that God rested on the Jewish sabbath. We just choose to rest and worship on a day that God didn't. It's the Calvinist work ethic in us.
Posted by: pj at March 11, 2003 4:49 PMWell, as for the 'sabbath', Christians are just "celebrating diversity" after all. Got to differentiate a little compared to the jews!
As for a Muslim 'pope' i.e. a caliphate. This has been broached a number of times and seems eminently sensible. Perhaps a really good idea. Unfortunately I suspect it's just "pie in the sky". But hey, at least they get to argue over what type of pie it is, as well as when it's fully "appeared". No lobster pies please.