Last week, I saw a
number of advertorials in our national dailies congratulating you on the
5th Anniversary of your turbanning as the Sultan of Sokoto. On my part,
what I have as your anniversary gift is materially small, but big to the
function of your office.
The gift is an iTunes application called Emerald Observatory,
Version 1.3.1_r628, produced by Emerald Sequoia LLC (2010) available at
Apple Store for just $2. There are newer versions by now I believe. When
I acquired it a month ago, I realized that it could tell so many things
about the moon and the solar system in general. All the planets and
their orbits are represented on its page and one can clearly see when
each of them is above the horizon. Because of the unending controversy
over moon sighting in Nigeria, I developed interest in the picture of
the moon, which is allocated a special window on the top left corner of
the page.
Observatory gives an accurate picture of the moon any time of the
day as it appears on the horizon throughout the month. When in hiding,
the moon is only represented by its shadow. With this application, I was
able to monitor the months of Dhul Qidah and Dhul Hijjah every day,
seeing the shape of the moon changing everyday, as it grew older.
What is important for me then was to find out how fairly the picture on
the page of Observatory compares with the actual moon on the sky. This
would enable me decide the degree of trust I would put in the computer
application. Each time I open the page, therefore, I could not help but
make that comparison.
I was astonished to find that the two were always the same, both in
shape and orientation. This accuracy was derived from the wide range of
data used in scripting the program. In the words of its inventor, “the
astronomical algorithms and data tables used in Emerald Observatory are
derived from ‘Lunar Tables and Programs from 4000 B.C. to A.D. 8,000 by
Michelle Chapront-Touze & Jean Chapront, and ‘Planetary Programs and
Tables from -4000 to +2800’ by Pierre Bretagnon & Jean-Louis Simon.”
My regular reader would now easily predict the direction of my thoughts.
It did not take time to convince myself that these kinds of software
would be very useful tools in mitigating our problems regarding moon
sighting in Nigeria. When mastered, they could become to us what the
compass is to the sailor, telling us, even in the comfort of our sitting
rooms, when it is possible to see the new crescent.
What is good about such programs is that they are egalitarian. They
could be accessed and used by all and sundry since they have saved us
the demand for knowledge of algorithms. They make us by-pass the
astronomer just as the calculator saves the market woman the pain of
using the Reckoner.
The next thing was to think of the problems that could be encountered in
using application by among Muslims generally. As is common with all new
devices, it is expected that some people would receive it with
suspicion. In fact some will out rightly dismiss it as the watch and
radio are still dismissed by some groups as European products.
The majority of those who have western education will warmly receive it.
In it they will see the replica of many devices they have been using,
having known the logic behind its invention. They have been using
calculators and even computers with several softwares. This majority
will have no problem with any suggestion to use such application to
monitor the moon. Surprisingly, it thrilled many who have not been to
modern schools when I showed them. The secret here is the picture of the
moon on the page that looks exactly as the one they see in the sky
above.
Thus, I do not think the software will hit a hard wall. Of course there
will always be those who would, in spite of their exposure to modern
devices, still resist the use of any computer application in moon
sighting, in any way. However, this resistance is customary in history,
and is responsible for the lag experienced by the Muslim world in
science and technology. Each time a technology is invented in the West,
we sadly waste precious times - sometimes centuries - debating the
legality of employing it.
Mamluk Egypt and Syria rejected the gunpowder when it was already in use
in Europe. Its acceptance and that of other tools of European warfare
among the Turks was quicker only because of the threat on the western
frontier. That too was only possible after a prolonged debate among
jurists on whether the weapons of the ‘infidels’ could be used against
them.
Also, the Muslim world would have adopted printing before Gutenberg
reinvented it in the 15th Century after it was discovered much earlier
by the Chinese. After Sultan Bayezid II issued a decree banning the use
of printing Arabic and Turkish texts in the caliphate in 1485. Sultan
Selim decreed a death penalty on any Muslim involved in printing.
Surprisingly, Jews were permitted to use it in the production of
non-Islamic literature. It took 245 years before a mufti issued a fatwa
permitting it.
When the imperial permit was given in 1729, it still excluded religious
books. Yet, the volumes of the initial books had to carry a copy of "the
fatwa from the chief mufti declaring printing to be licit, and
certificates of approval from the two chief judges of the empire and
other dignitaries," wrote the author of The Middle East,
Professor Bernard Lewis. For the next sixteen years until when the
government printer Ibrahim Mutafarrika died in 1745, only seventeen
books have been published in secular subjects by the imperial press. Two
hundred years earlier, not less than a thousand works have been
published by the over 200 printing shops in Germany alone. The same fate
was suffered by the study of medicine, science and astronomy for most
part of those centuries.
But to the advantage of Emerald Observatory and its like, digital
technology is now commonplace. Such software will soon be downloadable
on non-Apple handsets and even in villages people would start using them
directly. Once they are convinced of their fidelity, the masses will not
hesitate to consult them on moon related issues. And what perfect
consultants they would make!
Those resisting them would have little option, as usual, other than to
adopt them too. All over the Muslim world, science and digital
technology are increasingly gaining ground in the moon sighting process
and many aspects of religion. A month ago, a debate was sparked in Saudi
Arabia after an Imam used powerpoit during his Friday congregation
sermon.
Time is required, I understand, to make people receptive to new
technology. But history has shown, once it sets its foot on a land,
technology does not retreat, neither can it be expelled. It gains new
converts daily and the number of its disciples continues to increase
until those who oppose it become an inconsequential minority. This will
be the fate of Emerald Observation and other similar applications
on moon sighting. Once with experimentation people find out that it
always truly represents the moon in the sky, shi ke nan, their hostility
will start to fade and soon would they admit it into the rooms of their
hearts as a friend to their religion, not an enemy.
If I were presenting this to your grandfather, Muhammadu Bello, he would
have received it with all enthusiasm. Clapperton has attested to Bello’s
bent for justice just as he also mentioned his readiness to learn from
diverse sources. In My Life, a descendant of Bello, the late
Sardauna, told us that when Clapperton was leaving for England at the
end of his first visit, Bello requested him to kindly purchase for him
Elements of Euclid, arguably the most published book in history
after the Bible. Bello lamented that he lost his copy of the famous book
during a fire mishap. Clapperton brought it back as a gift from His
Majesty, King George IV. If Bello were alive today, he would be happy to
see that many of the contents of Euclid’s Elements are today included in
the curriculum of all secondary schools in his caliphate. We miss you
Bello! If you were alive, no one would have said boko is haram
without attracting severe sanctions.
In conclusion, I have a prayer to make. I hope the piety of someone will
not make you reject this precious gift. My fears are rooted in the
history of a similar object. I remember the sad fate of Dar al-Rasad al-Jadid
(House of the New Observatory) and other similar projects in the dying
centuries of the Muslim Caliphate. The observatory was built upon the
approval of the Sultan in Istanbul in 1575 by the renowned Muslim
polymath and royal astronomer, Takiyyuddin al-Rashid. In
Civilization: West and the Rest, we learned that it was “a
sophisticated facility, on par with the Dyne Tyco Brahe’s more famous
observatory, Uraniborg.”
After a comet passed over Istanbul on 11 September 1577, and Takiyyuddin
answered that it foretold an Ottoman victory (may be in a bid to save
his facility), the Grand Mufti Sheikhul Islam Kadizade “persuaded Sultan
that Takiyyuddin prying into the secrets of the heavens was as
blasphemous as the planetary tables of the Samarkand astronomer Ulugh
Beg, who had supposedly been beheaded for similar temerity. In January
1580, barely five years after its completion, the Sultan ordered the
demolition of Takiyyuddin’s observatory.” It took nearly three hundred
years for Istanbul to build another observatory in 1868.
Emerald Observatory is even more lucid than Takiyyuddin’s
observatory. I only pray that it does not suffer the same fate in hands
of Your Eminence.
Bauchi
9 December 2011