![]() ‘ He it is Who made the sun radiate a brilliant light and the moon reflect a lustre, and ordained for it stages, that you might know the number of years and the reckoning of time. In the Holy Qur’an Allah has explained that one of the key purposes of both the sun and the moon is for tracking time. Implications of Lunar Phases in the Natural World We refer to the moon phases as ‘waxing’ (e.g., waxing gibbous) in the first half of the lunar month when the moon shape grows from the new moon to the full moon and ‘waning’ when the shape of the moon shrinks in the latter half of the lunar month. ![]() īetween these main phases, the intermediate phases of the moon include those times during which the moon shape is either a thin crescent or gibbous (larger than a semicircle). There are four main lunar phases : the barely-there new moon is the first lunar phase, followed by the first quarter in which the right half of the moon is illuminated for an observer in the Northern Hemisphere, the full moon during which time the whole disk is fully lit, and the last quarter in which the left half of the disk illuminated (as seen from the Northern Hemisphere). The moon phases change gradually over the course of the lunar month as the moon moves along its orbit. During the lunar cycle, the phase of the moon is tracked by its shape – the portion of the moon that is illuminated by the Sun from our vantage point of Earth. The lunar calendar is a time-keeping system in which each month corresponds to the 29.5-day lunar cycle, the length of time that it takes for the moon to orbit the Earth. ‘ And He it is Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each gliding along smoothly in its orbit.’ The lunar calendar is based on the moon’s phases, which is regulated by a Divine process. While it may seem that lunar calendars have little relevance in the modern world beyond a reverence to religious tradition, new research is beginning to reveal the moon may play a unique role part in regulating different aspects of the natural world. Today, the Islamic calendar remains one of the only calendar systems to exclusively rely on the moon to classify dates. Other religious calendars such as the Hebrew and Chinese calendars also use modified lunisolar calendars in which days or months are added to the lunar year to coincide with the solar cycle. However, as the lunar calendar is shorter than the solar year by approximately 11 days, therefore, by 4th century BC, they modified (or intercalated) the calendar with an additional leap month. Similar to Islam, Sumerians had a calendar consisting of 12 months each with 29 or 30 days starting from the first day the new moon could be seen. Historians think that the Sumerians (4500 BC to 1900 BC) were the first civilization to adopt the lunar calendar. Rather, it has been used for thousands of years. The lunar calendar is not unique to Islam nor was it not developed by Islam. ![]() Whereas we commonly use the solar or Gregorian calendar in routine life to characterize dates, Ramadan is a reminder that Islamic months and years are based entirely on the moon’s phases. Every year as the month of Ramadan nears end, Muslims around the world eagerly look to the night sky, awaiting the new moon – a sign that Eid-ul-Fitr has arrived.
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