XPost: alt.religion.islam, alt.sufi, alt.islam.sufism
XPost: alt.culture.saudi, soc.culture.iranian
I gather from new.google.com that, though it is hard to
believe, that Saudi Arabia claims to have sighted the
earliest waxing crescent moon today (March 29, 2025).
Also Muslims in North America are supposed to follow
the Saudi sighting. But for any of you in North America,
have you sighted the moon yet. I think the earliest I
might be able to sight it will be just after sunset
March 30 here in St. John’s Newfoundland. But
in might be visible in Vancouver this evening (March 29)
and my baseline (similar to Nazareth to Jerusalem
for Jesus or Medina to Mecca, or is it the other way
around, for Mohammed) is St. John’s to Vancouver.
Though I am not Muslim (I have an individual religion,
and am not recruiting), the earliest waxing crescent is
important to me as well. It figured in my Silver Bough
thumb, described on
https://www.nfld.com/~dalton/thumbs.html .
Oh well, I may as well repeat it, and my Koran thumb and
Koran finger, below:
The Silver Bough thumb
Once in spring 1997 I thumbed at random a book on Scottish folklore called
The Silver Bough Vol. 1 by F. Marian McNeill. It came out to a page with this poem on it:
Ri faicinn domh na gealaich uir,
Is duth domh mo shuil a thogail.
Is duth domh ma ghlun a leagail,
Is duth domh mo cheann a bhogadh,
Toir cliu dhuit fein, a re nan iul,
Gum faca mi thu a rithist,
Gum faca mi a ghealach ur,
Ailleagan iuil na slighe.
Is iomadh neach a chaidh a null
Eadar uine an da ghealaich,
Ged tha mise a' mealtainn fuinn,
A re nan re 's nam beannachd!
which translates as:
When I see the new moon,
It becomes me to lift mine eye,
It becomes me to bend my knee,
It becomes me to bow my head.
Giving thee praise, thou moon of guidance,
That I have seen thee again,
That I have seen the new moon,
The lovely leader of the way.
Many a one has passed beyond
In the time between the two moons,
Though I am still enjoying earth,
Thou moon of moons and of blessings!
(I have been told that that is of Christian origin.)
On that same page I also describe the following, which may be
of interest:
Koran thumb
The third thumb occurred early in 1997, not long after I had posted to alt.islam.sufism about the blue rose vision, but got no response. At Branwen Books, a local pagan-friendly bookstore, I thumbed randomly in an abridged version of the Koran, and it came open at the end of the section entitled Daybreak, which ends with the two lines
Join the company of My servants,
and enter into My Garden.
That was from p. 141 of The Essential Koran -- The Heart of Islam -- An Introductory Selection of Readings from the Qur'an, translated and presented
by Thomas Cleary, HarperCollins paperback edition 1994, ISBN 0-06-250196-8 (cloth), ISBN 0-06-250198-4 (paberback).
Koran finger
Feb. 25, 2004: Last night in my room I grabbed my "The Essential Koran" (an abridged Koran, but I am not Muslim) and flipped to a page at random (completely random, but without thumbing this time, i.e. instead of a thumb
on the long side I used my right index finger on the top) and read out
"Yaa Siin
By the Recital, rich in wisdom,
you are surely one of the Messengers,
on a straight path.
It is a revelation sent down by the Mighty, the Merciful,
so you may warn a people whose ancestors had not been warned and so they were heedless"
etc., including
"Alas for the servants: whenever a Messenger comes to them, they mock him.”
For more background see my Salmon on the Thorns web page, and
for recent and ongoing updates see alt.religion.druid .
--
David Dalton
dalton@nfld.com https://www.nfld.com/~dalton (home page)
https://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html Salmon on the Thorns (mystic page) "I'm on my way; And I must flag the last train down"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0jjvslUuY (Bill Bourne - Baggins)
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