Solar and Lunar Eclipses
(johnb@uafphpl.uark.edu)
Mon, Jan 30 1995 01:43:38 GMT
I hope that my posting this will not bring offense to our Ahmadiyya
friends, here, who have shown such patience in trying to explain the
timing of the dual Ramadhan eclipses of 1894 and 1895. I suspect some
still do not fully understand the interpretation which Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad has given to the hadith which was quoted in their support.
Suffice it to say that it is more than just the lunar and solar
eclipse occurring during the same month, but the timing of those
events is also important in the Ahmadi view. This timing aspect makes
the presentation of evidence extremely difficult.
We are able to say with great confidence whether it is
astronomically possible to view the new crescent moon of Ramadhan from
any given location, but we do not know (unless someone kept records)
whether this happened in the past on the appointed days because we
don't know whether anyone was looking for it, nor whether the local
weather would have prevented it's sighting on that date.
In the case of the 1894 eclipses we have reports from India which
indicate that the eclipses took place on the thirteenth and twenty-
eighth days of the month--these days, of course would have been
different at different places on the earth. However, it should also
be born in mind that, astronomically speaking, it should have been
possible for the month of Ramadhan to have begun a day earlier than it
apparently did there. Presumably, it was cloudy on what would
otherwise have been the initial day of the month, and therefore the
month commenced a day late.
This can be checked using the wonderful public domain computer
program MAWAQIT. In March, last year, Muhammad Yusron posted
information to the Islamic History List (ISLAM-L) indicating that
it was available for ftp at: ftp.uni-regensburg.de pub/incoming/
the file name being: mawaq12.zip.
For Macintosh users he indicated a similar program called
MINARET which was available for ftp at: cs.bu.edu /amass.
In any case, one could probably come up with a location on Earth
where the eclipses did happen on the days ascribed to them by Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad, I have no interest in refuting this--though I am
beginning to think that the interpretation of "normal days" for the
solar eclipses to occur on during a lunar month might be in error; I
think that these might be the 28th, 29th and 30th days, rather than
the 27th, 28th and 29th. However, that does not greatly concern me
either.
Whatever the cases that can be made for any of these astronomical
phenomena, I know that Baha'is would only consider these things to be
of minor importance. We have far loftier and profound reasons for
faith in Baha'u'llah than the timing of two eclipses according to a
prophecy which is only a hadith.
We all know that there are many hadith recorded which prophesy
things concerning the Promised One which do not seem to apply to any
of the claimants, whether the Bab, Baha'u'llah, or Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
These don't trouble any of us because we know that not all hadith's
are reliable.
What does distinguish the claims of Baha'u'llah and the Bab, for
Baha'is (and I trust this is also the case for Ahmadi's concerning
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad), is the nobility and perfection of Their Writings
and the sanctity of Their characters. There is no greater proof of
Their stations available to us today than this record.
That being said (so that none can take any of what I am about to
write overly seriously), I will proceed to mention some of the
curiously interesting phenomena which one can find by observing the
dual Ramadhan eclipses of 1873. I will acknowledge, first, that, as
has been previously mentioned by another contributor, Baha'is do not
see Baha'u'llah as the Mahdi (that station is identified with the
Bab), and so anyone is free to disregard anything I am about to say as
being associated with the hadith that is used as a proof of Ahmad.
Furthermore, I am not statistically competent to say whether all
that I am about to relate amounts to anything unusual--I rather think
that it *is* unusual, but it may be that one could come up with this
many coincidences around any time of one's choosing.
I first began to consider these things when I saw a posting by
Nadeem Malik here, on s.r.b, about a year-and-a-half ago. He and I
carried on a correspondence concerning these matters for some weeks
thereafter, and most of what I am relating here I had mentioned to him
at that time.
Not to overly tax the attention of the readers I will not provide
all of the details that I normally would. I think people become very
bored when they start seeing tedious calculations on their monitors.
Since these are fixed astronomical phenomena anyone can verify them
for themselves given a computer and some decent software. You will
need programs to look at solar and lunar eclipses, sunrise and sunset
times, star positions, great-circle directions on the surface of the
earth, an atlas with latitudes and longitudes, and probably a few
other things, but these are all available to anyone with a computer
and sufficient money.
I was initially intrigued by the 1873 eclipses because I found that
one could make a good case for them fulfilling the requirements of the
hadith which Nadeem had referred to. If one chooses a spot in the
Pacific Ocean from which to measure time, one can ascribe these eclipses
to the theoretical 13th and 28th days of the month of Ramadhan. (If
one, instead, thinks that the "middle day" for a solar eclipse during
a lunar month should be the 29th, one can also make a case for the
eclipses having occurred on the theoretical 13th and 29th days of the
month somewhere else on the planet.)
I chose Kiribati as the place from which to make my calculations,
but other places could have been chosen.
For the record: the maxima of the lunar and solar eclipses were
as follows:
Lunar Eclipse: 11/04/1873 at 15:51 Universal Time
Solar Eclipse: 11/20/1873 at 03:23 Universal Time
The first thing I noticed was a correspondence between the eclipses
and the Baha'i Calendar.
As you may know, our's is a solar calendar with 19 months of 19
days each (plus 4 or 5 intercalary days placed between the 18th and
19th months).
Each of the months is named after an attribute of God, and the days
of the months, likewise, are named after these same attributes.
According to the manner in which the Baha'i Calendar is currently
applied in the West, the Baha'i month of Qudrat (Power--the 13th
Baha'i month) would have commenced on November 4th, 1873 (the 13th day
of Ramadhan, 1290 A.H.)--to be precise, I should say that it began at
sunset on November 3rd.
In other words, as seen from Kiribati (where, today, time is
observed as eleven hours behind Universal Time), the lunar eclipse
occurred on the first day of the month of Qudrat (year 30 of the
Baha'i Era). The first day of each month is named Baha. And, the
solar eclipse, occurred on the 16th day of Qudrat.
This coincidence brought to mind the 97th Surah of the Qur'an:
1. Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Power.
2. Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is!
3. The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.
4. The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of
their Lord, with all decrees.
5. (That night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.
(A. Yusuf `Ali's translation)
In the Qur'an the word here translated as "Power" is `Qadr', rather
than Qudrat, but, it is clear that the Arabic root of these two words
is the same.
It is widely believed that this `Night of Power' is one of the
nights of Ramadhan, though there is a great deal of disagreement over
which night, it might be.
So, in all of this, it struck me as curious that the month of
Qudrat should coincide with the month of Ramadhan that year, and that
these dual eclipses occurred within that same period.
If you take the two eclipse maxima and calculate the time midway
between them you arrive at 11/12/1873 at 09:37 Universal Time.
November 12th is significant to Baha'is because it is the Birthday
of Baha'u'llah (11/12/1817), the ninth day of the month of Qudrat.
In 1873 Baha'u'llah was still a prisoner in the Palestinian city of
Akka. His location was approximately 35.074 degrees East Longitude,
and 32.919 degrees North Latitude.
In Akka, where time was almost certainly measured using a sundial
in those days, 09:37 UT, November 12th, 1873, corresponded to about
12:13pm local solar time. In other words, the Sun had just passed its
zenith at that time. (According to a mechanical clock, local mean sun
time would have been about 11:57am.)
I beg your continued indulgence as I, now, switch to metaphorical
mode.
Those of you familiar with Baha'i history will recall 1873 as the
year in which Baha'u'llah completed the _Kitab-i-Aqdas_, (_The Most
Holy Book_), His book of laws. This could be considered as the zenith
of His Revelation, His greatest and most significant accomplishment.
Shoghi Effendi describes the _Kitab-i-Aqdas_ in his history of the
first hundred years of the Faith, _God Passes By_, in these words:
[_The Kitab-i-Aqdas_]...the principal repository of that Law
which the Prophet Isaiah had anticipated, and which the writer of
the Apocalypse had described as the "new heaven" and the "new
earth," as "the Tabernacle of God," as the "Holy City," as the
"Bride," the "New Jerusalem coming down from God," this "Most
Holy Book," whose provisions must remain inviolate for no less
than a thousand years, and whose system will embrace the entire
planet, may well be regarded as the brightest emanation of the
mind of Baha'u'llah, as the Mother Book of His Dispensation, and
the Charter of His New World Order. [page 211]
As already mentioned, November 12th is the anniversary of the
birthday of Baha'u'llah. We have it on Shoghi Effendi's authority
that Baha'u'llah was born at the hour of dawn.
At dawn on the morning of November 12th, 1873 the Moon was reaching
it's zenith over Akka while the Sun was still a few degrees below the
horizon. According to local mean time the Moon reached it's zenith at
3:56am that day. As this was half-way between a lunar and solar
eclipse, this morning also marked the beginning of the Moon's fourth
quarter (3:08am local mean time). At that point the sun and moon were
at right angles to each other as observed from earth. The sun rose
that day at about 4:08am.
A further curious coincidence, here, is that just as the moon was
reaching it's 3/4ths phase at that time, Baha'u'llah's earthly life
was also entering it's fourth quarter.
The time from Baha'u'llah's birth to his death amounts to 27,227
days. The time from his birth to this 56th birthday comes to 20,454
days.
20,454 divided by 27,227 = 0.7512
The fourth quarter of Baha'u'llah's life had begun about a month
before November 12th, 1873.
I will now look more closely at the November 20th total solar
eclipse.
At the moment of maximum eclipse the Sun and Moon were located
directly over Northwestern Australia.
In association with Baha'u'llah's birthday, it can also be
mentioned that Baha'u'llah was born in Tehran, Iran. Tehran is almost
exactly one fourth of the way around the world from this spot where
the sun and moon were located, and the sun had risen there just eight
minutes prior to maximum eclipse. (The eclipse, however, was not
visible in Tehran.)
The area of visibility of this total solar eclipse was centered at
63.28 degrees South latitude, and 9.67 degrees West longitude--A spot
in the South Atlantic situated between South America, Africa, and
Antarctica.
In November, at that far-south latitude, the nights are very short,
only five or six hours long.
Due to the Earth's tilted axis, throughout November, at this
latitude, it also happens that the ecliptic plane very nearly
coincides with the horizon at the time of sunrise. At the moment of
sunrise, one could visualize this plane as an immense phonograph
record balanced on it's center hole at that point on the Earth's
surface.
It happens that, the solar eclipse at this location, was also
reaching it's maximum point just as the Sun and Moon were rising
together above the horizon. As a result of this coincidence of the
ecliptic plane with the local horizon, the Sun, Moon and seven planets
appeared to be forming a circle around that point on the Earth's
surface.
The highest any of these heavenly bodies was above the horizon at
that moment was about 4 degrees, and the lowest any of them was below
the horizon was likewise about 4 degrees. (The eighth planet, Pluto,
was about 14 degrees above the horizon.)
That this involves nine heavenly bodies circling round that point
may be vaguely pleasing to Baha'is. We have a tendency to take
pleasure in the number nine because the abjad value of the word "Baha"
is nine, and so it brings to remembrance Baha'u'llah. [In this
connection, it could also be added that Ramadhan, when all of these
events were taking place, is the ninth month of the Islamic year.]
A few words should be added here to clarify this concept of a
numerical value being ascribed to letters. This has nothing to do
with the pseudoscience of numerology.
In the days before the invention of what we call "Arabic
numerals" some of the peoples who had alphabets (including the
Hebrews, Greeks and Arabs) employed these same letters to represent
and record numbers. Each letter in the alphabet was assigned a
numerical value, and one could express any desired number by
suitably combining letters that added up to that value.
In each of these cultures, this inevitably resulted in the
playfully artistic practice of dreaming up words to express certain
numbers (especially important dates) which also happened to be
descriptive of events associated with the number or date. This is a
device which the Bab used prodigiously in His Writings.
Because of the Bab's proclivity for this poetic usage Baha'is
today associate the Bab with the number five (the numerical
equivalent of "Bab" in Arabic) and Baha'u'llah with nine ("Baha"
being numerically equal to nine).
Shifting, now, to the total lunar eclipse of November 4th.
In a lunar eclipse the earth is directly between the sun and the
moon, so that the sun appears to be over a place on the earth's
surface directly opposite to the point that the moon is over.
At the moment of maximum lunar eclipse the Sun was located at 15.3
degrees South latitude, and 61.7 degrees West longitude (over Eastern
Bolivia), while the moon was at 15.3 degrees North latitude and 118.3
degrees East longitude (just west of the Northern Philippines)
If you plot a circular projection of the earth centered at Tehran,
Iran, the direction from Tehran to each of these points is almost
exactly east and west. The direction from Tehran to the Sun's
location was 270.4 degrees azimuth, and the direction to the moon's
location was 90.4 degrees azimuth. (These are great-circle
directions, don't try this on a Mercator projection of the Earth, you
will only confuse yourself. Try it on a globe.)
If, now, we return to the point at which the solar eclipse was
centered, the sunrise circle of nine heavenly bodies that showed
themselves around the central point of the solar eclipse also occurred
at this moment of the Lunar Eclipse--in this instance, though, the
Moon was on the horizon directly opposite that of the Sun at the
moment of sunrise (whereas, during the solar eclipse they rose in
the same place in the sky).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Changing the subject, now. Another posting on s.r.b mentioned that
there was also a great meteor shower which signalized the appearance
of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the Promised One. I don't recall whether
the date of this was mentioned, though.
Anyhow, although I have never seen anything from Baha'u'llah which
mentions any of the things that I have so-far recounted, He did make
mention of a significant meteor shower.
The following is excerpted from _The Revelation of Baha'u'llah_,
Vol. 2, pp. 270 & 271 (by, Adib Taherzadeh):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In November 1866 when Baha'u'llah was residing in the house of
Rida Big [in Adrianople], a spectacular meteoric shower took place.
Thousands of shooting-stars lit up the sky as they blazed their way
through the atmosphere. This event, which has been called the
`star-fall' of 1866, was watched by millions in the East and West
and for many the experience was terrifying.
According to the Gospels, one of the signs of the coming of
Christ in the glory of the Father is the falling of stars [Matthew
24:29]. Baha'u'llah, in one of His Tablets cited in the _Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf_, refers to this:
O thou who hast set thy face towards the splendours of My
Countenance! Vague fancies have encompassed the dwellers of the
earth and debarred them from turning towards the Horizon of
Certitude, and its brightness, and its manifestations and its
lights. Vain imaginings have withheld them from Him Who is the
Self-Subsisting. They speak as prompted by their own caprices,
and understand not. Among them are those who have said:... `Have
the stars fallen?' Say: `Yea, when He Who is the Self-Subsisting
dwelt in the Land of Mystery [Adrianople]. Take heed, ye who are
endued with discernment!' All the signs appeared when We drew
forth the Hand of Power from the bosom of majesty and might.
(_Epistle to the Son of the Wolf_, pp. 131-132)
Although this fascinating display of falling-stars was a literal
fulfilment of the prophecies of old, its real significance is to be
found in the Writings of Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha where the
words of the Gospels are interpreted. Baha'u'llah explains that by
the falling of stars is meant the fall of religious leaders who,
because they denied the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, are losing their
influence over mankind. Addressing the Christian ecclesiastics,
Baha'u'llah in one of His Tablets proclaims:
O concourse of bishops! Ye are the stars of the heaven of My
knowledge. My mercy desireth not that ye should fall upon the
earth. My justice, however, declareth: `This is that which the
Son (Jesus) hath decreed.' And whatsoever hath proceeded out of
His blameless, His truth-speaking, trustworthy mouth, can never
be altered.
(_The Promised Day is Come_, p. 105)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is more about the literal (November 14th, 1866) "star-fall"
in Appendix I of this same book.
This is most likely the same periodic meteor shower which had
flared up 33 years earlier and so excited Adventists in North America.
Before dawn on the morning of November 13, 1833, a meteoric
shower covered most of North America and the West Indies. The
display was especially brilliant in the northeastern section of the
United States, the very area where the Millerite movement had its
inception and widest impact. The Scriptures had foretold this
remarkable event as a sign of the last days just before the second
coming of Jesus (Matthew 24:29; Revelation 6:13); therefore, the
Millerites hailed the event with joy.
(_1844_, Vol. 1, p. 119, by: Jerome Clark--This is from Chapter
One: "Revivalism and the Millerite Movement" which is a short
history of this Christian Adventist movement of the early 19th
Century.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While I admit that I do find all of these strange coincidences
intriguing, the astronomical events of November, 1873 pale in
comparison with the more amazing things that were happening between
December 21, 1843, and June 1, 1844. This period which Baha'is see as
the time when the Islamic Calendar ended and the Bab's Calendar
replaced it, and the time between the death of the Bab's forerunner
(Siyyid Kazim) and the time of His Declaration to His first believer,
are a whole different (and much longer) story.
I will not further burden you with those events because most of
them are so obvious to anyone who thinks to look for them that they
should be able to discover them for themselves, provided they have
some astronomical software. Arrangements of the sun, moon and planets
similar to this period also marked the beginning of the Islamic
Calendar in 622 AD, though those are not nearly as obvious.
I believe I've tortured everyone quite enough, already, so I will
now go back to merely lurking on the newsgroup.
Bye for now,
John Bromberek
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Work: johnb@uafphpl.uark.edu
Home: johnb@sibylline.com
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