Hello Dan,
I don’t have sources for that, my approach is a more a practical one – which is a guess ‘only’: Many hints in our old scripts as the bible or the Qur’an are very practical ones relying on the given society and its well-being as a group. You are not allow to eat pork because you can get diseases out of improperly treatment at the dinner preparation and so on. I see the spear rule as part of the military tactics: The enemy is approaching most from the east on sunrise to have a much more better view. The solder have to take care very hard especially at this little times and therefore are forbidden to pray (and fully concentrate to something else). So to the rule: Just stick a spear on the ground vertical - it can also be very quickly activated as a weapon on the fly. Than you have to check the shadow cast by the top of the stick: If you are in between the stick (east) and the shadow cast of the top (west) than the sun’s height is lower as one spear’s length. If you multiply the shadow length you can extend the rule to a concerning multiple of spear lengths. Again: No sources yet, just a practical idea. Kurt https://EarthLAT1200.org Von: sundial [mailto:[email protected]] Im Auftrag von Dan-George Uza Gesendet: Samstag, 16. Mai 2020 23:44 An: Sundial List <[email protected]> Betreff: Islamic time measurement 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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