Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 244
244 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI-THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION had informed me that a Sign of this kind would appear. That tiding, hav- ing been recorded in Barāhīn-e-Aḥmadiyya, had become known to hun- dreds of thousands of people before the Sign actually appeared. It is very sad that my opponents object out of sheer prejudice that, firstly, the hadith says that the lunar eclipse would take place on the first night and the solar eclipse on the middle day, but it did not happen like this. According to their contention, the lunar eclipse should have taken place on the crescent night—that is, the first night of the lunar month and the solar eclipse should have taken place on the 15th day of the lunar month, which is the middle day of the month. This line of thinking is entirely the product of their miscon- ception. Ever since the creation of this world, God Almighty's law of nature has fixed three nights [in the month] for a lunar eclipse; namely, the 13th, 14th, and the 15th. Thus, the first night for a lunar eclipse according to God's law of nature is the 13th night of the lunar month. Similarly, God's law of nature has fixed three days for a solar eclipse; namely, the 27th, 28th, and 29th day of the lunar month. Thus, of the three days meant for the solar eclipse, the 28th day of the lunar month is the middle day. In exact conformity with the intent of the hadith, the sun and the moon were eclipsed in the month of Ramadan; that is, the lunar eclipse took place on the 13th night of the month of Ramadan and the solar eclipse occurred on the 28th day of the same month of Ramadan. Moreover, according to the Arabic lexicon, the moon of the first night is never designated as qamar [which the word in the hadith]. Instead, the moon for the first three days is known as hilal [crescent]. According to some, for the first seven days, the moon continues to be called hilal. The second objection is that even if they concede that the first night of the moon [to eclipse] means its 13th night and the middle of the days for the sun means the 28th day, what is so extraordinary about it? Has there never occurred a lunar and solar eclipse in the month of Ramadan? The answer is that this hadith does not mean that the