in motion, the believers reflect the heavens

If you think about it, the question of time and date is central to the daily religious routine of a muslim. We need to know when to pray five times a day, we need to know what time to start and begin our fasts, we need to know what days to start and end fasting. To know what direction to pray, we need to know the shape of the earth itself. Even our prayers are in a sense the reflection of the cosmic clockwork, with predictable cycles, rising, and setting. It's not by accident that the symbol of Islam is the crescent moon.

Despite the rich heritage of mathematics and science that we as muslims can lay equal claim to, however, there is an anti-intellectual strain in the modern Islamic polity that says that calculations, astronomy, and math are developed in a "western" context and that these ideas need to be purified somehow before muslims may make use of them. There's talk of Islamic science as if science is not something universal, but reduced to a mere ethnic trait. It's incumbent on muslims in the modern age to reject this way of thinking and embrace the tools that let us complete our Deen.

In these modern times, the definitive resource on astronomical calculations is actually the military - the US Naval Observatory and its counterpart in the UK, HM Nautical  Almanac Office.  These are fantastic resources for a muslim - since I am more familiar with the USNO, I'll give examples from there, but most of the same kind of data can be found across the pond. Here are just a smattering of useful links from the USNO's Astronomical Applications department:

• Tables of sunrise and sunset
• Phases of the moon
• Lunar and solar eclipses

The USNO even has a page devoted to crescent moon visibility and the Islamic calendar - and they've listed the start dates for Ramadan and the Islamic new year all the way out to 1432 Hijri.

It is astounding to think that in this day and age, anyone walking down the street with an iPhone and a GPS can in a fraction of a second access celestial and cosmological knowledge, to higher accuracy than has ever been possible. Granted, there is an artistry in the make and the use of an astrolabe, but those things don't fit easily into your shirt pocket.

In many ways, we are in a golden age of religious observance, because at no previous point in the history of Islam was such fantastic calculation and precision possible.