Bits of this script appear in at least three different places on this website, as it is an issue that I frequently raise when I feel that people are tending to be too dogmatic. The point is that there is no clear answer to the problem, and of its nature it must stimulate debate, and for many muslims it would seem that any form of questioning and debate about their religion is something they abandoned centuries ago. When giving talks to the muslim community in the UK, there is one thing they nearly all seem to have in common - question time almost always ends up with hardly anyone showing any interest in asking any questions.

Muslim scholars disagree concerning the time and place of revelation of this excerpt from the Qur'an, a disturbing fact for those who feel that all beliefs, especially religious, should be based on precision and certainty. Those who believe that any question must have just one correct answer, their own, ignoring the subtlety, complexity and mystery of the Creation that surrounds them.

[From the chapter called Pilgrimage, verses 61-69]

God makes the night to enter into the day and the day enter the night; and God is All-hearing, All-seeing. Because God is the Truth, and that they call upon apart from Him is false, and God is All-high, the All-great. Have you not seen how God sends down water out of heaven, and in the morning the earth becomes green? God is All-subtle, All-aware. To Him belongs all that is in heavens and earth, surely God is All-sufficient, All-praiseworthy. Have you not seen how God has subjected to you all that is in the earth, and the ships that run on the sea at His commandment? And He keeps the heavenly bodies from falling on the earth, apart from by His leave. Surely God is All-gentle to men, All-compassionate.

He gave you life, then He shall make you die, then He shall give you life again. Surely man is ungrateful. We have appointed for every people a way of worship to perform, so do not be drawn into argument about it, but summon all unto your Lord. Surely you are on a straight way. If they dispute with you say "God knows best what you are doing." God shall judge between you on the Resurrection Day concerning that on which you differed.

The sky will not go dark tonight. It is summertime in Glasgow. Of course, this is a subject of much debate amongst muslims who come here to study or settle, as our prayer times are determined by the dark of night and the first light of day. When I came back to Scotland, several years ago, the longest days were in Ramadhan, and it seemed very strange to be making night prayers in the bright light of a dusk that simply moved across the sky to form the dawn. Down at the mosques, those who felt the need to give others authoritative pronouncements on such matters argued with each other at length, but rarely managed to agree. Even the dates for beginning and ending the fast were a matter of contention, and the local muslim community usually has at least two separate Eid celebrations.

But with little more than six hours between sunset and sunrise, it was clearly impossible to be precise about prayer times, and the nightly flurry of food-drink-sex-and-prayer was an experience of Ramadhan far removed from that of latitudes nearer to the Tropic of Capricorn. For in the bright light of midnight anyone who looks to the sun and the sky to give order to his spiritual day can see that at the ends of the earth the rules break down.

Here at Earth's End, the constancy of the light is usually even more exaggerated by being filtered through a thick veil of moisture. The watery afternoon light gives few shadows, and the instant of sunset is one moment indistinguishable from others in the slow darkening of the grey skies. Indeed there are those here who think it impossible to be a good muslim without the help of Citizen and Seiko. Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer to look towards the clockwork of the heavens. Precision is for engineering. Life needs flexibility.

Surely there must have been a smile on the Face of God when He created the world with a tilt, blurring the edges of laws that many would prefer to believe can be defined with exactitude. A twist that gives us not only the seasons, but also a clear demonstration of the voluntary nature of prayer. For if you don't like the rules, just travel far enough and even the scholars can't define them. At the edge of the global scheme of things, man is given great individual freedom. The contract is between you and God.

But when living together, mankind needs Law to avoid social anarchy. When muslims gather together in Makkah to begin the Pilgrimage, the crescent moon is there in the clear desert sky for all to see. The rules may be flexible, but they are there, and at times there is no disagreement.