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To construct a personal horoscope, you need a date of birth. Pinning down Osama bin Laden's birthdate is proving to be as difficult as it is to locate him. According to the U.S. State Department, his birth date is 30 July 1957. Interpol website states that it's 10 March 1957. There are least another handful of “possible dates” from various official and semi official sources. In a well publicised interview though, Bin Laden gave his year of birth as 1377 AH - which would mean that he was born between 29 July 1957 and 17 July 1958. This rules out a number of those possible dates but there is still uncertainty. The Islamic calendar is based on lunar phases. Their year is 10 or sometimes 11 days shorter than ours - and it gradually moves backwards. Their months begin when the new moon is visible to the naked eye - which, of course, depends where you happen to be on the earth. Matters are complicated still more because a day, in the Islamic world, begins at Sunset on what we would call the previous day. We know that years are numbered from 622 AD, the date of Mohammed's flight from Mecca to Medina. AH follows the year of birth, which stands for Ab Hejira, translating as 'from the flight' but we probably cannot be sure of Bin Laden's exact date of birth till we ask him. And we're none to confident that this chance will ever arise.
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