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Posted by: tedstryk Apr 25 2005, 04:38 AM

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=1&u=/nm/20050424/tc_nm/saudi_satellite_dc

Apparently they plan to send an Islamic lunar-sighting probe!

Posted by: deglr6328 Apr 25 2005, 05:00 AM

Sooo....have they heard of moon phase http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html? Last I heard the orbit of the moon was constrained to sub-meter accuracy. Sigh, what happened to you muslim world? You used to be the world leader in astronomy, chemistry, physics.... I guess that's what rampant religious fundamentalism does to science and rational inquiry. sad, really.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 28 2005, 11:29 AM

Yup, that's how religion works... if the book says you have to *see* it, you can't just go look in some calendar. Especially if you mix religion and paranoia - the calendar was undoubtedly published by infidels and might be a hideous lie. It's just like the food rules, the clothing rules - locked in for ever.

(signed) a proud infidel

(AKA Phil)

Posted by: ilbasso Apr 28 2005, 12:26 PM

I was an expat in Saudi Arabia in the early-mid 1980's. The holy month of Ramadan began a day earlier one year than it was supposed to (I think that was 1984). A cleric claimed he saw the new moon - a day earlier than it should have been visible according to the almanacs, and in fact several hours *before* astronomical new moon occurred.

So, we expats woke up one morning to find out that the fasting and other changes (like different office hours) had begun a day before everyone was prepared for them. I assume that the faithful who had gone to the mosques for the pre-dawn prayers got the word early, so they had a chance to gorge before sun-up and the day of fasting began.