5-Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle - Hakikat Kitabevi

ecomes obscure. We cannot see the moon. This period of time is
called Muhâq. There is not a fixed period of muhâq. It varies from
twenty-eight hours to seventy-two hours. The Ottoman calendars
give a maximum of three days. The time of conjunction is exactly
the middle of the period of muhâq. Scientific calendars determine its
exact time for each month. Since the earth revolves about the sun,
too, the duration of time between two conjunctions is 29 days and
13 hours. At the time of conjunction, the sun and the moon pass the
meridian at the same time. The moon can never be seen anywhere
before the angle between the two elongations (Beynûnet), i.e. the
elongation between the earth and the moon and that which is
between the earth and the sun, has become eight degrees
[approximately fourteen hours after the moment of conjunction].
When the angle becomes eighteen (18) degrees maximum, the
moon comes out of the state of invisibility and the new moon
appears on the western horizon during the forty-five minutes prior to
sunset. However, due to (the fifty-seven minute phenomenon
termed) parallax, when it reaches a position five degrees from the
horizon, it can no longer be seen. After the moon comes out of the
state of invisibility, the new moon can be observed in places
situated on the same longitude as the location where the sunset is
taking place. As for later hours, that is, at night, it can be observed
after sunset in countries west of these places. For instance, close to
the beginning of the month of Rajab, the time of conjunction was
fifteen (15) hundred hours according to Turkish meantime [Izmit’s
local time], on 14 May, Wednesday, 1980. The new moon cannot
be observed before 5 a.m. the following day, i.e. Thursday. As it
was accepted by the Ottoman scholars, when the (moon’s)
elongation becomes eighteen (18) degrees, which means a
duration of one and a half days, the first appearing of the new
moon will be at 3 a.m. on 15 May, Friday. Since the time of sunset
as of (that) Friday in Istanbul is 19.20 hours, it will be possible to
observe the new moon during sunset on Friday [the night previous
to Saturday] in the city of Chicago, America, where the sunset is 16
hours earlier, that is, they are 240 degrees east of Istanbul and 270
degrees east of London. It cannot be observed on this same night
in places east of the two hundred and seventieth meridian. Their
nights begin at the time of sunset and the mornings following these
nights begin at midnight. The purpose for these calculations is not
to determine the time when the lunar month begins, but to find out
the (beginning of the) month when the new moon can be seen.
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