Muwaqqit
In the
Not all mosques had a muwaqqit. The office was first recorded in the late 13th century in the
During its peak in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, prominent scientists held the post of muwaqqit. For example, ibn al-Shatir (1304–1375) and Shams al-Din al-Khalili (1320–1380) formed a team of muwaqqits in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. Syria and Egypt were the major centres of muwaqqit activity in these centuries, while the office spread to Palestine, Hejaz, Tunis, and Yemen. The office continued to be recorded up to the nineteenth century, although muwaqqits produced fewer treatises and instruments than in earlier times. Today, mosques use prayer time-tables produced by religious or scientific agencies or clocks programmed for this purpose. These allow for the exact determination of prayer times without the specialised skills of a muwaqqit.
Background
Muslims observe salah, the daily ritual prayer, at prescribed times based on the hadith or the tradition of Muhammad (c. 570–632). Each day, there are five obligatory prayers with specific ranges of permitted times determined by daily astronomical phenomena.[1] For example, the time for the maghrib prayer starts after sunset and ends when the red twilight has disappeared.[2][3]
Because the start and end times for prayers are related to the solar diurnal motion, they vary throughout the year and depend on the local latitude and longitude when expressed in local time.[4] The term mīqāt in the sense of "time of a prayer" is attested to in the Quran and hadith, although the Quran does not explicitly define those times.[3][5] The term ʻilm al-mīqāt refers to the study of determining prayer times based on the position of the Sun and the stars in the sky and has been recorded since the early days of Islam.[5]
Before the muwaqqits appeared, the muezzin had been the office most associated with the regulation of the prayer times. The post can be traced back to Muhammad's lifetime and its role and history are well documented. The main duty of a muazzin is to recite the adhan to announce the beginning of a prayer time. Before the use of a loudspeaker, this was usually done from the top of a minaret.[5] The minaret provided the muezzin with a vantage point to observe phenomena such as sunset which marks the start time of maghrib.[4]
Duties
The main duty of the muwaqqit was timekeeping and the regulation of daily prayer times in mosques, madrasas, or other institutions using astronomy and other exact sciences.[6] At its zenith in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, major mosques often employed prominent astronomers as muwaqqits. In addition to regulating prayer times, they wrote treatises on astronomy, especially on timekeeping and the use of related instruments such as quadrants and sundials.[5][7][8] They were also responsible for other religious matters related to their astronomical expertise, such as the keeping of the Islamic calendar and the determination of the qibla (the direction to Mecca used for prayers).[7]
David A. King, a historian of astronomy, presents the muwaqqit as a specialised profession, a mosque astronomer "in the service of Islam" who produced a large body of treatises and instruments, even though their work did not necessarily influence the practices of the muezzins and the fuqahā who largely used traditional methods. The knowledge of a muwaqqit was passed to his students who specifically intended to be the next generation of the profession. King's description is based on his research into the primary works of the muwaqqits and contemporary Islamic legal texts.[8]
On the other hand, historian of science, Sonja Brentjes, proposes that muwaqqit is to be seen as "only one facet of another persona, mostly that of a mudarris (teacher)".[9] The astronomical keeping of prayer times as well as the construction and maintenance of a mosque's astronomical instruments were just a normal part of academic activities in Muslim cities of the time. Someone titled muwaqqit was also likely to be highly learned in other disciplines, including fiqh and philosophy. The discipline of ʻilm al-mīqāt was widely learned and not only by someone who aspired to be a muwaqqit; a muezzin could well have had an identical education as a muwaqqit.[10] Brentjes' assessment is based on secondary biographies of the muwaqqits during the Mamluk era, including the works of al-Sakhawi, a prominent 15th-century author and hadith scholar.[8] Both King and Brentjes say that it is difficult to ascertain the role of the muwaqqits due to the lack of research and historical sources on the topic.[10][11]
Salary
Little information is available about the salary of the muwaqqits. King could only provide several figures given in waqfiyyas or financial documents of mosques in fifteenth and sixteenth century Cairo. The Mosque of the Emir of Qanim paid a muwaqqit 200 dirhams (silver coin) per month, compared to 900 for an imam, 500 for a khatib, 200 for a muezzin and 300 for a servant mentioned in the same document. Other figures King found were cumulative: 1400 dirham divided among about 16 muezzins and muwaqqits, and 600 dirham divided among an unknown number of muwaqqits.[12][13] According to Brentjes, these remunerations were relatively low, leading a muwaqqit to take up other jobs at the same time, including teaching.[14] The data presented by King is limited to one city and does not cover mosques with prominent muwaqqits, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.[15]
Relations with the muezzin
The responsibilities of a muwaqqit were related to those of the muezzins who announced the start time of a prayer by reciting the adhan.[5][16] Unlike the office of the muwaqqit which required special knowledge in astronomy, the muezzin were typically chosen for their piety and beautiful voice. Mosques did not always have muwaqqits. Even major mosques often relied on a muezzin's traditional knowledge to determine prayer times, such as observing shadow lengths for daytime prayers, twilight phenomena for night prayers, and lunar stations for general timekeeping at night.[6][17] Brentjes speculates that the muwaqqit might have evolved from a specialised muezzin,[18] and that there might not have been a clear delineation between the two offices.[19] Some celebrated muwaqqits, including Shams al-Din al-Khalili and ibn al-Shatir, were known to have once been muezzins, and many individuals held both offices simultaneously.[20]
History
Unlike the muazzin whose history and origin has been well-studied, the origin of the muwaqqit is unclear. The earliest known record shows that the office already existed in the thirteenth century
In the 14th and 15th centuries
If the office of the muwaqqit indeed originated in Egypt, it soon spread to
Still in Syria, Ibn al-Shatir (1304–1375) led a team of muwaqqits in the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus. He wrote two
By the end of the fourteenth century, the activity of the muwaqqits had been recorded in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, the
In the fifteenth century, the center of muwaqqit activities shifted to Egypt, especially the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, but their scientific outputs were reduced. Among the well-known muwaqqits, Sibt al-Maridini (1423–1506) of Al-Azhar wrote treatises on timekeeping. He used simpler astronomical methods which became popular in Egypt and Syria. King speculates that he might have "unwittingly" contributed to the decline of astronomy in the Middle East because his works outcompeted more advanced texts. Other muwaqqits recorded in various mosques in fifteenth century Cairo include al-Kawm al-Rishi, 'Izz al-Din al-Wafa'i, al-Karadisi, and Abd al-Qadir al-Ajmawi. In addition, Egyptian astronomers Ibn al-Majdi and Ibn Abi al-Fath al-Sufi wrote extensively on religious timekeeping using more advanced astronomy than Sibt al-Maradani, but they were not formally attached to any mosque.[32]
After the fifteenth century
ʿIlm al-miqat and the activity of the muwaqqits (
As the use of mechanical clocks became common during the eighteenth century, the muwaqqits included them as part of their standard tools and many became experts at making and repairing clocks.[38] Ottoman muwaqqits also adapted existing tables to the Ottoman convention of defining 12:00 o'clock at sunset, requiring varying amounts of time shifts each day.[39] Setting one's personal watch according to the clocks at muvakkithanes was a common practice after the spread of personal timepieces in late eighteenth century.[38] Activities of the muwaqqits were also recorded in Syria (especially the Umayyad Mosque) and Egypt up to the nineteenth century.[37]
Calculating prayer times today
From the nineteenth century, various religious agencies or scientific agencies approved by religious authorities began to produce annual prayer timetables. The times of prayer are included in calendars, annual
See also
References
- ^ Wensinck 1993, pp. 26–27.
- ^ Hadi Bashori 2015, p. 150.
- ^ a b Wensinck 1993, p. 27.
- ^ a b King 1996, p. 289.
- ^ a b c d e King 1996, p. 286.
- ^ a b c King 1983, p. 534.
- ^ a b King 1998, p. 159.
- ^ a b c Brentjes 2008, p. 130.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, pp. 130–131, 134.
- ^ a b Brentjes 2008, p. 145.
- ^ King 1998, p. 162.
- ^ King 1998, p. 302.
- ^ King 1996, p. 160.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, pp. 134–135.
- ^ King 1996, pp. 302–303.
- ^ Pedersen 1991, p. 677.
- ^ King 1996, p. 291.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, p. 139.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, p. 141.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, pp. 139–140.
- ^ a b c d e King 1996, p. 288.
- ^ King 1996, p. 298–299.
- ^ King 1996, p. 299.
- ^ King 1996, p. 300.
- ^ King 1998, p. 156.
- ^ a b c d King 1998, p. 157.
- ^ King 1996, p. 306.
- ^ King 1996, p. 306–307, 329 no. 8.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, p. 125.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, pp. 141, 144–145.
- ^ Brentjes 2008, pp. 131, 144.
- ^ King 1996, p. 307.
- ^ a b c King 1993, p. 32.
- ^ Wishnitzer 2015, p. 25.
- ^ King 1996, p. 287.
- ^ Wishnitzer 2015, pp. 25–26.
- ^ a b King 1996, p. 308.
- ^ a b Wishnitzer 2015, p. 30.
- ^ a b King 1993, p. 30.
- ^ King 1996, p. 322.
Bibliography
- Brentjes, Sonja (2008). "Shams al-Din al-Sakhawi on Muwaqqits, Mu'adhdhins, and the Teachers of Various Astronomical Disciplines in Mamluk Cities in the Fifteenth Century". In Emilia Calvo; Mercè Comes; Roser Puig; Mònica Rius (eds.). A Shared Legacy: Islamic Science East and West. Edicions Universitat Barcelona. ISBN 978-84-475-3285-8.
- Hadi Bashori, Muhammad (2015). Pengantar Ilmu Falak. Jakarta: Pustaka Al Kautsar. ISBN 978-979-592-701-3.
- King, David A. (1983). "The Astronomy of the Mamluks". Isis. 74 (4): 531–555. S2CID 144315162.
- King, David A. (1993). "Mīḳāt: Astronomical aspects". In ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- King, David A. (1996). "On the role of the muezzin and the muwaqqit in medieval Islamic society". In E. Jamil Ragep; Sally P. Ragep (eds.). Tradition, Transmission, Transformation. ISBN 90-04-10119-5.
- King, David A. (1998). "Mamluk astronomy and the institution of the muwaqqit". In Thomas Philipp; Ulrich Haarman (eds.). The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society. Cambridge University Press. pp. 153–162. ISBN 978-0-521-59115-7.
- Pedersen, Johannes (1991). "Masdjid: The personnel of the mosque". In ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.
- Wensinck, Arent Jan (1993). "Mīḳāt: Legal aspects". In ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- Wishnitzer, Avner (2015). Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-25772-3.