The Moon of 14th...

Full Moon of Ramadan

For You...

[Tonight... Look up and you'll see him...
Tonight... he is full... one... white...]

He knows about them...
One silvery invisible thread between them...
Against all reasons...

He is a reflection of a light...
They want to be reflections of the Light...

[Tonight... he is purely white...
He is smiling at you...]

Chanting their tale...
Praying for mercy... for love and for peace...

[Tonight... he is for you...]

وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا*

[...and the moon a light] Quran 10:5

*القران الكريم | سورة يونس آية 5

Moon, Sun and Islam...

Lately I've been reflecting upon how the crescent is used to visually symbolize Islam... And how a lot of people think of Muslims as lunar-oriented...
Maybe the moon is used to indicate months in the Islamic Calendar... and thus indicating the timing of rituals and holy days like Ramadan and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. But at the same time... Muslims depend much more on the sun for indicating the timing of the 5 daily prayers... and the length of the fasting in one day... So I was thinking how come sun is not associated with the visual symbols of Islam?
Who was the first to introduce the Crescent as a symbol for Islam?! Does it have underlying meanings or associations?
And I was thinking more of the months in the lunar year and then it hit me that these months with their names are pre-Islamic and were used by Arabs before... since the date of the Birth of the Prophet was mentioned in a calendar which is not the Islamic Calendar... But had the same months names...
The Islamic calendar started almost 53 years after the Prophet's birth... starting on the day he fled Mecca to Madina or what is known as "al-Hijra al-Sharifa"...
So I dug up to find out this information that never was brought to my attention before... the lunar calendar that Arabs used before Islam was called lunisolar calendar which is a combination of both the moon phases and the sun movements... but since the moon to change phases for 12 times it needs 354 days leaving it shorter by 11 days from the solar year... every 3 years... a lunisolar year would contain 13 months!! Interesting...

Nowadays in most Islamic countries they follow the solar Gregorian calendar still they keep track of the lunar Islamic one...

Yesterday was the first day in a new Islamic year [1429 H]... so for those who celebrate it... Happy New Hijri Year...

:: on my mooniac mood, more, more, and even more...

Ramadan Kareem*

photo from archive : crescent moon in Edinburgh

"الله أكبر, اللهم أهله علينا باليمن و الايمان و السلامة و الاسلام و التوفيق لما تحب و ترضى, ربنا و ربك الله"

‘Allah is the greatest. O Allah, let the crescent loom above us in safety, faith, peace, and Islam, and in agreement with all that You love and pleases You. Our Lord and your Lord is Allah.’

* Thursday 13th Sept 2007 marks the first day of Ramadan

a blue moon

this Thursday there is a blue full moon...





::the truth behind this month's blue moon

STILL....

بعدك على بالــي.... يا قمر الحلويـــن

"still you are in my mind... O, moon of the lovely poeple... "

rings around the moon

[[And I pray for the sign
And I won't be too late

If you just take time
And be sure of who you are
We can take it up to heaven
We can walk amongst the stars
And I know if you stay
I will never turn away
We fly rings around the moon]]

the moon... the moon...

the moon as seen from our living room window in Amman at the sunset of 13th/Ramadan/1427 hijri [today]

no matter what part of the wrold we are in! the moon... is still the same moon...

قمري معي

last night...

and the moon a light