Questioner: My second question is that recently, I mean less than 24 hours ago, the pictures from the Halley’s Comet were received, and one of the commentators who was describing various things about it, he named four people who in the past have seen the comet. I only remember three names out of this, one he said Tolstoy, the Russian fighter, and the other he said Alexander the Great, and the very first person he named was the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa).
Huzoor (rh): He also saw this?
Questioner: That’s right, yes. While he was preaching he saw this comet, and he said it in the very first thing, and then he named four more people out of which I remember three.
Huzoor (rh): No, but first it has to be established that this comet appeared during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (sa), and a list, I mean a chronological data has been prepared on computer by an American scientist, and this is the first near correct data or almost correct data which has ever been prepared by any scientist, and he took a very long time in collecting the facts and also scientifically calculating backwards, although it is generally known that it takes about seventy-six years for the comet to appear.
But it is not as simple as that to work backwards, because there are other factors involved, other influences of meteors and things which have been taking place, and magnetic fields and so on and so forth, cosmic explosions of many sorts, so you have to take all of them into account and then work on how much influence they created on the comet’s reappearance, whether they delayed it or brought it earlier. So putting all that data into a computer, he ultimately succeeded in working back the exact dates of the comet. So you better check it from that if it is available, and then we can say positively whether it ever appeared or not.
Questioner: Yes. Huzoor, I was anyhow going to go into the details, but I was trying to find out whether in the history of Islam, is there something mentioned, anything as such?
Huzoor (rh): No, I don’t, except for a reference in tradition about some stars appearing, and the Prophet (sa) telling them, you know a star was seen at the death of Hazrat Ibrahim, the son of the Prophet (sa).
And people started talking that this star appeared because this great event was to take place and there was a tragic event of the Prophet’s (sa) son’s death. So the Prophet (sa) dispelled all these superstitions by declaring that the coming and going of stars, their appearance and disappearance, have nothing to do with the death of people on earth, the births and deaths of people on earth. So that is the reference I remember, the rest I don’t know, it may have to be investigated further.
Questioner: Inshallah. Assalamu alaikum.
