New Crescent Society

An allegorical poem from the famed poet, Maulana Jalal al Din Rumi. It's based on a incident from the time of Caliph Omar, when a man had claimed that he had seen the new crescent, when in fact he had seen a strand of his own hair draped across his eyes. * IN THE TIME OF OMAR SOMEONE IMAGINED THAT HE HAD SEEN THE NEW MOON The month of Ramadan, in Omar’s reign People ran to a hill above the plain To greet the new moon as a hopeful sign -  One called, ‘Omar, come watch the new moon shine!’ But Omar saw no moon above, and said: ‘That moon’s an image dreamt up in your head! If not, explain how, with my better sight, I can’t see any moon tonight. First rub your eyebrows with a wet hand, then Attempt to look at the new moon again.’ The man did this, then couldn’t see it there; He said, ‘It’s disappeared into thin air!’ Omar explained, ‘Your eyebrow was a bow T hat shot false views at your just like a foe!’ A hair had veiled him – now he felt ashamed T hat vi...

Did Saudi Arabia see the moon? Sighting reports of the New Crescent have emerged from Saudi Arabia tonight, meaning that Saudi Arabia will now begin the month of Dhul Hijjah. Once again, Saudi’s moonsighting report tonight is mired in controversy. Those from the astronomy community have declared that Saudi Arabia’s alleged sighting was scientifically impossible. In other words, the moon was not yet large enough to be detected by the human eye, or even a conventional telescope.  As we can see in the image below, Saudi Arabia falls outside of the visibility curves, and it would not be possible to have sighted the moon there at all. The data used to create this image comes from HMNAO – Her Majesty’s Nautical Almanac Office. You can read more directly from their website, which confirms the moon was not visible in Saudi here . Was the moon sighted locally? Here in the UK, the moon was not sighted anywhere ; nor indeed was it sighted in any of ou...