This question is about the timing of the fast. We normally, we say from dawn to dusk, and the time we fix here is one hour and twenty-five minutes before the sunrise. Forty minutes? One hour and forty minutes. Nowadays, yes. Yes. In Scotland, I was for years, and quite a number of times I saw there was never a real dawn. All night you can see light. Yes, I’ll explain that.
In fact, I have already made certain investigations in this regard, and I appointed Nasir Safir, who is a very responsible young man here in England, who is very devoted and also whatever you tell him, he does it with such, you know, honesty of purpose and attention. Because he is related to this, generally with this field, I told him to investigate. My line was, my line of thinking was that the Holy Quran deals with certain indications, appearing, some signs appearing in the heaven and earth, regarding the prayer timings and Ramadan, fast timings. If some of those signs are lacking, they are not present, then a problem is faced. How to solve that problem?
Now, Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Sayyidina Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, has himself answered this question, by telling an enquirer that when abnormal days appear, then you should go according to your judgement of the ordinary days. Judge the prayer timings, etc., in accordance with ordinary days. Don’t follow one lengthy day of six months or so and say only just five prayers. That is what he meant. He said you have to say five prayers every 24 hours, judging by the ordinary days. That means to say that you have to fix the prayer timings arbitrarily there.
So, there are parts of the world where this instruction becomes operative. Now, how to find those parts, scientifically, and how to educate the Jamaat on this head, this was the main problem facing us. So I told Nasir Shafiq Sahib to prepare a regular table, indicating the latitude from which onwards to the north, the possibility of abnormal nights appears during Ramadan. And also prepare a full spectrum of the abnormal nights from which date to which date. The nights can be positively, scientifically declared to be abnormal nights.
In those nights the Ahmadis should be expected to fix their own timings of Maghrib and Isha, of the period of sleep, period of waking up, and the Fajr prayer. Because as far as the signs mentioned in the Holy Quran are concerned, they would not appear, and they can’t tell Isha apart from Tahajjud. They can’t tell Tahajjud apart from morning prayer. So, because already Allah has instructed us on this, it was only for us to further explore the avenue and find out in detail what we are expected to do.
So he has already prepared a table. In fact he prepared so many tables, so far after discussing them and examining them in detail, we ultimately rejected them. There are some problems attendant upon this. The main problem which we faced was that there are three different definitions of dawn, and dusk of course. According to the civil definition, the dawn appears when the sun is at six degrees from the earth’s horizon.
Now, if we follow that, then this does not tally with the Quranic description of the dawn at all. Then there is another definition of dawn, which is called astronomical dawn. If we follow that, then again it misses by some margin the Quranic description of dawn. There is another description, scientific description of dawn, which is called nautical dawn, which stands in the middle. Civil dawn starts from six degrees. The astronomical dawn begins or is defined at 18 degrees angle. And the nautical dawn stands in the middle, that is 12 degrees. So when the sun makes an angle of 12 degrees, at that moment the dawn would appear or dusk would end.
So when we compared this, you know, we took a lot of time comparing these with various values which emerged in different parts of the world. We also came to conclude that no universal definition can be accepted by us, because this definition applies differently to different parts of the world. If you accept, for instance, this definition of dawn, that is nautical dawn, then it will not be applicable in Rabwah. Because there, the duration of dawn is longer than the set duration of dawn according to this definition. In extreme north, it will also not be applicable because the duration of dawn there, according to this definition, would be much longer than expected, ordinarily.
So, still, in the inhabited parts of the world, we have come to notice that starting from 52nd degree latitude north, up to the end, that is up to the parts where there is habitation in the world, so I think it was 72 degrees or so, you fixed, or 76 degrees. So between 52 degrees latitude north and 76 degrees latitude north, there are times, periods, during the year, where the Quranic signs as guidelines for keeping fast and starting fast or ending fast do not appear. And they vary from month to month.
So the first time they appear in May on the 52nd latitude. So from that definition, if we accept, I am further investigating it and pondering over the question, almost I have made up my mind that this would be a good guideline. That starting from 52nd latitude upwards, and Glasgow would be included in that, there would be a few days during this Ramadan, where we can positively say they are not normal days according to the definition of the Holy Quran. Do you follow this? And that perhaps would start on the 11th or a bit earlier. No, no, I am not talking of Ramadan, I am talking of abnormal nights. 12th here in London. I am talking now of 52nd degree, this is 49th degree plus 50, 49 and a half degrees London latitude.
But now when we are going northwards, so there the starting point would be different. It would not tell you the London point. But he already I think has prepared a table which you can have access to. Tomorrow maybe I will give him time to finalise this issue. Then instructions will be issued to all the Jamaat northwards of 52nd latitude. So during those days which are abnormal days, you will have to fix your own times for Maghrib and Isha and Tahajjud and eating and starting prayer, which will not be the normal times observed elsewhere. Follow this? Most of the Ramadan would fall in that category this year inshallah. Also that would happen in Oslo. Oslo is just beyond you in latitude, isn’t it?
