Like the old date stalk

We usually notice the moon twice a month, when it's full over the rooftops or when someone announces the new crescent. Tonight it's past half, bright in the southeast after Maghrib, a few nights from full.

Allah measured out stations for it, and it grows to full and then thins night by night into a faint curve before dawn. That curve is the old date stalk in the verse, the dried stem that held the dates to the palm, bent into a pale arc. What was full and green dries and curves on schedule, and Allah set every station of it.

He gave the moon its phases so that we would know the number of years and the count of time. By the calculated calendar, today is the 11th of Jumada al-Ula.

None of us ever catches it changing while we watch. A large change that happens gradually often slips past the eye. Habits fill in the same way: done daily at the same point in our routine, they grow automatic over weeks and often months, and one missed day doesn't undo them.

So picture the dad who finds his son's sleeves short at the wrist, or the daughter who sees her mother take the stairs a little slower. Both changes came a night at a time. Two pages of Qur'an after Fajr look small on any single morning, and in under a year they carry us from cover to cover.

The Prophet ﷺ pointed those who fast three days a month to the 13th, 14th and 15th, the nights the moon is fullest. On most calendars that's this Saturday to Monday, and a local masjid may shift it by a day. The fast is voluntary, and the ill and travelling are excused.

First step: tonight after Maghrib, let's step outside, find the moon, say SubhanAllah slowly, and stay with the sight for a minute before we go back in.

Reflect on this: What in our lives is changing slowly while we aren't looking?

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