Muhammad's eclipse was an

annular solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

that occurred on January 27, 632, and was visible across parts of

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

, and

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. This eclipse is especially relevant to the

history of Islam The history of Islam is believed, by most historians, to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abr ...

as it is identified as the eclipse that occurred during the life of the final Islamic prophet,

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

, upon the death of his youngest son, Ibrahim. It is exclusively documented in Islamic

sīrah Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (), commonly shortened to Sīrah and translated as prophetic biography, are the traditional biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad written by Muslim historians, from which, in addition to the Qurʾān and ''ḥadīth ...

(biographies of Muhammad) and

hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

literature. A

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

occurs when the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

passes between the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

and the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the

apparent diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the '' visual ...

of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun, presenting as the Moon blocking most, but not all, of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). This eclipse had a

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

of 0.9836.

Within Islamic sources

The occurrence of the eclipse during the life of Islamic prophet

earned it the

epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

'Muhammad's eclipse'. The eclipse is well-documented in early Islamic sources, but no references to it have been found elsewhere. The eclipse occurred around the time of the death of Muhammad's youngest son, Ibrahim, who was 18 months old. Rumours of God's personal condolences quickly arose. It was also believed in pre-Islamic

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

that eclipses occurred at the death of a great man. Muhammad denied the rumours and rejected the pre-Islamic beliefs.

Eclipse prayer and sermon

Muslims believe the eclipse prayer performed during solar and lunar eclipses was first performed by Muhammad during this eclipse, thereafter becoming a

sunnah is the body of traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time supposedly saw, followed, and passed on to the next generations. Diff ...

. A

narrated by

Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As Abū Muḥammad 'Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As (; died 684 CE) was the son of Amr ibn al-As of Banu Sahm and was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the author of "''Al-Sahifah al-Sadiqah''" ("''The Truthful Script''", ), the firs ...

Sunan Abi Dawud ''Sunan Abi Dawud'' () is the third hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by scholar Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (). Introduction Abu Dawood compiled twenty-one books related to Hadith and preferred those (plural of ...

asserts that Muhammad performed the prayer from when the eclipse was observed until the sun was clear. Narrations by

Jabir ibn Abd Allah Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥarām al-Anṣārī (, died 697 CE/78 AH), Abu Muhammad and Abu Abd al-Rahman also wrote his nickname was a prominent companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and narrator of Hadith. Imami sources say ...

Asma bint Abi Bakr Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr (; 594/595 – 694-695CE) nicknamed Dhat an-Nitaqayn (meaning she with the two belts) was one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and half-sister of his third wife Aisha. Her nickname Dhat an-Nitaqayn was giv ...

, and

Abu Musa al-Ash'ari Abu Musa Abd Allah ibn Qays al-Ash'ari (), better known as Abu Musa al-Ash'ari () (died c. 662 or 672) was a companion of Muhammad and an important figure in early Islamic history. He was at various times governor of Basra and Kufa and was involv ...

Sunan an-Nasa'i ''Sunan al-Sughra'' (), also known as ''Sunan al-Nasa'i'' (), is one of the Kutub al-Sittah (six major hadith collections), and was collected by al-Nasa'i (214 – 303 AH; c. 829 – 915 CE). Description Sunnis regard this collection as the th ...

Sahih Muslim () is the second hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Q ...

, and

Sahih al-Bukhari () is the first hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar al-Bukhari () in the format, the work is valued by Sunni Muslims, alongside , as the most authentic after the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari organized the bo ...

, respectively, also describe a long prayer with Muhammad having stood,

bowed Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to t ...

, and prostrated for long periods of time. Muhammad delivered a

khutbah ''Khutbah'' (, ''khuṭbah''; , ''khotbeh''; ) serves as the primary formal occasion for public sermon, preaching in the Islamic tradition. Such sermons occur regularly, as prescribed by the teachings of all legal schools. The Islamic traditio ...

(sermon) following the prayer, saying:

References

{{Solar eclipses 632 1 27 632 Life of Muhammad Moon myths Biographies of Muhammad

Within Islamic sources

Eclipse prayer and sermon

See also

References