The Shaykh’s remarks on how to determine the times of prayer and the sighting of the sunset from one region to another?

The Shaykh : He is on a mountain and I am on a mountain, or he is in one region and I am in another. If the sun sets for me before it sets for him, or vice versa, what is the way to know that it has set here but not there? What is the way? Is it not observation? Well, why is it that he now burdens us by making us adopt the claim of an unknown person that he saw the sun before we did? And I told you the reality: Um al-Yasir called me. Well, now we say Abu Munir called us, and Abu Munir’s report matched Um al-Yasir’s report, correct?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Well, who burdens us such that, for example, we forbid ourselves the Fajr prayer when the sun has already risen? On what basis?

The questioner : Our Shaykh, he says that if we do not see the sun in front of us, it is possible to infer its appearance in our region by signs. He says that if we look in the other direction, we will find the reflection of the sun on the houses. He says that this confirms that the sun has risen, even if we do not see it.

The Shaykh : Well, this is called the sun having risen for us.

The questioner : He says it is rising, but we did not see it because there is an obstacle between us and it.

The Shaykh : Oh people, glory be to Allah, the sun, my brother, does not set. Well, what is the obstacle? For example, before he sees the sun, what is the obstacle that prevents him from seeing it? Before he sees it, why did he not see it?

The questioner : The long horizon from which it rose...

The Shaykh : The obstacle is the same for me; the cause is one, but my mountain is higher than his mountain. Now, I am here, looking at this horizontal line. The sun rises from here. Look, now, I am here and he is there. The sun will rise for him before it rises for me. Well, so I say: here, when the sun has not risen for him, what is the obstacle between him and seeing the sun? This peak, yes? But the one who is here will see the sun before the one who is there. What is the difference between us and him?

The questioner : There is none.

The Shaykh : The cause is one. It is truly a strange matter that there should be discussions about such self-evident things. Since we agree that the sun does not disappear from the earth, then as He, the Exalted, said: ; because in every moment there is a sunrise and in every moment there is a sunset. So in this moment when it has risen for some people, it has not yet risen for others. Do we then burden all people, in the case of the sun rising for some, with the assumption that it must have risen for everyone? Then it would be rising for people constantly and forever, and we would fall into confusion. So it is setting for people because it has set for some of them, so it has set for all of them. This is sophistry. Therefore, every people, every country, has its own legal times. When the sun is in the middle of the sky for us, toward the west it has not yet reached the middle. So must those toward the west, for example, say that the sun has reached the middle of the sky, so the prayer has become disliked, and it has passed a little and become the time of dislike? Must we unify the times? Who says such a thing?

The questioner : Even he himself, regarding Fajr, does not see that we should follow the Fajr of Syria and follow the Fajr of... that everyone should observe the Fajr.

The Shaykh : This is it. So what is the difference between this and that? It is very strange.