Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Monday, 7 December 2009
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Skepticus Maximus
In the comments section of the article below on the DT website, someone called Skepticus Maximus said (and it includes some really amazing figures):
I read a (re-purposed) quote the other day re the climate alarmist conspiracy which went something along the lines of “....if someone repeats something loud enough, long enough and often enough, sooner or later the masses will accept it as fact...” – And this is precisely what has happened re AGW, esp with the mass media censure of any real balanced debate. Gormless Brown, Nic Sarkastic, Al Bore and all those other gullible idiots have either, (at best), picked up the undetermined fag end of an issue several years ago and decided to run with and champion the liberal do-gooder / “save the planet” element to win public vote, with save drowning polar bear approbation. As the politicos naively thought this was an open and shut case (and didn’t bother to acid test the motivations (let alone data) of ego-maniacal eco “experts” (and in which many science “experts” are often ego-nuts with esteem issues, bent on proving themselves right and being “cleverer” than their peers in my experience), who are gravy-train grant funded precisely to seek out confirmation bias to support the empathised political agenda / hand that feeds).
Or, at worst, (just as likely), the political elite didn’t even care about the “inconvenient truth” of this being emperor’s new clothes, but knew it was yet another of those golden, once-a-decade opportunities to distract and dupe the proletariat whilst achieving command and control with addition direct and stealth taxation and power gain.
A concept covered in depth in Naomi Klein’s interesting, (but flawed, rather verbose (could’ve been a mag article) and also a bit too militant left-wing for my liking, “Shock Doctrine” book – which can be summed up nicely (via someone else’s’ review words) in one para as:- `...a book about shock. About how countries are shocked - by wars, terror attacks, coups d'etat and natural disasters . And then they are shocked again - by corporations and politicians who exploit their fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy. And then how people who dare to resist these shock politics are, if necessary, shocked for a third time - by laws, police soldiers and prison officers...'
But it’s a perfect analogy. Climate Change is an “unnatural disaster” now all of a sudden. Mankind controls the planet, such is our scientific pre-eminence (despite not even yet being able to cure the common cold). So just drop the following into the government controlled left wing news media in regular doses:- “...the earth is melting. FACT. Another 3 degrees (which doesn’t sound much given most of the sheep listening turn their car AC up and down by double that) and London & NY WILL be underwater and everywhere else will be desert – FACT. It’s all down to man – FACT (here’s a picture of a chimney belching out smoke – you’ve all seen a chimney right?, and there were four days of relatively warm weather in June right?, so it must be true. FACT). Plus here’s a list of 1,000 scientists you’ve never heard of (all left of centre sympathisers on research grants), who say it must be so. So it must be so. FACT – though you’ll never get to hear from the other 1,000 scientists with a neutral or opposing view as we and their peers will see to it they never get print or air time (apart from the odd loon we’ll roll out to ridicule and prove a point every now and then). And, before you know it, the earth is flat again! – FACT. And you, cowering, fearful, guilty and responsible children of the apocalypse, will have to pay for it in extra taxes to file down those sharp corners, revert to a mediaeval lifestyle for five generations and also keep schtum re any creeping doubt or slight dissent for fear of public ridicule, being made a social pariah or just plain fines or good old arrest for heresy.
What really galls me, is the machiavellian deviousness of the AGW acolytes. To the extent, JUST like religious fundamentalism, they are so arrogant, narrow minded and corrupt they don’t want to entertain any balanced debate whatsoever or have an open mind, but seek to crush and ridicule any opposition to their gravy train and eco-jihad by resorting to spoiler tactics and outright lying.
It’s also rather pathetic that in the process of brainwashing themselves and the mass public, CO2 has been turned into some metaphor for smog, soot - practically coal itself - being emitted from cars, planes and even our mouths. When in fact it is an invisible, tasteless, odourless, non toxic gas found naturally in the atmosphere which plants and trees feed on. But it has been wrapped up with blurred concepts of smoke, dirt, lethal carbon monoxide, rubbish, toxic pollutants et al. Something most AGW fanatics tend to forget when happily drinking fizzy water, beer, coke et al whilst enjoying their cold hemp and gravel salad by torchlight.
Real pollution by man and damage to the environment, de-forestation, destruction of natural habitat, accelerated extinction of species, using the oceans as a waste bin, food chain and ecology bastardisation et al, is not in debate, is not acceptable and needs to be dealt with, it’s a fact. That the planet has warmed is also not in debate. It does this, and cools down, all by itself on a regular basis – and has done, for millions of years. That’s also a FACT. (Though the AGW posse like to gloss over the fact is was rather a lot warmer, for a LONG time, only a 1,000 years ago in the mediaeval warm period, when the Vikings had settlements on grass meadows in Greenland, and to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t get there by EasyJet). But what should be in debate is that it is NOT a FACT that man-made C02 is causing any appreciable global warming or climate change. It’s a hypothesis, nothing more, and a pretty dubious one at that, with lots of shaky data obtained and massaged by nefarious means into shock and awe graphs to serve a political purpose.
Here’s a REAL fact to end with, which even the AGW lobby can’t dispute (well, unless they start providing “evidence” that the 78% nitrogen in the atmosphere is produced from toasters).
• Man made carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere each year – 28.5 billion tons p.a. - Sounds quite a lot.....until....
• Natural (plants, volcanoes, hot springs, oceans, animals et al) C02 emissions – 255 billion tons p.a.
• Amount of C02 at natural equilibrium in the atmosphere – 21 trillion tons [Mahdi: Allah Akbar! We humans are so insignificant. Can a drop in the ocean poison the entire ocean?]
• Total volume of atmosphere – 5.5 quadrillion tons
• Percentage of all man-made C02 as additional gas in entire atmosphere – 0.0000518% [Mahdi: Allah!]
And yet the climate alarmist experts can, with a straight face, confidently predict that a “catalyst” such as C02 (already naturally and safely found in volumes 1,000x mankind’s entire annual output) can, by an additional dose of a further 0.0000518% alone, be responsible for a planet-wide increase in temperature of between 20-50% (3-6 degrees over the 15c avg for past 1000 yrs, if alarmists extrapolations are to be believed), and the resulting total cataclysmic change to every known environment (down to the precise amount of sea-level change), in a linear extrapolation for the next 50-100 years, when meteorologists with supercomputers consistently fail to get the local 48hr weather forecast correct on more than 60% of occasions, every single day. But they suddenly have the skill, science and equipment to form a prognosis based literally on the effects of a drop in the ocean.... yeah, right.....
[Absolutely brilliant]
I read a (re-purposed) quote the other day re the climate alarmist conspiracy which went something along the lines of “....if someone repeats something loud enough, long enough and often enough, sooner or later the masses will accept it as fact...” – And this is precisely what has happened re AGW, esp with the mass media censure of any real balanced debate. Gormless Brown, Nic Sarkastic, Al Bore and all those other gullible idiots have either, (at best), picked up the undetermined fag end of an issue several years ago and decided to run with and champion the liberal do-gooder / “save the planet” element to win public vote, with save drowning polar bear approbation. As the politicos naively thought this was an open and shut case (and didn’t bother to acid test the motivations (let alone data) of ego-maniacal eco “experts” (and in which many science “experts” are often ego-nuts with esteem issues, bent on proving themselves right and being “cleverer” than their peers in my experience), who are gravy-train grant funded precisely to seek out confirmation bias to support the empathised political agenda / hand that feeds).
Or, at worst, (just as likely), the political elite didn’t even care about the “inconvenient truth” of this being emperor’s new clothes, but knew it was yet another of those golden, once-a-decade opportunities to distract and dupe the proletariat whilst achieving command and control with addition direct and stealth taxation and power gain.
A concept covered in depth in Naomi Klein’s interesting, (but flawed, rather verbose (could’ve been a mag article) and also a bit too militant left-wing for my liking, “Shock Doctrine” book – which can be summed up nicely (via someone else’s’ review words) in one para as:- `...a book about shock. About how countries are shocked - by wars, terror attacks, coups d'etat and natural disasters . And then they are shocked again - by corporations and politicians who exploit their fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy. And then how people who dare to resist these shock politics are, if necessary, shocked for a third time - by laws, police soldiers and prison officers...'
But it’s a perfect analogy. Climate Change is an “unnatural disaster” now all of a sudden. Mankind controls the planet, such is our scientific pre-eminence (despite not even yet being able to cure the common cold). So just drop the following into the government controlled left wing news media in regular doses:- “...the earth is melting. FACT. Another 3 degrees (which doesn’t sound much given most of the sheep listening turn their car AC up and down by double that) and London & NY WILL be underwater and everywhere else will be desert – FACT. It’s all down to man – FACT (here’s a picture of a chimney belching out smoke – you’ve all seen a chimney right?, and there were four days of relatively warm weather in June right?, so it must be true. FACT). Plus here’s a list of 1,000 scientists you’ve never heard of (all left of centre sympathisers on research grants), who say it must be so. So it must be so. FACT – though you’ll never get to hear from the other 1,000 scientists with a neutral or opposing view as we and their peers will see to it they never get print or air time (apart from the odd loon we’ll roll out to ridicule and prove a point every now and then). And, before you know it, the earth is flat again! – FACT. And you, cowering, fearful, guilty and responsible children of the apocalypse, will have to pay for it in extra taxes to file down those sharp corners, revert to a mediaeval lifestyle for five generations and also keep schtum re any creeping doubt or slight dissent for fear of public ridicule, being made a social pariah or just plain fines or good old arrest for heresy.
What really galls me, is the machiavellian deviousness of the AGW acolytes. To the extent, JUST like religious fundamentalism, they are so arrogant, narrow minded and corrupt they don’t want to entertain any balanced debate whatsoever or have an open mind, but seek to crush and ridicule any opposition to their gravy train and eco-jihad by resorting to spoiler tactics and outright lying.
It’s also rather pathetic that in the process of brainwashing themselves and the mass public, CO2 has been turned into some metaphor for smog, soot - practically coal itself - being emitted from cars, planes and even our mouths. When in fact it is an invisible, tasteless, odourless, non toxic gas found naturally in the atmosphere which plants and trees feed on. But it has been wrapped up with blurred concepts of smoke, dirt, lethal carbon monoxide, rubbish, toxic pollutants et al. Something most AGW fanatics tend to forget when happily drinking fizzy water, beer, coke et al whilst enjoying their cold hemp and gravel salad by torchlight.
Real pollution by man and damage to the environment, de-forestation, destruction of natural habitat, accelerated extinction of species, using the oceans as a waste bin, food chain and ecology bastardisation et al, is not in debate, is not acceptable and needs to be dealt with, it’s a fact. That the planet has warmed is also not in debate. It does this, and cools down, all by itself on a regular basis – and has done, for millions of years. That’s also a FACT. (Though the AGW posse like to gloss over the fact is was rather a lot warmer, for a LONG time, only a 1,000 years ago in the mediaeval warm period, when the Vikings had settlements on grass meadows in Greenland, and to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t get there by EasyJet). But what should be in debate is that it is NOT a FACT that man-made C02 is causing any appreciable global warming or climate change. It’s a hypothesis, nothing more, and a pretty dubious one at that, with lots of shaky data obtained and massaged by nefarious means into shock and awe graphs to serve a political purpose.
Here’s a REAL fact to end with, which even the AGW lobby can’t dispute (well, unless they start providing “evidence” that the 78% nitrogen in the atmosphere is produced from toasters).
• Man made carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere each year – 28.5 billion tons p.a. - Sounds quite a lot.....until....
• Natural (plants, volcanoes, hot springs, oceans, animals et al) C02 emissions – 255 billion tons p.a.
• Amount of C02 at natural equilibrium in the atmosphere – 21 trillion tons [Mahdi: Allah Akbar! We humans are so insignificant. Can a drop in the ocean poison the entire ocean?]
• Total volume of atmosphere – 5.5 quadrillion tons
• Percentage of all man-made C02 as additional gas in entire atmosphere – 0.0000518% [Mahdi: Allah!]
And yet the climate alarmist experts can, with a straight face, confidently predict that a “catalyst” such as C02 (already naturally and safely found in volumes 1,000x mankind’s entire annual output) can, by an additional dose of a further 0.0000518% alone, be responsible for a planet-wide increase in temperature of between 20-50% (3-6 degrees over the 15c avg for past 1000 yrs, if alarmists extrapolations are to be believed), and the resulting total cataclysmic change to every known environment (down to the precise amount of sea-level change), in a linear extrapolation for the next 50-100 years, when meteorologists with supercomputers consistently fail to get the local 48hr weather forecast correct on more than 60% of occasions, every single day. But they suddenly have the skill, science and equipment to form a prognosis based literally on the effects of a drop in the ocean.... yeah, right.....
[Absolutely brilliant]
Monday, 30 November 2009
Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
CO2 emissions will be on top of the agenda at the Copenhagen summit in December Photo: Getty
A week after my colleague James Delingpole , on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.
The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC's key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.
Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.
Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.
Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the "hockey stick" were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre , an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann's supporters, calling themselves "the Hockey Team", and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.
The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC's scientific elite, including not just the "Hockey Team", such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore's ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.
There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That ), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.
They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.
This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.
But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.
In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.
What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.
The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.
Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre's demolition of the "hockey stick", he excoriated the way in which this same "tightly knit group" of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to "peer review" each other's papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.
The former Chancellor Lord (Nigel) Lawson, last week launching his new think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation , rightly called for a proper independent inquiry into the maze of skulduggery revealed by the CRU leaks. But the inquiry mooted on Friday, possibly to be chaired by Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society – itself long a shameless propagandist for the warmist cause – is far from being what Lord Lawson had in mind. Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.
Christopher Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History? (Continuum, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £14.99 plus £1.25 p & p.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Beware the UN's Copenhagen Plot
Assalaam alaykum,
Please read this article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,26268754-17803,00.html
The upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen is really nothing other then the setting up of a world government. We seek refuge in Allah.
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
Please read this article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,26268754-17803,00.html
The upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen is really nothing other then the setting up of a world government. We seek refuge in Allah.
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Online Maliki Fiqh
Assalaam alaykum,
For those of you who follow the Maliki school, maybe you would be interested in some free online classes with a qualified teacher.
Please vist The Medina Way: http://www.themedinaway.com/site/
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
For those of you who follow the Maliki school, maybe you would be interested in some free online classes with a qualified teacher.
Please vist The Medina Way: http://www.themedinaway.com/site/
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
Thursday, 24 September 2009
An interesting article amount feminism
Assalaam alaykum,
Please have a look at the linked article. I was unable to copy and paste it and remove the pictures but it is a very interesting perspective on what feminism is doing the institution of the family.
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1215464/Why-I-loathe-feminism---believe-ultimately-destroy-family.html?ITO=1490#
Please have a look at the linked article. I was unable to copy and paste it and remove the pictures but it is a very interesting perspective on what feminism is doing the institution of the family.
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1215464/Why-I-loathe-feminism---believe-ultimately-destroy-family.html?ITO=1490#
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Shafi'i Fiqh website
Assalaam alaykum,
Alhamdulilah, a group of brothers have come together and made a wesbite dedicated to the fiqh of Imam Ash-Shafi'i. The website has only been up and running for a few weeks but they already have several very beneficial articles.
Please don't take my word for it. Have a look for yourself: http://www.shafiifiqh.com/
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
Alhamdulilah, a group of brothers have come together and made a wesbite dedicated to the fiqh of Imam Ash-Shafi'i. The website has only been up and running for a few weeks but they already have several very beneficial articles.
Please don't take my word for it. Have a look for yourself: http://www.shafiifiqh.com/
Assalaam alaykum,
Mahdi
Thursday, 3 September 2009
The European "Fatwa" Council and the start of Ramadan
Assalaam alaykum,
To begin, the word "fatwa" is written as such because the European Fatwa Council is not a genuine fatwa council. Shaikh Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Bouti, in a lecture at the Islamic University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 23/03/2007, explained that before using the term "fatwa council" or "fiqh council" all the members on the council must be fuqaha or muftis, and this is simply not the case with this so-called European Fatwa Council. Very few of the members are genuine muftis. You can view the lecture at http://www.marifah.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=71
Now, on the matter of moon sighting and Ramadan, this so-called fatwa council have said the following: [the original document can be found here: http://www.leedsgrandmosque.com/archive/fatwa-ramadan-en.pdf]
[European Council for Fatwa and Research
Statement on Determiniing the Start off the Bllessed Month off Ramadhan ffor the year 1430 Hiijjrii..
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds and peace and blessings be upon the one who was sent by Allah as a mercy to the worlds, upon his household, companions, and those who follow his path until the Day of Judgment.
The Secretariat General of the European Council for Fatwa and Research takes the opportunity of these blessed days to call on all the Muslims to hold fast to the rope of Allah (the most high), unite and gather together and remember the saying of Allah (the most high): “Hold fast, all of you, to the rope of Allah, and be not divided. Remember the blessing of Allah upon you: When you were enemies to each other, and He brought your hearts together, so that, you became brothers through His blessing. You were at the brink of a pit of Fire,
then He saved you from it. This is how Allah makes His signs clear to you, so that you may take the right path.” 3:103.
Perhaps the month of Ramadhan can be an opportunity for the Muslims to make up for that which they missed by bettering their conditions, establishing unity, and forsaking that which divides them so that Allah may change their circumstances to that which is better – “Surely, Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they change themselves.” 13:11.
The Secretariat General would like to emphasize the decision passed by the International Fiqh Academy, resolution number 18, during its third assembly in 1986 which stated that - La ‘ibra fi Ikhtilaf Al-matali’ – which means that no importance should be given to the different sighting-zones and if the crescent is sighted in any zone, it is binding for all other zones. This is due to the generality of the speech (‘umum Al-Khitab) of the prophet PBUH1: “Fast by seeing it and end the fast by seeing it”2. In addition, the European Council for Fatwa and Research in its nineteenth session highlighted the following with regards to establishing the start of the
lunar months: ]
Iktilaaf al-Matali' is actually the mu'tamad position of the Shafi'i school and can be found in Imam an-Nawawi's Al-Majmu' in volume 6, p.273. One can also consult Imam an-Nawawi's commentary of Sahih Muslim, particularly the hadith of Kuraib and Ibn 'Abbas:
To begin, the word "fatwa" is written as such because the European Fatwa Council is not a genuine fatwa council. Shaikh Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Bouti, in a lecture at the Islamic University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 23/03/2007, explained that before using the term "fatwa council" or "fiqh council" all the members on the council must be fuqaha or muftis, and this is simply not the case with this so-called European Fatwa Council. Very few of the members are genuine muftis. You can view the lecture at http://www.marifah.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=71
Now, on the matter of moon sighting and Ramadan, this so-called fatwa council have said the following: [the original document can be found here: http://www.leedsgrandmosque.com/archive/fatwa-ramadan-en.pdf]
[European Council for Fatwa and Research
Statement on Determiniing the Start off the Bllessed Month off Ramadhan ffor the year 1430 Hiijjrii..
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds and peace and blessings be upon the one who was sent by Allah as a mercy to the worlds, upon his household, companions, and those who follow his path until the Day of Judgment.
The Secretariat General of the European Council for Fatwa and Research takes the opportunity of these blessed days to call on all the Muslims to hold fast to the rope of Allah (the most high), unite and gather together and remember the saying of Allah (the most high): “Hold fast, all of you, to the rope of Allah, and be not divided. Remember the blessing of Allah upon you: When you were enemies to each other, and He brought your hearts together, so that, you became brothers through His blessing. You were at the brink of a pit of Fire,
then He saved you from it. This is how Allah makes His signs clear to you, so that you may take the right path.” 3:103.
Perhaps the month of Ramadhan can be an opportunity for the Muslims to make up for that which they missed by bettering their conditions, establishing unity, and forsaking that which divides them so that Allah may change their circumstances to that which is better – “Surely, Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they change themselves.” 13:11.
The Secretariat General would like to emphasize the decision passed by the International Fiqh Academy, resolution number 18, during its third assembly in 1986 which stated that - La ‘ibra fi Ikhtilaf Al-matali’ – which means that no importance should be given to the different sighting-zones and if the crescent is sighted in any zone, it is binding for all other zones. This is due to the generality of the speech (‘umum Al-Khitab) of the prophet PBUH1: “Fast by seeing it and end the fast by seeing it”2. In addition, the European Council for Fatwa and Research in its nineteenth session highlighted the following with regards to establishing the start of the
lunar months: ]
Iktilaaf al-Matali' is actually the mu'tamad position of the Shafi'i school and can be found in Imam an-Nawawi's Al-Majmu' in volume 6, p.273. One can also consult Imam an-Nawawi's commentary of Sahih Muslim, particularly the hadith of Kuraib and Ibn 'Abbas:
5. The Chapter clarifying that for every locality is their own sighting and if they see the crescent in a locality its ruling is not established for those who are far from them.
(#1087) Yahya bin Yahya has related to us, and Yahya ibn Ayyub, and Qutaybah, and Ibn Hujr (he said Yahya bin Yahya: informed us, while others said: Ismael related to us, and he is Ibn Ja’far) from Muhammad (and he is Ibn Abi Harmalah) from Kuraib, that Umm al-Fadl, the daughter of al-Harith, sent him to Muawiyah in Sham. He said: ‘I arrived in Sham. I carried out her [Umm al-Fadl] task and the month of Ramadan came in, and I was in Sham. I saw the crescent on Friday night. Then I arrived in Madinah towards the end of the month. ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas y asked me. Then he mentioned the crescent and said: “When did you see the crescent?” I said: “We saw it on Friday night.” He said: “You saw it?” I said: “Yes. The people saw it. They fasted and Muawiyah fasted.” He said: “But we saw it on Saturday night, and we will not stop fasting until we complete thirty days, or we see it.” I said: “Isn’t the sighting of Muawiyah and his fasting sufficient for us?” He said: “No, and this is what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him, commanded us.
Yahya bin Yahya was not sure whether he said ‘sufficient for us’ or sufficient for you’.
Imam an-Nawawi: In this [chapter] is the hadith of Kuraib from Ibn ‘Abbas and it is clear evidence of the Tarjima and the strongest position amongst our companions is that the sighting is not general for all people, but rather it is specific to whoever is close by a distance in which one does not shorten the prayer. It is also said that if there is agreement of the region they are necessitated. It is also said that if the locale (iqleem) agrees [they must fast] and if not then no. Some of our companions hold that the sighting is general for all the people of the earth, and regarding this we say that Ibn ‘Abbas did not act on the information of Kuraib because it was one testimony and it cannot be established by one person. However, the outward purport of the hadith is that he [Ibn ‘Abbas] did not reject it for this reason but he only rejected it because the ruling of the sighting cannot be established for those far away.
[Taken from Sahih Muslim bi Sharh an-Nawawi v.7 p.172]
Imam an-Nawawi is being fair as he mentions the different positions. As for this counterfeit fatwa council, they choose to completely dismiss the mu'tamad position of the Shafi'i school, even though it comes from Imam an-Nawawi, who is a giant and a genuine faqih and mufti.
[1) Astronomical calculations have become one of the modern sciences which have reached a high level of
accuracy with regards to the movement of planets, especially the movement of the moon and earth.
Indeed, such calculations are able to decisively establish the relative position of planets in the sky and in
relation to other planets without any doubt or suspicion. ]
Another problem. This understanding flies in the face of what this Deen is all about. Imam an-Nawawi, a genuine mufti and faqih, quotes the great Maliki scholar, Imam Al-Maziri, also a genuine mufti and faqih:
[1) Astronomical calculations have become one of the modern sciences which have reached a high level of
accuracy with regards to the movement of planets, especially the movement of the moon and earth.
Indeed, such calculations are able to decisively establish the relative position of planets in the sky and in
relation to other planets without any doubt or suspicion. ]
Another problem. This understanding flies in the face of what this Deen is all about. Imam an-Nawawi, a genuine mufti and faqih, quotes the great Maliki scholar, Imam Al-Maziri, also a genuine mufti and faqih:
'Al-Mazari said: ‘The majority of jurists hold that the meaning of his saying e ‘faqduru lahu’ is to complete the number as thirty as has been explained in the other hadith. They say: “It is not permissible to hold that it means the calculations of the astronomers because the people, if they are made responsible for this, will be put in a difficult situation because only a few people know [the science of astronomy] and the legislation is that the people know what the masses of them know, and Allah knows best.'
[Sahih Muslim bi Sharh an-Nawawi v.7 p.165-7]
The point being is that this Deen is the property of the laymen, not the scholars. What this counterfeit council is doing is making this Deen complicated for the laymen, placing them in hardship, and depriving them of the beautiful Sunnah of moon sighting, because moon sighting can be done by anyone.
[2) The time in which the Sun, Earth, and the Moon are aligned is called `iqtiran (and is sometimes also named istisrar, or `al-mahaq). This is a universal phenomenon which takes place at a specific time. This moment can be very accurately calculated according to the science of astronomy years before it takes place. This event indicates the end of the previous month and astronomically the start of the new month. `iqtiran can
occur at any time during the day or night. ]
[3) According to Shari’ah, the start of the new month can be established if the following conditions are fulfilled:
1. `iqtiran must have truly taken place before sunset.
2. The crescent is possible to be sighted by the naked eye or with the aid of observational tools anywhere on earth regardless of the sighting-zone, due to the generality in the prophetic speech on the start and end of fast. (La ‘ibra fi Ikhtilaf Al-matali’)
3. to accept the possibility to sight the crescent the following astronomical conditions must be fulfilled:
A) The crescent must set after sunset in the zone where it can be sighted.
B) The angle of the crescent’s position above the horizon at sunset must not be less than (5°) five
degrees.
C) The angle formed by the moon and the sun must be at least (8°) eight degrees. ]
occur at any time during the day or night. ]
[3) According to Shari’ah, the start of the new month can be established if the following conditions are fulfilled:
1. `iqtiran must have truly taken place before sunset.
2. The crescent is possible to be sighted by the naked eye or with the aid of observational tools anywhere on earth regardless of the sighting-zone, due to the generality in the prophetic speech on the start and end of fast. (La ‘ibra fi Ikhtilaf Al-matali’)
3. to accept the possibility to sight the crescent the following astronomical conditions must be fulfilled:
A) The crescent must set after sunset in the zone where it can be sighted.
B) The angle of the crescent’s position above the horizon at sunset must not be less than (5°) five
degrees.
C) The angle formed by the moon and the sun must be at least (8°) eight degrees. ]
Point 2 is incorrect. Ramadan, like all months of the lunar calendar, can only be established by the crescent being physically sighted. The possibility of it being seen or if it is seen with observational tools is simply not good enough. Imam Muslim and Imam an-Nawawi state the following:
2. The Chapter on the obligation of fasting Ramadan upon seeing the crescent and breaking it upon seeing the crescent and if it is obscured at the beginning or the end the month is completed as thirty days.
(#1080) Yahya bin Yahya has related to us. He said: ‘I read under Malik, from Nafi’, from Ibn ‘Umar y, from the Prophet e, that he mentioned Ramadan and said: “Don’t fast until you see the crescent, and don’t break [your fast] until you see it. And if it is obscured from you then count it (faqduru lahu).”
Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaibah related to us. Abu Usamah related to us. ‘Ubaid Allah related to us from Nafi’, from Ibn ‘Umar y, that the Messenger of Allah e mentioned Ramadan and brought his hands together, saying: ‘The month is such and such and such (and he tied his thumbs when saying the third) so fast upon seeing it and break [your fast] upon seeing it, and if it is obscured from you then count (faqdiru lahu) thirty.’
Imam an-Nawawi: (faqduru lahu) In an narration we have ‘count 30 days’, and in another narration we have ‘If you see the crescent fast and if you see it break [your fast] and if it is obscured from you then count it.’ In another narration: ‘If it is obscured from you then fast thirty days.’ In another narration: ‘If it is obscured from you then complete the number.’ In another narration: ‘If the month is obscured from you then count thirty.’ In another narration: ‘If it is obscured from you then count thirty.’
These ahadith are not necessarily interpreted because they don't need to be. Seeing means seeing. It's interesting that this council chooses to use the same ahadith to dismiss the differing of sighting zones but they don't understand the ahadith to mean the pure, physical sighting of the moon. As an additional point, claiming that we only need to know that the crescent moon is there, using the argument that the verb ra’aa can also mean ‘to know’ based on Surah al-Fil [105] verse 1, is flawed because a semantic possibility is not the same as a contextual possibility, the former being not as restricted in number as the latter. If we wish to explore the semantic possibilities of ra’aa why not look at Surah as-Saffaat [37] verses 102-5, in which we see the same verb, and its noun, being used to mean ‘an opinion’ and to mean ‘a dream’. The same can be found in Surah Yusuf [12] verse 4-5. The ahadith about moon sighting, as with any text, must be understood in context. If not, we allow for the possibility that our lunar calendar could be based on people having dreams about the moon.
[4) Muslims in Europe should follow this principle when determining the start and the end of the lunar months especially the two months of Ramadhan and Shawwal. These dates should be established in advance in order to help them better perform and organise their worship and what linked to it from festivals and celebrations in the societies that they live in. ]
Establishing these dates in advance is innovation. This is not what we have been commanded to do. Please see Sahih Muslim bi Sharh An-Nawawi v.7 p.165-7. All months, not just Ramadan and Shawwal, are determined by the physical, naked-eye sighting of the moon. If it seen after 29 days then then month is 29 days. If it isn't seen the month is 30 days. It's that simple.
[5) The council advises its members, the Imams of the mosques, and the scholars of Shari’ah in Muslim and other communities to work on establishing a culture of respect for the decisiveness and accuracy of the astronomical calculations when it decides that sighting in their own geographical zone is not possible, because of the absence of `iqtiran. In such circumstances, calling to attempt sighting of the crescent or accepting claims for sighting in that zone is not acceptable. Based on the above the Secretariat General for the European Council for Fatwa and Research announces that with regards to the sighting of the crescent of the blessed month of Ramadhan for the year 1430 Hijri /2009 Gregorian the available astronomical data confirms the following:]
This counterfeit council is effectively encouraging believers to dismiss the Sunnah in favour of innovation. Naked-eye, physical moon sighting has served this Ummah for over a millennium, so why should it be dismissed now? Please see Imam al-Mazari's statement above. If one actually holds the position that astronomical calculations are superior to naked-eye moon sighting, i.e. believing them to be superior to what we have in the Sunnah of our Beloved Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, then this is a belittling of the Sunnah. This Deen is complete and can be applied in every time and place. Please see Al-Ma'idah 5:3. Believing that this Deen is somehow incomplete is kufr.
[1) The crescent of the month of Ramadhan for the year 1430 Hijri will be born at 10:02 and 35 seconds GMT on Thursday 20th August 2009. This is at 13:02 and 35 second according to Makkah Al- Mukarramah local time.
2) Sighting is possible in large parts of south west Latin America. For example, in the city of San Diego the
sun sets at 18:17 while the moon sets at 18:51, that is 33 minutes after sunset. The crescent’s position above the horizon will be more than 5 degrees. In the city of Lima, Peru, the sun will set at 18:05 and the moon sets at 18:31, that is 26 minutes after sunset and its position above the horizon is 6 degrees.
3) Therefore, the first day of Ramadhan for the year 1430 Hijri shall be by the will of Allah (the most high) on Friday 21st Aug 2009.
We take this occasion to congratulate the Muslims on the coming of the blessed month and we ask Allah (the all high) to make it a month of goodness, blessing and glory for Islam and Muslims.
May Allah Accept from us and you the good deeds and all praise are to Allah the lord of the worlds.
The Secretariat General – Dublin
20th Sha’ban 1430 hijri, 11th August 2009.]
Most of the UK actually fasted on Saturday, August 22nd, largely due to the fact that the government of Saudi Arabia made a late announcement on Thursday August 20th. Their initial position was that Ramadan would start on the 21st. Nonetheless, for the sake of unity in the UK, Muslims living there should establish their own local calendar, for all the months. Astronomical calculations can only be used to dismiss an erroneous sighting, never to establish that a new month has begun. Following the government of Saudi Arabia is also an invalid position. The logical solution to this problem should be obvious; go back to the Sunnah.
Wa Al-Hamdu lillahi Rabbi Al-Alameen, wa as-Salatu wa As-Salaamu ala Rasulillah
Assalaam alaykum,
Related Posts:
Moon Sighting: The Evidence from Sahih Muslim with Commentary by Imam Yahya Al-Nawawi
When is Ramadan?
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