Dr D.L.McNaughton is of British and South African nationality. He used to be a meteorologist and astronomer at Dubai International Airport, responsible for answering all queries of an astronomical nature - and considered to be an authority on that subject in the UAE. He has published a number of articles in this field - not only in Dubai, but also in Pakistan and the UK.
   In addition to the following article, at our request Dr David examined the occurrence of double-eclipse Ramadans and the relevant statements made by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani. His findings are presented in various other articles included here in Dr Rashid's web-pages - as well as in his own site.
 

1.    The foundation-stone of Dr Muhammad Aslam Nasir's thesis is his very drastic reinterpretation of the words of Imam Muhammed al-Baqir ibn 'Ali ibn Husain. That Imam's statement about a lunar eclipse on the "first night of Ramadan", is regarded by Dr Muhammad Aslam as referring to the 13th of Ramadan - by arguing that the 13th is the earliest Ramadan date when such an eclipse is possible. Similarly, Imam Baqir's stipulation of a solar eclipse "in the middle of Ramadan" has been reinterpreted by Dr Muhammad Aslam as one which would take place on the 28th of Ramadan!

   According to Shi-ite accounts, when Imam Muhammed al-Baqir made his prophecy, one of his companions suggested that he might have inadvertently reversed the order of the two eclipses. However, the Imam replied that he had not made a mistake. If indeed (as Dr Muhammad Aslam claims) this Imam had really meant to specify the 13th and 28th of Ramadan, then surely he would have explained that when questioned. Here is one version of how they discussed it:

   al-Fadl ibn Shadhan reported [on the authority of Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Nasr] this conversation between Tha'laba al-Azdi and the Imam al-Baqir:
 

Imam Abu Ja'far (Muhammed) al-Baqir predicted: "Two signs will come before the one who will arise (al-qaim; Peace be on him): there will be a solar eclipse in the middle of the month of Ramadan, and an eclipse of the moon at the end of it".

"Son of the Apostle of God", replied Tha'laba, "usually an eclipse of the sun happens at the end of the month, whereas a lunar eclipse occurs in the middle?"

"I know what I have said", affirmed Imam al-Baqir; "these are signs which have not been witnessed since Adam came down".
 

(More detailed references are given below).
 
   Admittedly, the Shi-ite version (above) differs from the one which is quoted by Dar-e-Qatni and by the Qadianis - in that this story refers to the middle and end of the month. (The Qadianis stipulate the beginning and middle).

   In any event, there is absolutely no doubt that there have been many occasions when a lunar and a solar eclipse have both been witnessed during Ramadan (McNaughton, 1996).
 
 

2.    The Qadiani "alteration" of those Ramadan dates is compounded by additional uncertainty - because of flexibility in specifying exactly where crescent sightings are made, when defining the start of that lunar month.

   Islamic countries occupy a wide range of longitudes between eastern Asia and northwest Africa, so their calendars do not always follow the same Gregorian dates. There is also a marked bias between the northern and southern hemispheres: e.g. it is often easier to spot a new-born crescent from southeast Africa than it is from a Levantine country on the same longitude (or vice versa) - because of the different angles between the ecliptic and the horizon at dusk.
   Furthermore, there are other Islamic calendar systems in use which are completely independent of lunar observation. One such system (based on a 10631-day cycle) has been adopted by the Bohra Community, while another very similar one used to prevail in Saudi Arabia. However, their dates were often one or two days earlier than in calendars which conformed strictly to crescent-sighting.

   Thus, caution is necessary when attempting to examine whether or not particular eclipses did in fact occur (or commence) on the 13th of Ramadan (or on the 14th, or whenever), because of the difficulty in deciding which Islamic calendar should be utilised.
   In any event, if solar eclipses are supposed to be possible on the 27th, then it is necessary to accept that lunar ones will occasionally take place on the 12th of an Islamic month (see URL/DLMcN, 2000, including its Qad27d-file). In other words, the 13th is not the earliest feasible date for lunar eclipses. A more detailed discussion appears in http://www.dlmcn.com/qadfl.html

   Dr Muhammad Aslam's article contains another time-misconception in his claim that all eclipses are confined to one particular Islamic day. On the contrary, it is by no means impossible for an already eclipsed moon to rise as the sun sets, having been visible earlier on from countries further east. Similarly, the sun may set while eclipsed - but continuing to remain eclipsed and still above the horizon elsewhere. Alternatively, a solar eclipse observed from west Africa or Europe will often begin before and end after sunset in Pakistan, for example.
 
 

3.    Dr Muhammad Aslam's mention of errors in von Oppolzer's 1887 Canon of Eclipses is misleading and inappropriate in view of the availability of more accurate canons, such as those produced by Meeus and Mucke and by Bao-Lin Liu and Fiala. (In fact, von Oppolzer's analyses were much better than Dr Muhammad Aslam implies). Also, Dr Muhammad's excuse that past eclipses cannot be checked properly because of fluctuations in Earth's rate of rotation and in the moon's orbital motion - is yet another " red herring".

   If an eclipse-shadow is scheduled to brush the surface of the Earth, then it will still do so even if our planet is suddenly forced to spin faster or more slowly. Admittedly the eclipse timings will be affected (according to a clock running on UTC) - but past records are almost always good enough to confirm dates of occurrence - and indeed to enable scientists to deduce what UTC time-correction is appropriate for each occasion. (The contribution made to that discrepancy by variations in Earth's rotation-rate is known as the "Delta-T" value for the date concerned: these can be estimated for the past much more reliably than for the future).

   Despite what Dr Muhammad Aslam implies, year to year variations in the shape of the moon's orbit can be modelled and calculated extremely well. The Chapront ELP-2000/82 lunar theory provides one of the best routines presently available. Accurate cross-checks are provided by numerical integration of gravitational effects from all important Solar System members (carried out by Myles-Standish and his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the USA: read for example Newhall et al., 1983). Results are confirmed later by laser reflectors placed on the moon's surface by astronauts. It is true that the moon's long-term orbital deceleration is not known with 100 per cent accuracy - but during the last one or two centuries, eclipse times computed according to the Chapront algorithm are nevertheless reliable to within a few seconds.
 
 

4.    Dr Muhammad Aslam's investigation of future eclipses up until AD 2100 is unconvincing without a full exposition of criteria he adopted to decide on the dates of 1st Ramadan. There is a wide "grey" area where crescent sightability cannot be ascertained in advance because it depends very much on the thickness of the low-level haze. This often raises doubt as to exactly when Ramadan may commence, and an error of a whole day is enough to destroy Dr Muhammad Aslam's thesis.

   A professional approach would also have stated what values were assumed for the Delta-T correction, to allow for the slowing down of Earth's rotation; it is just possible that other (equally plausible) values could alter at least one of his dates.
   A clear-cut example of this, may be found in a paper (McNaughton, 1997) which is summarised at http://www.dlmcn.com/islamcal.html - see its section 'Earth’s changing rotation-speed'. It is shown there (according to the criteria adopted) that Ramadan 1511 could commence either on the morning of the 24th of March 2088, or on the following day, the 25th. We have absolutely no way of predicting which will be the correct date - because we do not know what the Delta-T value will be during that particular month.

JOURNAL & BOOK REFERENCES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bao-Lin Liu and A.D. Fiala, 1992: Canon of Lunar Eclipses, 1500 BC- AD 3000. Willmann-Bell Inc., Richmond, Virginia.

M. Chapront-Touze and J. Chapront, 1983: The Lunar Ephemeris ELP 2000. Astronomy & Astrophysics 124, pp. 50-62. Improved expressions are given in a later paper, 1988, in Astronomy & Astrophysics 190,  p. 346. Their book Lunar Tables and Programs from 4000 B.C. to A.D. 8000 is published by Willmann-Bell Inc., Richmond, Virginia.

Dar-e-Qatni 1,  p. 188. This mentions the prophecy by Muhammed al Baqir ibn 'Ali ibn Husain regarding eclipses preceding appearance of the Mahdi - narrated by Amar ibn Shamer, quoting Jaber.
   The corresponding Shi-ite versions appear in:
Kitab al-Irshad (The Book of Guidance), by Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022 AD); translated by I.K.A. Howard (University of Edinburgh),  p. 545,
and in
Bihar al-Anwar, Majlisi (d. 1699 AD), vol. 113,  p. 161.

Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, 1992. University Science Books, Mill Valley, California. It contains a chapter on "Calendars" and another on the "... Rotation of the Earth", as well as discussions on Solar System dynamics (including numerical integration of mutual gravitational effects).

D.L. McNaughton, 1996: Eclipses during Ramadan. Hamdard Islamicus (Karachi) XIX(1). Its 'Table 1' shows double-eclipse Ramadans occurring every 22 or 23 Islamic years. A copy appears in Dr Rashid's website, as well as in http://www.dlmcn.com/eclramx.html

D.L. McNaughton, 1997: A Universal Islamic Calendar. Hamdard Islamicus (Karachi) XX(1). An abridged version appears in the 'Islamic Astronomy' section of http://www.dlmcn.com

J. Meeus, 1991: Astronomical Algorithms. Willmann-Bell Inc., Richmond, Virginia. Chapters 45, 47, 48 and 49 discuss the moon's behaviour, including variations in its distance from Earth. Chapter 52 is devoted to eclipses, and chapter 9 to fluctuations in Earth's spin-rate.

J. Meeus and H. Mucke, 1983: Canon of Lunar Eclipses, -2002 to 2526 (2nd edition). Astronomical Office, Vienna.

H. Mucke and J. Meeus 1983: Canon of Solar Eclipses, -2003 to +2526. Astronomical Office, Vienna.

X. Newhall, E.M. Standish and J.G. Williams, 1983: DE 102, a numerically integrated ephemeris of the Moon and planets spanning forty-four centuries. Astronomy & Astrophysics 125, pp.150 et seq.

T. R. von Oppolzer, 1887: Canon der Finsternisse. Imperial Academy of Science, Vienna. (1962 English edition published by Dover Publications, New York).
Also see Oppolzer's Great Canon of Eclipses by W.H.C. Carton - in Sky & Telescope November 1989, pp. 475-478.
 

SOFTWARE

EclipseMaster, SunTracker and MoonTracker are of high quality (enabling eclipses to be examined on a personal computer). They were obtained from Zephyr Services, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

A companion diskette comes with Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms.

You are welcome to write to Dr Rashid, or else contact David directly at DLMcN@yahoo.com

Also read:
"Flaws in the Ahmadiyya Eclipse Theory"

Link to David's Home Page at:
http://www.dlmcn.com

Islamic Astronomy page:
http://www.dlmcn.com/page3q.html

Link to his Eclipse Section:
Shaddad's Lost Paradise