Testing The Chart of Islam (2001)
September 17, 2023
“A really good chart should consistently astonish
any discriminating astrologer who puts it to the test.
A good chart will always astonish you. Anything less
than astonishing is a clue that there is a better chart
hiding in some year’s ephemeris and waiting to be found”
[Jimm Erickson, American Astrology June 1991, p.58-60]
I. Historical notes
There is some confusion about the original source of the “Horoscope of Islam”, the one mentioned by Michael O’Reilly in the April 1991 issue of “American Astrology”, where he says it is “attributed to Mark Lerner“, because this chart (July 16, 622) is calculated for the coordinates of Medina (39e36/24n28), and not those of Mecca (39e48/21n27); it also says that it represents the day when Mohammed arrived at Medina. This erroneous assertion, apparently from Mark Lerner, may have mislead other astrological authors.
In “The Book of World Horoscopes”(p.540 of the 2nd edition, 1996), Nicholas Campion says the following about the chart of Islam:
“THE MUSLIM ERA: The Moslem era is dated from Sunset, 16 July 622 AD, the traditional date of Mohhamed’s arrival in Medina. In spite of the fact that Mohhamed in fact arrived in Medina on 2 July, the beginning of the Moslem era describes the future of Islam and Chart 465 is therefore drawn for approximate Sunset, 6.45 pm, 16 July 622 in Medina.”
This paragraph contains several errors.
The date “July 16, 622” is not when the Hegira traditionally ended nor when it started. It is the beginning of the year in the Arabic Calendar in which the Hegira took place, regardless of the Hegira’s exact dates. In other words, it is the equivalent of our “January 1st” of the year in which the events of the Hegira happened. This was the reasoning of Mohammed’s personal collaborator ‘Umar I and his advisors, when the Islamic Era and calendar were inaugurated by them in AD 638.
September 24 is given by the Britannica as the date in which Mohammed arrived at Medina. One Internet source says: “according to the Hadith [=collection of sayings of the Prophet], the first man to witness the arrival of Muhammad in Medina on 12 Rabi [24 September] 622 and to announce the news was a Jew.” This is therefore the traditional date of arrival, although the most frequent statement in the sources I could consult is simply that the events of the Hijra took place in September or “early fall” of the year 622.
Regarding the exact dates of the Hegira, in addition to the date of its conclusion on the arrival at Medina that we already have (September 24th, allegedly found in the Hadith) we find other dates in a very detailed account in “AR-RaheeQ Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) – Memoirs of the Noble Prophet, by Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, detail life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)“. Here we find:
– he left Mecca: “Safar 27th” = September 10/11
– arrived at Quba: “8th Rabi‘ Al-Awwal” = September 20/21
NOTE: the conversions to the Julian Calendar in this source are wrong. To make the conversions, I have used the program “Computus” by Gerhard Behrens.
“As soon as the news of Muhammad’s arrival [at Quba] began to spread, crowds came flocking out of Madinah. They would come every morning and wait eagerly for his appearance until forced by the unbearable heat of the midday sun to return. One day they had gone as usual, and after a long wait and watch they retired to the city when a Jew, catching a glimpse of three travellers clad in white winding their way to Madinah , shouted from the top of a hillock: ‘you people of Arabia! Your grandfather has come! He, whom you have been eagerly waiting for, has come!’. The Muslims immediately rushed holding their weapons, (to defend him). The joyful news soon spread through the city and people marched forward to greet their noble guest.” [ref. above]
This means, apparently, that “Quba” is somewhere outside of or vey near Medina. A further quote clarifies all this:
“According to the investigations of the late Mahmood Pasha al-Falaki of Egypt, the day when Muhammad Mustafa, the Messenger of God, arrived in Quba was Monday, 8th of Rabi-I of the year 13 of the Proclamation, a date which corresponds to September 20, 622. On the following Friday, 12th of Rabi-I (September 24), the Messenger of God left Quba, and entered Yathrib. He was lodged at the house of Abu Ayyub, as already noted.” [ref.: “Restatement of History of Islam. The First Year of Hijra]”
All this is really inconsequential anyway, because the exact date of the beginning of the Islamic Era is a question of converting between calendars, and from the above we know that the “July 16” date is historically accurate. About the conversion between calendars, Gerhard Behrens says the following in the documentation of “Computus”:
The Islamic Lunar Calendar is based on the schematic rules applied in historiography (e.g. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Wuestenfeld tables etc.) with two options on the output side : Era beginning 16 July 622 (most accepted date) or 15 July 622. The difference is NOT consistently one day only (there would not have been any need for two options then) as according to the sources consulted the exact sequence of intercalary Islamic years depends on the choice of the era (first day). Anyhow, everybody aware a bit of the problems of the Islamic Lunar calendar knows that a conversion based on arithmetic or even on astronomic data has a margin of error of one day (possibly even more). (Reasons: actual sighting of the moon in different regions by different people; overlapping of days due to the beginning of the new Islamic day at sunset vs. midnight in modern chronology). Therefore, the day of the week is always given as a convenient method of control.”
With this explanation in mind, we can examine the most detailed historical account I found, a web page entitled “Hakim Muhammed Said” [Al-Serat: The History of the Islamic Calendar in the Light of the Hijra. Hakim Muhammad Said. Vol X No. 1 , Spring 1984. Reprinted, by courtesy of the editor, from Hamdard Islamicus, vol. IV, no.3 (1981)]:
“An agreement was reached to institute the era of the rule of Islam, beginning with the Hijra of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina. There are no such differences of opinion with regard to the date of the Hijra as there are with regard to the time when the call first came to Muhammad and with regard to the day and year of his birth. And although the date of his death is fixed, it is no pleasant thought to use (such a sad event) as the beginning of the era. The Hijra, moreover, coincided in time with the success of the religion (millah) of Islam, the frequent arrival of embassies, and the Muslim ascent to Power. It is a time of blessings and a very impressive (historical) event. The Hijra took place on Tuesday, Rabi 1, 8th. The first of that year -that is, al-Muharram-fell on a Thursday according to the average (calculation). After this had become generally known, it was considered (the correct date). However, according to observation (of the new moon) and astronomical(?) calculation, the day fell on a Friday. The author of the Nihayat al-idrak said that (the Hijra) was used, and for all future times the era was counted from it. Agreement on this matter was reached in the year 17 of the Hijra, the fourth year of the caliphate of ‘Umar. Until then, each year (after the Hijra) was called after its main event, and this was used for dating purposes. The first year of the Prophet’s residence in Medina was thus called: ‘The permission to travel’. The second year was called: ‘The year of the command to fight’. The third year: ‘The year of the test’, and so on. Afterwards, the custom of naming the year after the main events was abandoned.”
Using the program “Computus” of Gerhard Behrens, one knows that Rabi I, 8th corresponds to Monday, September 20, 622. Since the text says it was Tuesday, one concludes that it happened at night or during sunset, which would make it the next day in their calendar. This proves that the counting is exactly from July 16, and not July 15th, therefore July 16, 622, is the historically accurate zero point of the Islamic Era and calendar.
In my study, I have used the “Lerner” chart’s coordinates, but fortunately, because of the approach I followed, the difference is insignificant:
The chart, done for Mecca is:
GMT = 15h 59m 12s
LMT = 18h 38m (true solar time = 18h 35m)
Moon = 27,02 Leo (tropical)
The chart done for Medina is:
GMT = 16h 05m 38s
LMT = 18h 44m (true solar time = 18h 41m)
Moon = 27,06 Leo
Having clarified this, we can conclude that the choice of Medina or Mecca for erecting the chart is a question of personal judgement or preference, although personally I do not see why it should be made for Medina, since the holy shrines of Mecca are unquestionably the heart of Islam.
II. Astrological and cultural significance
There is a very accurate reference point for the beginning of Islam in the July 16 A.D. 622 at sunset chart. This chart is sometimes called –unfortunately– “the Hijra chart”, a mistake given authority to by several reputable writers. This is the chart of the culturally agreed zero point of the “Era of Islam”, and it is a better reference astrological point or radix than the chart of any historical event related to the Hijra that happened that year. July 16 A.D. 622 is a date tied to a culturally very significant astronomical point of the lunisolar cycle (lunar visibility). This is a real astronomical and cultural event or configuration which in turn is tied to a very significant historical event (the Hegira).
As a rule any specific moment of time that we decide to call “the birth of a nation” cannot be anything but symbolical and arbitrary. Why do we decide that the arrival of Mohammed to Medina, rather than the first visibility of the Moon just prior to it that marked the zero point of their calendar or time-reckoning, should be picked as the astrological zero point of Islam? Whatever the answer or reasoning is allows us to figure out and explore deeper the underlying assumptions we astrologers work with.
Once this date was established as zero point, everything, absolutely everything in the whole Islamic world from then on, is tied to it. In other words, it doesn’t matter that the date was established 16 years later in A.D. 638 out of convenience, what matters is that it became a cultural, mathematical, chronological, universally agreed reference point. We are talking of the chart of an event (cultural, historical, and astronomical, incarnated in the Islamic calendar) that happened only once and became the historical reference point or frame from which all muslims look at the world: the islamic calendar.
Charts do not create significant events, they just screen them, we use them as analytical tools or reference points. This is how we all work, regardless of the theoretoical assumptions we may have or don’t have. As I see it the chart of Islam (or of any nation for that matter) is not the chart of the Hegira or of specific events that happened around the time the chart was made. It is something more universal and transcendental, it extends very far beyond the events of the time. This chart is not the result of a personal interpretation or way of seeing things, it is not a subjective matter or decision, but an absolute, unrepeatable, universally accepted and used unique zero point. This is its special value.
Nations do not have only one absolute “birth moment”, and one wonders why such an ancient chart from A.D. 622 could illuminate events happening throughout the many and varied Islamic countries today. Is this chart still valid today? Is it useful? How much does a national chart extend in time? This is something we have to explore empirically in each case. Can a chart of A.D. 622 be “alive” and shed light on events of today? After studying it extensively by means of transits and synastries correlated to current political events, I concluded that it is very valid and powerful even today.
Mundane specialist Michael O’Reilly (a tropical, not a sidereal astrologer) makes the following comments about the chart of Islam (ref.: American Astrology, April 1991, p. 35):
“What is clear –and of fundamental concern to astrologers– is that Islam’s birth chart still rings true in the 20th century… As a geopolitical entity, this chart also responds to the borderless Arab Nation, first popularized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. As Nasser, and later other Arab dictators such as Colonel Kaddafi of Lybia, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, have explained, the Arab people belong to one nation. The current political borders were established by European Imperialists (the French and British) after World War I, and were designed to divide and subjugate the Arab people.”
this is confirmed by the article in the Britannica, which describes it with the following words:
“The vast variety of races and cultures embraced by Islam (estimated to total 600,000,000 to 700,000,000 persons worldwide) has produced important internal differences. All segments of Muslim society, however, are bound by a common faith and a sense of belonging to a single community. With the loss of political power during the period of Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries, the concept of the Islamic community (‘ummah’), instead of weakening, became stronger. The faith of Islam helped various Muslim peoples in their struggle to gain political freedom in the mid 20th century and the unity of Islam contributed to later political solidarity.“
continue citing Michael O’Reilly:
“Islam’s birth chart features the Uranus-Neptune conjunction in practical and orderly Virgo, opposed to a transcendent Jupiter in Pisces. Mohammed’s mission as he saw it was to create heaven on earth. In his later years the messages he received turned from the cosmic to the mundane, and he preached administrative justice and an equitable distribution of resources. Such teachings have been used by subsequent generations to justify social upheaval and popular revolution (the Moon is conjunct Uranus). As of this writing in September 1990, Saddam Hussein uses these same words to rally Middle East Arabs against the wealthy Saudis and Kuwaitis.” [ibid., p.34]
the Britannica explains it like this:
“In AD 622, when the prophet fled to Medina, his preaching was soon accepted, and the community-state of Islam emerged. During this early period , Islam acquired its characteristic ethos as religion uniting in itself both the spiritual and temporal aspects of life in seeking to regulate not only the individual’s relationship to God (through his conscience) but human relationships in a social setting as well. Thus, there is not only an Islamic religious institution but also an Islamic law, state, and other institutions governing society. Not until the 20th century were the religious (private) and the secular (public) distinguished by some Muslim thinkers and separated formally, as in Turkey… This dual religious and social character of Islam, expressing itself in one way as a religious community commissioned by God to bring its own value system to the world through the ‘jihad’ (‘holy war’ or ‘holy struggle’), explains the astonishing success of the early generations of Muslims. Within a century after the Prophet’s death in AD 632, they had brought a large part of the globe –from Spain across Central Asia to India– under a new Arab Muslim empire.”
The Uranus/Neptune conjunction happening just after the Gulf War (remember the “New World” Christmass present to Americans of George Bush?) brought the chart of Islam to a new focus. Jim Lewis had this to say:
“It is noteworthy that the founding of Islam occurred 4 years before a conjunction of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, an exceedingly rare aspect that just recurred in 1989. The only other occurrence of this triple conjunction in modern history happened in 1307, at which time the Crusades were running out of gas (figuratively), and the Moslems were reclaiming their lands from Western European domination. The recent eventuality of this conjunction and its association with Islam should be factored into any long-range prognostication of who will ultimately prevail in the current attempt to secure dominance over the area.” [ref.: “The Mideast Crisis”, part II, American Astrology, March 1991, p.28]
Needless to say, he wrote this months before its publication, when “Desert Storm” had not been launched. I wonder what his analysis would be of the present situation, had not he died so early.
III. Preliminary thoughts
will continue…