The Eclipse of the Moon and Solat Gerhana

I must admit I am a person who adores and admire the natural phenomenon that God created. Just before dawn recently was the eclipse of the moon. Unfortunately the sky was cloudy and there were too much lights in the surrounding area that unabled me to view the spectacular God's.creation. Not far from home I heard people praying Solat Gerhana(the special prayers for the eclipse) at the mosque. I was busy preparing my sahur at that time. I had to fast that day to repay the days that I had not fasted in the last Ramadhan. 

I regretted, though that I had not refer to the Islamic resource book to enable me perform the special solat by myself. I remembered the first and only time that I had experienced Solat Gerhana was in one of the days in Ramadhan a few years ago. We were waiting to perform the tarawih prayers at the mosque and the imam informed us that we were going to perform Solat gerhana. That night was eclipse of the moon. It was rather exciting to perform the Solat Gerhana together with so many people.

A few years back there were no effort by the mosque officials throughout the country to perform the Solat Gerhana when there was eclipse. Some people who were interested in astronomy  flock together at certain high places or hills and brought along telescopes to view the eclipse. Even the national planetariun committee just organised gatherings to view the spectacular phenomena. Normal people just let the days go by without realising this very special event.

This year the National mosque together with the national planetariun organised the sigthing of the eclipse of the  moon. The eclipse of the moon was said to happen between 2 am and 5 am. They  then took a few minutes to perform the Solat Gerhana. This was indeed a commendable effort that would bring the muslims together and made them understand better the relationship between Islam and science.

I became interested in this God's creation when I held science tuition classes to secondary students. The eclipse of the moon was one of the topic in the school syllabus. I had the opportunity to witness the eclipse of the moon several times a few years ago. Therefore  the word 'umbra' and 'penumbra' was not alien to me. Since I was interested in Astronomy, I browsed the internet to  search for the eclipse images. The students seemed very interested in the amazing phenomena.


Once, at dawn, I had the opportunity to watch the changes in the shape of the moon within a few minutes..It was really amazing., MasyaAllah. At another time, the eclipse happened late at night. Since the changes from penumbra to umbra state was rather slow, I did  not wait for the eclipse till the end.

Witnessing the eclipse made me realized that human's creation with  will not beat the God's creation of the natural phenomenon. Human could make huge tall buildings, large enormous dams but God is the greatest creater.

Now, I'm wondering when and where I could have the opportunity to watch the aurora borealis....Alaska...Norway..? If God permits, InsyaAllah...InsyaAllah.

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