Hello, As you know the times of the five daily prayers in Islam are dependent on the position of the sun.
What you may not know is that also dependent on the sun are some instances when you should NOT pray. One of those rules states that it is forbidden to pray from sunrise until the sun has ascended to the length of a spear above the horizon. Although I have found modern sources quoting this height to be 4.5 or 4.25 degrees, I did not find any details on how they used to perform this measurement in the past using an actual spear. In my country's popular literature (mostly fairy tales) there is also this way of measuring time. Often events are reported to occur when the Sun's height reaches 1, 2 or 3 spear heights on the sky. This cultural connection is quite understandable because the old provinces that make up modern-day Romania were under the influence of the Ottoman Empire for a good part of the Middle Ages. Can anyone explain how Muslims used the spear length to measure the height of the sun back in the days? -- Dan-George Uza
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