Double Eclipses during RamadanSometimes a Ramadan will contain a solar and a lunar eclipse. That inevitably provokes comment, because of traditions that such a "double-eclipse" is a portent for some unusual event. Ithna'asheri Shi'ites, for example, believe that their Twelfth Imam will reappear after a Ramadan double-eclipse (although those two phenomena will supposedly take place in reverse order, with the solar one occurring in mid-month (5); that will require the moon to suddenly double its speed of movement after the onset of the Holy Month!)
In March/April 1894 (Ramadan 1311), Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (founder of the Ahmadiyya or Qadiani movement in Pakistan) interpreted a double-eclipse as a sign that he was a genuine modern-day prophet (6). The lunar eclipse during that particular month was only partial, although the solar one two weeks later was total in a few places in eastern Asia (7). However, there was nothing at all extraordinary about those two eclipses: every 22 or 23 Islamic years there is at least one Ramadan featuring a pair of eclipses two weeks apart (8) - one of which is usually partial; see Table 1.
Very much rarer is a Ramadan containing two total eclipses.
Table 2 lists all such occasions since AH 1, as well as during the next 200 years (9); (its solar eclipses are all central, with annular ones also included).
It will be interesting to see whether the two total eclipses scheduled to occur during Ramadan 1424 (AD November 2003) - are cited to support a claim similar to that made by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, or as proof of thesignificance of some extraordinary event.
Granted, this will be in the reverse order of the "prophecy," but we're dealing with a megalomaniac in bin Laden, ands tens of millions of death-cultists throughout Islam.