Shakiel Humayun – Seeing is Believing Tarawih Talk 25 Ramadan 2023
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The speaker discusses the importance of the ruling for existence in the Bible and how it is tied to the cause of a legal obligation for the start and end of a month. They explain that the church has a classical difference of opinion between local and global sightings, and that fasting is the beginning month of devol, and the end is when all of us stop the month of devol. The speaker also discusses calculations for the timing of prayer and the importance of actual visual seeing of the moon.
AI: Summary ©
There's an important principle that says
that the ruling
for something
comes only into existence
if its cause exists.
So, for example,
the cause for Salat Al Maghrib to be
an obligation
is the setting of the sun.
So that ruling only comes into existence when
the sun sets.
So the ruling is tied to its cause.
That's for salah.
If you look at the starting and the
end of Ramadan,
what is this cause or this The
prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
The prophet
said, do not fast
until you see the crescent,
and do not
break the fast, meaning the month of Ramadan,
until you see the crescent.
And if the sky is overcast,
then count
30 days.
So if we can't see the crescent,
then we're to count the month for 30
days.
So the here that the prophet Muhammad
has established
for the beginning and the end of Ramadan.
The beginning and the end of Ramadan is
the seeing
of the crescent.
And so
we have a classical difference of opinion between
the scholars.
Is this seeing of the crescent something that
is local
or is it something that is global?
But I believe in our day and time,
we can put this classical
difference of opinion to rest
because today local is global.
Back then, if someone saw the crescent,
it would take probably a day or 2
for that news to reach somewhere else.
Today,
if someone sees the moon,
the news travels instantaneously.
Within seconds, it can go around the world.
So local is global today, so we can
put
that controversy or that difference of opinion to
rest. However,
if there is
so in other words, if the moon is
cited anywhere and the news reaches
us,
then it becomes an obligation for us to
begin or end the month of Ramadan.
That's one level of analyzing this fiqh
scenario.
The second level is
where the prophet Muhammad
said. The prophet
said
that fasting means the beginning month of Ramadan,
that fasting is when
you all fast.
And the end of the month of Ramadan
is when all of you end the month
of Ramadan.
So the maqasid here, the objectives here for
Ramadan and Eid
is that it should be a community
event.
So if we're in a place where everyone
is actually following a local sighting,
even though if you may believe that local
is now global,
you should go with the local sighting for
the sake of unity.
And vice versa,
if you believe local sighting is the most
accurate opinion and you're in a community or
area where global
is being practiced,
you go with the community, so we have
one aid, begin Ramadan together, that is one
of the objectives
of the Sharia.
The easy thing to do is just go
by what your local Masjid is doing, local
or global sighting.
The next
opinion, what about
calculations,
astronomical
calculations?
Is that permissible?
Can we calculate in advance when the crescent
will be born and declare
days before when Eid will be or when
Ramadan would be?
The prophet Muhammad
said,
The prophet
said, do not start the fast until you
see the crescent
and do not
end the month of Ramadan until you see
the crescent.
And this is a prohibition because he said
do not.
Prohibition
means that it's haram.
So in other words the prophet Muhammad
is saying that if you don't see the
crescent it's haram to begin the month of
Ramadan.
If you don't see the crescent it's haram
to end the month of Ramadan.
Furthermore, we find that the prophet Muhammad
has other statements which emphasize the actual visual
scene of the moon to start or end
the month of Ramadan.
Number 2, the sahabah radhiallahu anhu, they never
practiced
astronomical calculations
even though that was available to them. There
is only one reported
later on
who allowed calculations,
but that
is the only single
that has that report
and therefore it contradicts
all of the companions and it contradicts
the hadith of the prophet Muhammad
And Allah Subhanahu said,
That if you differ in anything then refer
back to Allah and his messenger
meaning the Quran and the Hadith.
So we can't take
that report as evidence,
even we know that the statement of a
is not considered evidence as well.
Someone can say, but wait a minute, how
come when it comes to the salah
we can calculate the times of the prayer
and since we're allowed to calculate the times
of the prayer when is,
when isha is,
Right? No one goes out to see the
sun setting, we all calculate the time and
we just practice that. If we can calculate
for the prayers, the salawat,
why can't we calculate for
the beginning and the end of the month
of Ramadan?
We go back to the principle I started
with,
a ruling is tied to its cause.
So the prophet Muhammad
said,
The time for the maghrib prayer is when
the sun sets.
So the cause for the maghrib prayer to
be an obligation
is the actual movement or the actual setting
of the sun.
In other words, if the sun doesn't set,
the maghrib prayer is not in yet. It's
not an obligation.
The prophet Muhammad didn't
say
the time for the maghrib prayer is when
you see
the sun
setting. He said when the sun sets it's
time for Maghrib.
So since that is the that is the
cause that whenever the sun sets it becomes
the time for Maghrib we can calculate that.
But the prophet Muhammad
did not say
to fast or break the fast
when
the crescent is born.
But the prophet
made the
cause to be that if you see it
then break the fast, if you see it
then start the fasting. So the cause here
is linked to the actual visual seeing and
has nothing to do with the actual birth
of the moon or not. And this is
why the prophet Muhammad
that the moon could be there.
It could be born.
It could be there could be a new
moon, but because it's cloudy and we can't
see it because the cause is actual actually
seeing the moon,
if that's
hindered,
even though the moon is there, we don't
take it into regard. We count 30 days
and then we continue,
fasting until the month is over.