Yasir Qadhi – Does Fajr Begin At The 15 or 18 Degree Angle? Ask Shaykh YQ #193

			Our first question from brother a nuke from the Netherlands he asks about in the month of Ramadan,
the timings of Sure. And he says he is confused because he has heard a lot of this controversy about
the angle Some say 14 degrees, some 15, some 18. And to add to this Sister manisa, from the Emirates
asks that in her prayer app, she has the option of choosing multiple timings for federal and for
Asia. She mentions there's the omokoroa timing, the Muslim League timing is not timing, the Islamic
by timing methods. So which one should you use? And what is this all about?
		

			One
		

			hour to sell me Kobe league Reja? No, hey, lay him first.
		

			Recovery.
		

			Now, this question is, of course very relevant to us because Milan is around the corner. And those
of us living in western lands are using apps, we have the added confusion and controversy of having
different timings depending on which Masjid Princeton there might be too much choose in the
literally same vicinity. But the timings of insock or stopping to each rule, or maybe 2030 minutes
apart and different from one another. And it gets confusing. And to add to this, we can actually
calculate different timings based upon the app, the app that I have, actually, I looked at it today,
there's seven different choices, I have the option to choose which angle to put in which group of
		

			scholars, you know, has the timings of the soul. So this is actually a very, very interesting
question. Where is this controversy coming from? And what should the mostly average Muslim do in
order to figure out what time they should stop eating and drinking, what time the tour ends which is
of course the beginning time of fudger Now, I'm going to respond in a generic manner and then in an
academic manner, the generic manner is as follows. The average Muslim should not be figuring out
himself or herself which position they want to follow. Simple as that. If you're living in a Muslim
majority land if you're living in a land of Islam, you follow the timetables that your Islamic
		

			affairs ministry that your Mufti provides, and you leave it at that you individually are not going
to break away from the gym or from the congregation of Muslims. And whatever timings that to the
official ministry announces that the official Mufti of your land announces then stick with the Gema
and indeed, that is where the Baraka will lie. And if you are living in a minority land like we are
in America or their places, then my advice to you is to follow the masjid that you usually pray at
and the masjid that you associate with and the masjid up Juma and, and again, don't worry about the
academic discussions, this is not something the average Muslim does not go and, you know, sift
		

			through the fatwas and choose the first word that they think is, you know, the one that they should
choose, this is done by those who are qualified and my entire q&a, I try to give you the alternative
opinions, in order that if you're Hanafi, Shafi Malik, whatever you can, you can choose that
position or if you wish to follow the position that is considered to be or the position that I
personally for example, follow that too. For example, if you are following over all the positions,
then inshallah that is something that it is up to you. However, what you cannot do is, as we said,
pick and choose every single time a new controversy comes. So if you are following your local Masjid
		

			that hamdulillah Now, suppose you are a part of the board of the masjid. And you need to decide
which of these positions are you going to follow? Or you're simply a curious listener, you're going
to follow your local Masjid, but you're a student of knowledge, you want to know where is this
controversy coming from? Well, in order to answer that insha Allah will go into a bit more detail.
But again, I want to emphasize that this is just information purposes only. It is not meant for you
to go against your own group, or community or Masjid. Indeed, unity is far more better than
following a fifth position that there is plenty of diversity in and Allah is Baraka, and Allah, his
		

			hand is over the Gema of the Muslims. Now, in this regard, in this regard, we need to say that these
differences that we're talking about, they actually don't really matter if you're close to the
equator, if you follow the omokoroa, or if you follow the Isner, or if you follow this, in reality,
if you're close to the equator, these different methods barely affect the timings. However, if you
go very much north or south, the closer you are to the two poles, this is where these time changes
are manifested. And in some cities, for example, even here in North America, if you follow one
position, you might have a 40 minute gap or a 15 minute gap and I know that in some places in
		

			England, you
		

			i'd even have an hour and a half gap between the two methodology so it does in fact become a much
bigger issue at the higher up you go in latitude and the two timings that we're particularly
concerned with are the timings of the beginning of the federal which is the end time of the eating
soho and the beginning of asia and we are more concerned with the beginning of fudger because
obviously that's when we're going to be eating our food and the we need to understand that the
beginning of fudger and also the beginning of ratio these two times are not times that can be
calculated precisely rather they are a generic timeframe depending on the observation of the eye
		

			allah says in the quran for kulu which rabu had yet lbnl como
		

			mina hytrel svod mineral fudger eat and drink until you can discern differentiate tell the
difference between the white thread of dawn from the black thread of the night okay this is a verse
in the koran and the profitsystem interpreted it that you can see the entire horizon light up in a
horizontal thread horizontal white thread that is the time that the true dawn begins because there's
something called a false dawn and the false dawn is when you see the twinkling when you see some
brightness of the sun but it's not horizontal it is vertical and slowly but surely that vertical
becomes more and more until you see that clear horizontal that is the time when we're supposed to
		

			stop our suhoor and we're allowed to pray fudger however that timing is not something that is
dependent 100% on the position of the sun but rather on multiple factors it depends on the light
that is that our eyes are able to catch and that amount of light is not scientifically predictable
via an equation for each and every location on earth in fact it varies from season to season and
place out altitude if you're on the top of a mountain it's not going to be the same if your city is
higher up from sea level it's not going to be the same as if it is at sea level it varies depending
on geographical barriers and many other factors in fact it even varies on your own perception and
		

			the the the
		

			how powerful your eyes are you know so weak eyes perceptive eyes all of this is going to be there
and also judgment there's a judgement when exactly does that full line come and to give you an
example let's give you a diagram let's move on to our first diagram i have a number of diagrams to
show you let's move on to our first diagram here so you see over here that the sun rises from the
east and sets in the west right we understand this the sun rises in the east from our perspective
and sets in the west and when the sun is rising from the east when the sun is below the horizon by
around 18 degrees or so there is a time known as twilight and twilight means that the sun is not
		

			actually visible but the rays of the sun are visible to us okay so the rays of the sun they start
glowing and they start showing certain things around us but the sun itself is not visible then of
course the sun rises and it keeps on going all the way down and then it goes to the west side for us
obviously um being relatively obviously the sun itself does not you know go east or west it is the
earth that does that but still from our perspective the sun rises in the east sets in the west and
when it sets in the west once again the same thing happens as soon as the sun sets as soon as the
sunsets there is some time that twilight time that we can still see things and then the shadow comes
		

			when that twilight time finishes so we see the beginning of fudger and the beginning of ratio or
essentially the the two opposites of the sun rising of the sun setting not meaning that when you
include the twilights right so not the actual sunrise and sunset the actual sunrise is the end time
of fudger the actual sunrise is when fudger ends and we are talking about when frigid begins which
is that that gray area of the twilight and the sunset is when mahara begins and then when the
twilight finishes when the reddish pneus of the sky finishes then isha begins okay now we can move
back inshallah so to make things to make things more complex in fact that area of twilight is
		

			actually not one area where there are actually multiple areas within it and you also have to
consider the fact that every single person when they look at the horizon they're not necessarily
seeing the actual horizon there are many many factors that come into play sometimes the horizon is
obscured by trees by buildings by mountains sometimes you're of course if you're in the ocean that
is the ideal if you like horizon that's really the best horizon that you have over there
		

			But the main point I want to emphasize we saw that Twilight area. In reality that Twilight area can
be subdivided into many different categories. And this is what the astronomers have done from the
beginning of time, and especially in our times to have it down to a science. So if we can look at
the second slide over here, we can see the actual zones that astronomers have demarcated for the
angles of the Sun vissa V, the horizon, and we see very clearly that what we call Twilight is
actually at least three different levels or layers, and that is astronomical, Twilight, nautical
Twilight and civil Twilight. And so in reality, there are three different Dawn's from a purely
		

			astronomical perspective, there's an astronomical dawn, there's a nautical dawn, and there is a
civil dawn and the civil Twilight which is of course, the closest to the sunrise and sunset, the
civil Twilight is when the The sun is the the light of the sun is still bright enough that we don't
actually need any artificial lights. Or if we're walking outside, you know, after we pray fudger and
before the sun rises, right, so right before the sun rises, in fact, it is so bright and so
beautiful, that really you don't need any light that is the civil that is the civil Twilight. And
before that is the nautical Twilight. And the nautical Twilight is defined to be when the geometric
		

			center of the Sun is 12 degrees below the horizon in the morning, and it ends when the geometric
center is six degrees in the morning. And you can also say that nautical Twilight is when the
horizon at sea, that's what's called nautical when the horizon at sea level is no longer visible and
altitudes cannot be determined by referring to the horizon. That's why it's called nautical because
it does play a role when you're in the ocean. And then we have astronomical Twilight, and
astronomical Twilight begins, obviously, after astronomical dawn, when the geometric center of the
Sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the morning, and it ends when the geometric center of the Sun
		

			is 12 degrees below the horizon and the nighttime so we have here, astronomical, nautical and civil
Okay, now what I want you to understand is very, very important here. I hope you guys are paying
attention to this to this sign to this diagram in front of us. What I want you to understand is that
most of the Islamic apps and many of the fatwas from earlier timeframes, which have been replicated
to our timeframes, they took the notion of astronomical Twilight which is 18 degrees, and they said
that is the time for him sack and they base this primarily on the fact that that is the definition
of astronomical Twilight. Now we can get back to the lecture who was the diagram is now done. The
		

			point here is that the shorter the time of M sack, the shorter a time of not eating and drinking is
not related to the astronomical definitions, and in fact, it is in between the astronomical
Twilight, the astronomical dawn and the nautical dawn. The shutter am sac is not the same as the
astronomical dawn because the shutter em sac is not defined by the astronomical dawn the shutter em
sac is defined by the Quranic verse that you can eat and drink until the whitish thread is separate
from the darkish thread or the black thread and the versus the white thread meaning the threads of
the horizon here and therefore, because the shutter eight insock because the timeframe of not eating
		

			and drinking is in between those two, you cannot have a precise equation that measures and out
because as we said there are many many factors that are involved in demarcating that moment in time
and of those factors as we said is altitude of those factors is season it's very interesting to know
that sunsets in the summer will have different variations of Twilight and different shades of
Twilight then sunset in the winter, as well of the factors that affect the exact timing is the air
pollution we call it there's something called air dust and air pollution dust particles and what
that does is that it makes it difficult for us to once again verify when exactly that whitish thread
		

			can be sweet seen and two people standing next to each other can disagree and both of them are
trained and both of them are specialists, they can disagree about the exactly the minute that that
whitish thread becomes absolutely clearly visible from the darkish thread you cannot predict this it
depends on too many variables as we said time location season person person's eyesight observation,
a bit of HDR also in terms of in terms of when it is exactly the straight line because the problem
is that the the whiteness the the the false dawn which occurs basically after 18 degrees, the false
dawn
		

			the whitish pneus begins and then the true dawn when the whitish this becomes a very clear thread
that is very visible and the as we said the exact minute that happens it is very very difficult to
to demarcate and we have to also realize somebody can say okay what's the big deal just stop eating
you know some time before all of this and we say if you're able to do that alhamdulillah if you're
able to give 1520 minutes you know extra time that's great but let's be real here and especially
where in some places the fast might be 18 hours or something not everybody can wake up you know two
hours before an hour and a half before and every single minute counts as well what if somebody wakes
		

			up late and they have to look at the time and 510 minutes left we really need to know as accurately
as possible and also dear brothers and sisters this is a very important point it is a part of the
sunnah to eat and drink until a little bit before the other it is a part of the sunnah to do so and
there's nothing wrong with eating and drinking until the very event in fact so much so that our
prophet salallahu it he was selling there used to be two more events in medina by the way all of you
should know this there was bellard and there was even omen baktun rhodiola at home and bilad would
give the advan earlier than even a mimic tome there was some timeframe between the two of them and
		

			even amin mccune was blind and billa would give the other man and then after a while even omega two
would give deep athon and our prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that in erbil allen you are
the rubella in in bilaal gives the other man at night for kulu wash prabhu had you as in even a
mimic to go ahead and eat and drink until even a mimic tone gives the advantage and the difference
between the tour was only a few minutes according to some reports and according to others sometimes
you wait longer and because even maktoum was blind he would rely on somebody else to alert him that
they could see the visible white nation sometimes he would be late and people would say hey there's
		

			white there's whiteness i can see the dawn and so he would then give the other one so the prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam explicitly said go ahead and eat and drink even after the adana bilal
because bella is doing too early and even remember kim is doing it closer to the time and this shows
us that allah once ease for us and allah wants to make things not difficult for us and therefore
there is nothing wrong with figuring out basically as as accurately as we can when the exact time
when the stock time is and we then eat you know yes give one or two minutes gap or five minutes i
have no problem is good if you do that but in case you're not able to then go ahead and eat until
		

			that time so much so our prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that if the glass of water is in
one of your hands
		

			had the water had to drink it if the glass of water is in one of your hands and you hear the other
one go ahead and take your fill from it before you put it down so pamela that's how beautiful our
show is not that you intentionally delay drinking till you heard the other but what if you are
drinking and suppose this 535 in your calendar and you're like oh my god is 535 well the water is in
your hand it's like you just take the soup and put it down it's not to a millisecond it's uh you
know as accurate as you can but don't make islam more difficult than what the shetty wants it to be
so based upon this now let us see if we can take a quick look at a video about the different types
		

			of twilight's that and understand really what we're talking about astronomical twilight versus civil
twilight versus nautical twilight so let's put the video on okay this is a video that i found on
youtube and each second is a minute now this is nighttime okay you don't see any light now
astronomical trying to look how dark it is look how dark it is this is not the time of fudger not at
all look complete dark but see what's happening slowly the light is coming slowly we see it now
there's the full sun if you look carefully you can see the whitish bit coming there okay you can see
a little bit of a background if you like why'd you see that in there haha now you see you see close
		

			slowly is coming now nautical twilight begins you see this is now nautical then we keep on going
every second as a minute look at the time clock nautical twilight still this is nautical twilight
okay and then after nautical will be what will be the civil twilight look at how bright now the
civil is let's wait till the civil and you will see how much it is
		

			still more shallow still in an article here now we get to the civil look how bright it is you don't
even need any fake lights you don't need any this is still the sun has not risen and it is civil
twilight here okay this is now the sun is within 12 degrees and it's still coming until finally when
the sun actually we see the sun you will see the tip of the sun when the sun actually hits there
that's
		

			is when the actual there you see that colors Bismillah to Bartok Allah, then the federal time
finishes that is the actual dawn. Okay, so we can now come back over here now, I hope you understood
from this video this video is very, very, very clear to your brothers and sisters. And by the way
this is on YouTube, you can google it it's a very high definition somebody did it a mature well it
looks very professional Mashallah. But it's just one of our somebody put it put it online. And it's
a very good video that demonstrates the reality of what astronomical Dawn is. And again, I reiterate
astronomical dawn for our eyes is pitch black, pitch black, there is no actual federal saw that you
		

			cannot see it at astronomical dawn, and many of our
		

			earlier odema they gave the 18 degrees for two are based on their own original calculations. And
other ulama objected to that. And we're going to come to this point here that it is true that a lot
of of earlier councils did consider 18 degrees to be the time for failure. And one of the Muslim
astronomer historians by the name of Mohammed Helios, he has a book called astronomy of Islamic
times for the 21st century. And in this book, he says that 18 degrees was a commonly used value for
Fujian and Asia in the medieval period. And it was based on careful observation, okay, and quote,
valid point and I agree in my own I've done quite a lot of research in this regard. Yes, a lot of
		

			earlier, astronomers of the Muslim community did say 18 degrees, however, 18 degrees, what they're
talking about is not necessarily the timing of insock. It is the timing of astronomical dawn and
astronomical Dawn is not the same as him sack and a number of early authorities pointed this out,
including the famous polymath Abu rayhaan al biruni, who died 1048 By the way, I have an entire
lecture on a debate only if you log on to my YouTube channel, you can listen to the polymath al
biruni one of the greatest minds of the oma and I have an entire hour lecture about his life and
times biruni mentions that 15 degrees is the Islamic Twilight, he mentions the 15 degrees. Another
		

			early astronomer, Al Giannini, who died 1344 also mentions 15 degrees. And Albert genndy, who died
1528 also said that 15 is a better calculation for the insect. So we do have other scholars from
earlier timeframes mentioning that, hey, 18 isn't the exact time insock is actually after this
point. And they suggested the degrees of 15. And also, by the way, again, they're very the way that
they calculated and the exactly what they're calculating a number of modern Muslim astronomer
historians and scientists have pointed out that there is actually a very a number of variables from
our calculations to theirs. So we should take their numbers with a bit of a grain of salt. Now, in
		

			our times, throughout the world, groups of scholars, when I say scholars here, I mean, both through
the AMA. And astronomers have visually observed the timings of the msac the timings of the sunrise
and sunset. And generally speaking across the globe, the number 18 has not been verified. So by
visual sightings, the default is that it is not 18, it is less than 18. And one of the scholars of
the cane was either by name of Shahab, zsL fosun, who is one of my mentors and teachers may Allah
free him from prison, that he did a survey an extensive survey with a team of observers, and he went
out to the deserts of Riyadh. And he concluded that the actual fudgier began at begins at 15 degrees
		

			15 degrees. Also, a decade ago, a number of Jordanian scientists, most of them were actually
astronomers trained in astronomy, and one or two of them out. They went out into the Judean Desert
outside of Amman, and they published their findings, you can find it online. And they documented
that again, in their opinion. 15 degrees was a better angle for him sack in 1983, a group of Roma
from the UK, they documented their findings for a number of months, and I have a copy of that book.
And throughout the year, they documented it. And it varied from 12 degrees to 16 degrees throughout
the year, depending on the season from 12 degrees to 16 degrees. And similarly in 1988, another
		

			group from the UK called his boot roadmap, they published a report and again this is published, you
can find this and I have a copy of it as well, that they performed daily observations throughout the
entire year. And once again, there are a number of fuck fluctuated beginning from 12 degrees at some
times of the year. 12 degrees by the way, England is of course higher than us in America, right in
terms of latitude. And that's
		

			why as i said one number cannot be used globally it doesn't make sense one number cannot be used
globally and to just stick with 18 actually it doesn't even make astronomical sense but in any case
they documented that from season to season it varied and they went from 12 and yes during some
seasons at went up to 18 here in america moon sighting.com is one of the premier web sites that
collects data from around the the country and different observers in america and in canada have put
in their their observations to the the group of scientists that are these are all muslim astronomers
at musetti calm and they have calculated that for north america generally speaking the angle for
		

			frigid is 14.8 to 17.2 this is the general for north america and for asia they said 11 to 17
throughout the season it varies as well me personally i have a number of trusted friends and
colleagues of mine who in the deserts of california they they spent an entire month before 5g going
out and three or four people would stand in a line and they would write observations without talking
to one another so that they can then compare later on and they would independently record when they
saw the actual federal assault and generally speaking the average was once again 15 degrees plus or
minus 1.5 degrees so you know the average amongst them was closer to 15 than it was to 18 and so
		

			based upon all of these variables and all of these issues that i mentioned the fifth council of
north america which in your app is called isna actually isn't a simply follows the fifth council in
north america and the fifth council in north america is the oldest council the fifth are based in
north america and hamdulillah i'm one of the current members one of the younger members actually
there for senior scholars jimmy dr maas msdt dr zuber karate sha dr xena bologna many people are
there sheikh mustafa omar is there and others of the people of knowledge are there so the fifth
council in north america based on all of these factors that i have explained in the previous 2030
		

			minutes they have said that for north america this is not a global fatwa for north america meaning
usa and canada an average of 15 degrees is acceptable right this is acceptable an average of 15
degrees is acceptable and therefore the apps that you have if you put in isner you're going to get
15 degrees and if you put an omokoroa you will get 18 if you put another i don't want to mention by
forgot which one but one of them is like 13 degrees for example so depending on which of the names
that you put in because there are some councils around the globe one council in europe recommended
around 13 degrees for example and that's fine maybe for europe because we're going to come to this
		

			point in the second question today that europe is a different scenario and northern europe is a
different scenario than south africa for example right you cannot use the same number across the
entire globe and therefore based on all of this we conclude as follows that dear brother or sister
who is watching this was for information purposes only in the end you will follow your community
your government if it's a muslim government you are mufti follow the people of your town or your
locality however if it so happens that you do not have a unified land of muslims that you're in and
your own besides that have different and so one must you to the right of you has this other must you
		

			the left of you has that and you are completely you know confused what to do you should just simply
be aware that the fifth council of north america has recommended 15 degrees as a good average and if
you put that into your app and again this is only for north america each of the lines that is
especially extremely north or extremely south closer to the north or south pole they should ask
their local scholars about which degree fits best and i do know that as i said in some lands of
europe there are some councils that have gone less than 15 because again so if you go a higher
number you're going down so a higher number means that it's going to be earlier so an 18 degree 18
		

			degrees versus a 15 degrees might be a difference here in america i'm in the state of texas and in
texas the two charts between 18 and 15 typically are 20 minutes 20 minutes that's it 15 minutes
sometimes okay so 15 minutes 20 minutes it's not that big of a difference however if you were to go
to northern parts let's say of even canada right you go to some of those small places edmonton or
one of those you know places up there and in canada you might actually get a difference of an hour
or 15 minutes between 18 degrees versus 15 degrees and then in europe you might even get a
completely different reality altogether so in the end of this
		

			Today I hope that insha Allah this explains to you why there's a difference of opinion and that
there is no scientific equation, there is a vague estimation about which degree of angle should be
used when the sun is below the horizon. And for North America, the field Council of North America
recommends 15 degrees to be a reasonable estimate for the entire portion of the world that we live
in. And Allah subhana wa tada knows best