For the purpose of delay their must be a certain period of happening or certain events occurring, restriction is from hunt therefore period of hunt must coincides with period of restriction, which is four, and delay is to make hunt permitted one year and restricted another year. In purely lunar calendar this coincidence can never take place 'permanently' thus circumvention is evident. Ancients must have loved the hunt.
Peace Dr. Adnan,
I have been inactive for a while but saw your post today. Indeed the whole timing is all about the hunting restriction. Even fasting is about the hunting restriction and our role as good stewards of this blessed earth and all the creatures in it. From your observation, not only does the hunting restriction coincide with the inviolable 4 full moons but also the fact that the ancients used improper intercalation to violate the hunting restriction would confirm that the year starts with the inviolable 4 full moons (since intercalation happens at the end of the year).
The scorching full-moon (the first inviolable full moon) and inhumane hunting are closely connected. In the discussion of the root “RaMaD” in Lexicons one of the derivatives is “taramod” and it has the meaning of a hunter chasing prey during the time of scorching heat (“ramad”) until its legs are burned from the intensity of running in the heat and the hunter easily catches it . By killing a female wild animal in this inhumane manner as she went out searching for food for her newborns, the hunter would not just be killing her but he would also be sentencing her dependent newborns to a slow death by thirst and starvation. Instead of proper intercalation, the Arabs used to delay the first inviolable full-moon (the scorching full-moon) every other year in order to take advantage of this inhumane way of hunting to easily catch prey.
It is often believed that the purpose of fasting is to feel the suffering of the poor. However, this is clearly false since the poor are also to fast and there is no exemption for them. Passage 5:95 lists fasting as one of the punishments for violating the hunting restriction and specifically as a way for the hunter to “
TASTE the evil result of his deed”.
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O you who have faith! do not kill game while you are restricted, and whoever among you shall kill it intentionally, the compensation is the equivalent of what he killed from the livestock, as two just persons among you shall judge, as an offering to reach the base, or the expiation by feeding the poor, or the equivalent of it in fasting so that he may taste the evil result of his deed. The god has pardoned past offenses. But whoever does it again, the god will inflict retribution on him; and the god is mighty with retribution. Fasting will make the hunter taste the evil result of his deed by experiencing thirst and hunger like his victim’s newborn animals.
The connection of fasting with animals and the hunting restriction is a reminder that humans as leaders of the earth should humanely treat creatures under our care. It is also apparent when we look at the only two passages in the Quran where the expression “magnify the god for what he guided you” occurs:
2:185. A scorching full-moon is when the reading was descended as a guidance for people and revelations from the guidance and the criterion, so whomever witnesses the full-moon, let him abstain it. And whomever was sick or traveling, a count of other days. The god wants to make it easy not hard on you. And complete the count and magnify the god for what he guided you and perhaps you would be thankful.
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YUSUFALI: It is not their meat nor their blood, that reaches that reaches the god. It is your forethought that reaches him. He has thus made them subject to you, so that you magnify the god for what he has guided you and give good news to all who do right. The purpose of the fasting marked by the scorching full moon (the first inviolable full moon that signals the beginning of the hunting restriction) is to remind us to have compassion for the suffering of newborn animals who would die from thirst and hunger if a hunter kills their mother.
Those who are guided will understand how everything is connected, the timing, the restriction, fasting, our purpose in life, and the god appointing us as leaders of this earth.
Peace and blessings,
Ayman
