With the fasting moving back to the very beginning of autumn and the first couple of days fasting being the most difficult they've been since, well, whenever they were last in April, I have noticed a strange phenomenon affecting when people are starting their fasts. People in places that are very close together are starting fasting nearly half an hour apart.
The Ramadan Timetable website has been posting timetables supplied by mosques up and down the country. My nearest mosque, at Kingston, has a timetable (PDF) which gives the end of suhoor at 0407 today (0409 tomorrow), with Peterborough, Leeds and Nottingham, all much further north, fasting from slightly earlier, while Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Hounslow all started around or after 0430, and yet finished at roughly the same time - about 1950. Bristol started at 0451, and while it's understandable that they started a bit later than London because Bristol is further west, they finished only about five minutes behind us, at 1956.
Surely some of these timings must be wrong, because the variations seem not to consistently match with the towns' locations, and in some cases wildly different suhoor timings are being given within the same city. Am I getting up at half three when I do not need to, or are some people having their breakfast when they should be fasting?
Salaam, Ramadaan mubarak.
I believe this has to do with the understanding of the 18 degree vs. 15 degree fixing of suhur/imsak from the time of ishraq/sunrise(and parallel, for isha from fajr) - those who accept 15 degrees have about 20-30 extra minutes to eat.
A scholar (Ustadh Jamal Zahabi of Lebanon) was talking about this the other night at tarawih, and suggested that those who wanted to observe the most strict understanding might stop fasting at the 18 degree (the earlier time given) and pray at the 15 degree period, meaning they would wait about half-an-hour between.
As a non-faqih 'awwam' (layman) I don't have any stricter knowledge. I know this has been discussed on SunniPath before, you might look it up there.
wa Salaam.
Salaam bro,
The reason is down to the definition of dawn. Some say it's when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, others that it's when the sun is 15 degrees below the horizon. Yet others say 19.5 degrees. thus the variation.
In the Prophet's (saw) time, obviously, only eyesight was necessary.
It's hard to measure dawn by sight in built-up areas, thus the artificial measurement techniques.
Hope that helps, and of course Allahu `Alim.
Ramadan Kareem from your brother in Islam,
Shahid
How would dawn be defined where I live (North-East England, approximately 55 degrees latitude) in June, when the sun never gets more than 12 degrees below the horizon?
It's often fixed to an hour and a half before sunrise in such cases. In extremes (like the poles) where you end up with an impossible fast, notional times are used based on nearest reasonable fasting times and failing that, using Meccan times.
Isn't the definition of dawn when a white thread can be distinguished from a black one? I know this is difficult in built up areas but here in Dorset at 4am in the morning the eastern sky is still totally black, although Bournemouth Masjid have given out times in line with London. I can't understand it myself. Should I get a white thread & sort it out for myself?
Salaams, no, the definition of *maghrib* is when a white thread *can't* be distinguished from a black one, when you hang them out of the window next to each other, i.e. they both look dark because the light is enough to tell you they are both there, but not to tell them apart.
Salams. I would go with what you can observe in Dorset. Using degrees can never be the same or as accurate as witnessing the appearance of the white thread. The shariah does not bind us to degrees, but to what we can observe. I have questioned the timetable at my local masjid too. Suhur according to my timetable ends at 0415, even though the sky is completely dark, and stays dark for at least another twenty minutes. I have found the book Fajr & Isha in the UK a useful guide to understanding some of the issues. The book can be downloaded from www.moonsighting.com/articles/fajr&isha-yam.pdf