['Aalim Network QR] Timing of Fajr

[Mustafa Rawji <mrawji@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>]

________________________________________________________________________
|                          w           w     w                          |\
|                           ||          ||   | ||                       |\
|                    o_,_7 _||  . _o_7 _|| 4_|_||  o_w_,                |\
|                   ( :   /    (_)    /           (   .                 |\
|                                                                       |\
|           ||  ||         |  ||   |T              |     | ||    |      |\
|   . _, _8 |_D_|| . _,_,_,_D_|| 4_|| q ]_o_7_o   _|_c 4_|_||   _|,_p q |\
|  (_): /         (_): . :            /        (_S           (_S      / |\
|                                                                       |\
|       In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the All-Merciful       |\
|  Greeting of Allah be upon Muhammad and the pure members of his House |\
|_______________________________________________________________________|\

Salaamun Alaykum,
  Below is the answer to the question on Fajr timing, kindly provided by 
Br. Mustafa Jaffer.

Wasalaam,

Mustafa Rawji
________________________________________________________________________

QUESTION:

Salam,

Ramadhan is near by, so this question becomes all the more important.
I just want to know what degree of Sun's altitude is used to calculate
Fajr time. Also, what time difference is chosen beetween Fajr and sunrise?

I am not interested in the why's. 

Thanks

ANSWER:

Salamun Alaykum

There have been and there shall always remain differences within scholars as
to how to determine the Fajr which is technically referred to as
Subh-e-Sadiq. Some mantain that it is the Astronomical Twilight when the sun
is 18 degrees below the horizon. Others say it is the Nautical Twilight when
the sun is 15 degrees below the horizon. People who are not satisfied by
both these times because the Asrtonomical Twilight is too dark and the
Nautical one is too bright have come up with the formula of one-seventh of
the day. That would mean if the day was,say, fourteen hours long, Fajr time
would be one seventh of fourteen (two hours) before sunrise.

For more details on the above methods, please refer to articles written by
Brother Jaffer Dharamsi which appear on the World Federation homepage site.

http://www.worldfederation.org/

Regards

Mustafa (Jaffer)      December 3, 1995