The moon: a brief history of her cultural significance

It all started when Theia, a Mars-sized rock, hit the Earth over four billion years ago. The collision was so intense that the resulting debris reached as far as 384,00 kilometers from their crash. They could’ve become enemies, but their first touch had other plans for them. The debris formed a body of its own: the moon. Since then, it has been the Earth’s only companion and ancient friend. Its surface is covered with mountains, craters, and seas of hardened lava. But we only see from the moon what the sun allows us. It shows up in the sky in different faces and phases, yet that only comprises 60% of its surface and glory. Some people can see its hidden parts, including my friend Saida. She once told me the moon whispered its secrets to her. 

It takes the moon around 27 days to both rotate around its axis and orbit the Earth. Each time it orbits, it forms an ellipse. When the ends of the ellipse meet, a lunar month passes, and a new one begins. Millions of Muslims around the world look at it for guidance to start or stop fasting in Ramadan or visit holy sites for pilgrimage. Its sighting as a crescent sitting after the sun is anticipated every year to announce the holy month. The moon is full and bright on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of every month, which are known as ayyam al-bid (الأيام البيض), or white days, since its light fills the night’s sky. Fasting on these days is equivalent to fasting a whole year. The moon is called badr (بَدر) when it’s at its fullest. Escaping his family’s prosecution in Makkah, Prophet Mohammad left his home with his companions to Medina. Some say he was welcomed into safety with the following lines: 

طلع البَدر علينا من ثنيات الوداع وجب الشكر علينا ما دعا لله داع

The badr has risen over us from the valley of Wada’ And we owe it to show gratefulness Where the call is to Allah

That marks the beginning of the Hijri calendar, anchoring itself in the Prophet’s hijrah (هجرة), or migration, to Medina. The moon’s sighting is the most tangible and material form of time we know. It witnessed our history unfolding. 

The moon is also a compass. Travelers would wait until night to escape the day’s heat, finding solace in the moon’s light and the stars’ positions. But besides providing directions to the lost, the moon is simultaneously the ultimate muse. Marveled by its beauty, many Arab poets described their lovers as qamar (قمر), the Arabic word for moon. In Egyptian Arabic, qamar arbatash (قمر ١٤), is of the highest praises. Similar compliments are found in other Arabic dialects. Even the great, yet arrogant, Al-Mutanabbī recalled how he once saw two moons on a planet with just one: when his lover’s face met the moon’s light. 

Perhaps no one knows the moon like Fairuz, the moon’s neighbor. After all, she was the one who sang Nehna Wel Qmar Jeeran (نحنا والقمر جيران), reminiscing on the home the moon had behind nearby hills and the good nights she spent with it. She also built a bridge to the moon, starting in Baalbek and Damascus. In 1962, Fairuz starred in a musical play by the Rahbani brother titled, Jesr Al Qamar (جسر القمر) – The Moon Bridge. She has magical powers in the play and is found on the bridge, which connects two villages that once lived in harmony but suddenly and pettily became each other’s worst enemies. But if they reconciled, Fairuz would show them the way to the treasure hidden beneath the bridge, all under the moon’s gaze. 

The moon is a quiet witness.  I don’t notice it until the sun shies away. In an impeccable installation, When the Moon Is Full (2021), Zaman Jassim structures the phases of the moon as they either appear or sink to the ground, depending on where you look. I’m at once defeated by departure but comforted that it’s inevitable. It is haunting to be enchanted by a celestial body walking you to darkness. But its emergence in the sky is a daily tale of beginnings and endings. It’s an invitation to rest and wash the day off of our bodies – we got work to do the next day. 

Last week marked Etel Adnan’s 100th birthday. In The Spring Flowers Own (1990), she wrote, “The morning after / my death / we will sit in cafés / but I will not / be there.”  What she told us then was a promise — the sun’s (and her) disappearance might announce the end, but there will always be another tomorrow, another possibility to start over again. Return is a promise, a self-fulfilled prophecy. In the same poem, Adnan wrote, “The moon darkened at dawn / the mountain quivered / with anticipation.” Every time the mountain and I thought of  the moon, it showed up outside our windows the next night. It’ll keep coming for us to tell us stories about our history, of where time started. We need to listen closely, and in anticipation to dream and build ahead. It is already slowly slipping away, Saida told me. Every year, the moon moves an inch further away from Earth.