Continuing the discussion on the calculations of the astronomers and their relation to the Shari'ah.

The Shaykh : Pay attention, my brothers, to the completion of the previous discussion, which was stirring regarding the topic of benefiting from knowledge. It concerns the man about whom we can say that he died medically, and a discussion began with my saying that I drew attention to a very important aspect that many jurists, especially the contemporary ones, often do not notice. I intended to complete the speech, then a thought occurred to our brother, Professor Abu Malik, and he asked my permission, as you saw, to deliver it. It was, in fact, a support for exactly what I intended to say. Perhaps you, or at least some of you, remember that I had begun to mention two examples of matters that science judges, but the Shari'ah does not agree with one of them at all, and this is a matter of consensus, and the other I said there is disagreement among the scholars of the Muslims. Then I began to mention this example: the issue of establishing the crescent moon by astronomical calculations. Here, Professor Abu Malik intervened and mentioned what you all heard about there being a scientific dawn or a scientific Fajr and a Shari'ah Fajr, and that this discussion took place between one of the astronomers and one of the employees in the Endowments.
This example became, in my calculation and in my previous arrangement in my mind, which I distorted and intended to present, a third example. The first example I mentioned to you is the establishment of the Ramadan crescent by astronomical calculations or by observation through a telescope. And there is no doubt that I personally do not prefer the opinion of some scholars who establish the crescent by this scientific observation, due to the saying of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), which is well-known in the two Sahihs: meaning the month may be thirty days or it may be lacking one day.
Therefore, I do not see the establishment of the crescent except by visual observation, because the Messenger (peace be upon him) explicitly stated this in this specific ruling. Then I say, if the door were opened to establishing Shari'ah rulings by scientific theories, the Islamic Shari'ah would suffer what the previous Shari'ahs of Judaism and Christianity suffered. And now comes the turn of the second example in my distortion and thinking, and the third which our companion Abu Malik spoke of. Knowledge, as I read in some books that I used to read and devote myself to in the past, says—and an objector may oppose me because I am not a specialist, but in my opinion there is no objector—when we see the sun like this toward the west, rising on the peak of the mountain, meaning a very large circle, science says the sun is now below the horizon, and what we see is due to a scientific philosophy we do not understand, that the rays are reflected...

The questioner : They are refracted

The Shaykh : They are refracted and reflected to us, so we see the sun on the peak of the mountain, while in reality it is behind the mountain.
Now the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) says: A man among the people delayed the Fajr prayer until he saw the sun on the peak of the mountain with his eyes, but in his own knowledge he sees and knows it. So now, is it permissible for him to pray or not? If we apply the Shari'ah ruling linked to personal sight, he prays, because the sun is still rising, but scientifically it is behind the horizon and not seen. And so the sun rose on the peak of the mountain; scientifically it did not rise. Is it permissible to pray Fajr? The answer is: it is not permissible. Look at how Shari'ah rulings differ between building them on ordinary sight and building them on scientific thought. For this reason, we say it is necessary for the Muslim to be consistent and straight, naturally, in the consistency of his thought, and not to be confused, sometimes taking a scientific theory even if it contradicts the Shari'ah truth, and sometimes not taking it. If we know these models of examples, and the last one mentioned by Professor Abu Malik, that astronomy says the dawn and Fajr appear before the Fajr we see with our eyes by about a third of an hour, and this exactly meets the theory I mentioned earlier when the sun is on the peak of the mountain; scientifically it did not rise, likewise the Fajr scientifically did not rise, but theoretically we see it with our own eyes. In any case, this is a convention. The important thing is that we do not build our Shari'ah rulings on scientific observations, even if they become scientific facts. Why? Because now if there is fog and clouds on the horizon...

The Shaykh : Yes
Another questioner : No, no, no, what if there is no relation

The Shaykh : If there are clouds on the horizon and the strong seeing eye, the strongest sight in a human, does not see the crescent. But you with the telescope, magnified many times over, will reveal the crescent from behind the clouds.
This is a scientific fact, there is no doubt in it. But we are not obligated regarding this view; we are obligated by what we see with ordinary sight. Therefore, Shari'ah rulings are not built on scientific facts, but on ordinary natural theories. And therefore, it does not concern us that science has proven that the earth rotates and has two known rotations; this does not concern us, because the rulings of the Shari'ah were built on the assumption that the earth is flat... whereas in scientific reality it rotates and is spherical. This does not harm us in our religion at all, because the Shari'ah rulings that the Wise Lawgiver established, He established them for ordinary people with a limited visual and intellectual capacity, so they were obligated by that and not by more than that. If we know this, then this man whose heart is still beating, the doctors have ruled that he is dead, but in the ruling of ordinary human sight he has not died. Therefore, they do not rush to bury him until they are certain of his death by their ordinary means. Do I not see the permissibility of killing this person because in the opinion of medicine he has become dead, so we do not let him die until his heart cools and does not beat a pulse? I do not see this, because in the ruling of the Shari'ah he is still not dead, at the very least. This is my opinion that I wanted to clarify to you, and I ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to inspire us with the truth in what we say and in what we believe.