This question confuses me. There are differing opinions…
One group claims, for the sake of muslim unity, and based on evidence from islamic sharia, that sighting of moon anywhere is sufficient for muslims everywhere to start the islamic month.
The second group, says that this is not requires. Muslims of a location should sight the moon themselves. They also quote some evidence.
Question is, which of these groups has the stronger evidence? Why do muslims in majority of places, follow the second group?
it would be nice if we all follow one thing but its not like that right mr pristine
"Prayer is a shield for the believer. When you knock on the door repeatedly it is sure to be opened for you. - Imam Ali (as)"
"..Say (O' Muhammad unto mankind): I do not ask of you any reward for it but love for my relatives(Ahlul-Bayt)"Holy Quran(42:23)
(after his last pilgrimage) the Holy Prophet (saw) stood to give us a speech beside a pond which is known as Ghadir Khum & said,"I am leaving for you 2 precious things.First of them is the book of Allah in which there is light & guidance...
The other one is my Ahlul-Bayt.
I remind you in the name of Allah about my Ahlul-Bayt.(3 times)Sahih Muslim,Chapter of the virtues of the companions, section of the virtues of Ali,1980 Edition Pub. in Saudi Arabia, Arabic version,v4,p1873,Tradition #36.
Then the Prophet held up the hand of Ali and said:"Whoever I am his leader,Ali
is his leader.O God,love those who love him,& be hostile to those who are hostile to him."(Sunni hadith:
Sahih Tirmidhi,v2,p298)
The Prophet said to Ali:"Glad tiding O Ali!Verily you & your companions & your Shia followers will be in Paradise."Sunni hadith:Hilyatul Awliyaa,v4,p3
There is the issue of time differences as well. What I am hoping to gleam here is the opinion of many accomplished 'scholars' who grace these forums. Hopefully we will get some evidences to support the opinions.
I have to agree with the first one. It sounds much better. It would mean that all muslim will be fasting on one day and will be celebrating eids on one day as well. If consider the 2nd choice, it would mean that Muslims in new york will have their own eids, and Muslims in california wil have their own eid, depending on IF they see the moon or not.
If we can work this out, there is possiblity that Muslim might get their own holiday in US. Maybe? what you think?
Pristine,
One thing I want to know about this difference of opinion is that are these prefferences,allowances or difinitive verdicts of those who belong to each group?For example advocates of no.2 do they think it is alright to have different sightings i.e. not necessary to have one or do they think it must be different.
Suppose there was a way to determine moon for the entire world would they accept it or insist on different sightings.The reverse question can be asked for advocates of no.1 too.Can anyone explain this?
I can't answer definitively. I was hoping YOU folks will be able to provide some references...
Presently muslims living in one country follow (or try to follow) the same calendar. My incomplete knowledge states that though there is no concept of present geographical boundries in Islam, there is a concept of 'Matla' or 'hadd'.
Conceptually, this means that the muslims living in certain areas, regardless of geographical boundries must observe Islamic calendar if two muslims give shahada that they had sighted the moon. This is not being folowed. If a muslim in India sights the moon, his shahada is not accepted by Ruit-e-Hilal Committee in Pakistan. Similarly, muslims in USA+Canada sight their own moon, and do not blindly follow the sighting of Saudi Arabia or anyother country.
This has led me to ask the question..... What is the real Islamic ruling on this?
I personally believe that the Islamic calendar should be same all across the world.
well it is going to almost exact for even georgian calendar is not same for we have time dilated difference (sunrise in US sunset in japan)
I support my argument with this supposition
Humanity has finally populated the solar system.. do we pray / start fast etc according to the day and night at Mars, Moon or Io (moon of Jupiter supposedly hospitale to humans)..
or should we perform this according to one point on Earth.. e.g. Makkah.
OK now taken that someone can sight the moon anywhere on the Earth.. but what about say a colony on the Moon.. the see the moon first.. and at that they see it all the time..
So we need to set it up like .. the month turns whenever a muslim sights the moon anywhere on earth.. This is still possible as the sighting of the moon would be within the 29 and 30 day margin all the time ... but for unusual circumstances adjustment are made all the time in the calenders if the moon was not visible at start of the month.. (e.g. saudi sometime in 80s)
We can always revert to local calender in case the high speed link (telephone/internet) breaks down.. but as long as we have a method which allow us to pass the information quickly we should use it.
Of course the final thought on this is that humanity was never designed to leave this planet... and we should follow our local calendars..
my argument against local calenders is where do we draw the line.. two towns 50 miles from each other.. opposite sides of the country borders.. they should have more in common their calnders than their capitals 500 miles away.
now i would support another post on khilafah with this.. (i see a happy jalal-ud-din)
If there was a muslim state now.. would it celebrate eid across the whole emirate at the same time.. or leave it to localised variations..
Pristine. I hope you don’t have Sports Illustrated Calendar in mind, and you are only discussing Lunar or Lunisolar ones. Either way there is a method to fix it. Jews use Lunar cycle, but add a 13th month after every so often (there is a formula for that) to make it more accurate and in sync (somewhat) with the Gregorian one. Hijrah calendar can also be modified to make it Lunisolar.
but that would still not solve the problem. anyways.. there are no benefits to Lunisolar calender but there are to pure lunar calendar.
In UK the fast these days is from 6am to 4pm or there abouts.. but in summer it will be from 3am o 9pm. would you subject the people to keep fasting 15 hour fasts every year if the calender is fixed as such..
but if ramadhan are fixed to winter.. we would not get the real feeling of fasting.. as we will not feel the same needs.
Jews fixed their calender to fix their fasts to a colder climate.. and make it easier on them.
This is why you can't have an Islamic month start on the same day all over the world:
When the moon is sighted in a place on earth, right at that moment there are two days and dates prevailing all over the globe. Some places have already started their next day. Those places can not start the month at that time. They have to wait for the next sunset time to start new month, and hence their month will not start on the same day as the place where the moon was sighted. Suppose the moon is only possible to be seen in Hawaii and nowhere in the world. Even if we know ahead of time that the moon will be sighted in Hawaii, the time of starting Islamic month will be after sunset in Hawaii (around 6pm). At that time in Tokyo, the time will be 1pm of the next day. If this was month of Ramadan, this is way past Suhoor time in Tokyo. They cannot start fasting 9 hours before the month can begin anywhere in the world e.g. in Hawaii in this case.
**so my friends ... now do you understand why it is not possible for this to happen?
so tell me... at what point in time we decided that the day would turn somewhere in the pacific. and mid day would be at Greenwich UK
If the month starts the same day.. one place you can have evening and other.. you have day.. but the same date..
yes.. i agree that the day will not automatically be same all over the world.. as the day rolls forward and as we go by our local clocks..
but it would gradually be over the whole planet.. instead of having ramadhan starting at three or four different dates..
we had two eid's in UK last year.
the hilal committee was created last year to prevent this but was not successfull.. imam of 2 London Jamia mosques (East London and Hounslow i think) were also present at this meeting and everyone agreed that it is not eid the next day.. these two Imams went back to their mosques.. changed their mind and announced they will have eid the next day without conferring with rest of the committe.. so .. when was the eid?..
anyways.. recriminations aside..
as we know that we sight the moon fairly late into night sometimes.. and I have had announncements 6 or 7 hours after sunset that moon was sighted..so that takes say 6 hours out of 24.. leaving 18..
But we have received announcement sometimes in the morning (even in saudi) that it is either eid or not.. (one time we did not find out till during the day that eid has been announced.. and broke our fast)
so considering that there is say 5 hours difference between the location where the moon hs been sighted at around 10 or 11 pm.. so it would be 3 or 4 am and still night.. still enough time for eid prayers.. where there has been sunlight.. they can carry on till they reach dusk and then they have the new month
now the people who are reaching sundown would know that they are reaching end of the month.. and would be prepared..
So in practicality the maximum time difference between the month starting this way will be 24 hours.. nor 48 or 72..
my question still remains.. if there was a muslim state.. would all of us celebrate eid the same day... well maximum within 24hours of the sighting of the moon.
[This message has been edited by blackzero (edited November 29, 2000).]
Black zero,
I look at it in the opposite way…i.e. going to the past.In the days that islamic khilafat was spread wide and long…there had to be different sightings in different areas…i.e.Syria,Egypt,Hijaaz,Undlas,Faaris,Hindustan etc. etc. could not have had same dates as news didn’t travel fast enough.So if it was alright then why shouldn’t it be alright now?Well this is jsut a question.
Anyway I think it would be great if some way can be found to have common calendar we should go for it…but personally I lean towards Pristine’s theory of matlaa’s whcih I see as timezones on our planet to be the right one in this regard.I have no problem with different dates in different areas but the problem arises when there are different datesin same timezone…even same city as normally in the west.Now surely that can’t be justified.
Coming back to you black zero I have another question…I believe in the Will of Allah,So if it was meant to be same-coordinated calendar why would it not be so in ther first 13 centuries of Islam…when it would simply have been impossible.And the scenario you describe will not be here(if ever)for some centuries to come yet.So i would think it was meant to be different and not the same.Khair,As I believe the muslims then were right in sighting their own moon,I believe they are now.BUT only where applicable..i.e. matlaas etc.
Finally I think as far as the muslim countries are concerned there is usually only a difference of 48 hours between the farthest countries in the dates we currently follow.I think this is ok.It might be this much over the entire planet instead of 24 as you said but certainly not 72…but this is not something I can not say I am sure about.So maybe you are right about 24.
[This message has been edited by Ahmed (edited November 29, 2000).]
It is possible to have Eid or start of Ramadan on two different days in two different places because of the difference in time. I was told that a similar thing happened when they had eid on different days in Makkah and Medina in Muhammad's (PBUH) days too (I don't have proof but it was mentioned at a dr. farhat dars or so my mom told me). So I believe there's nothing wrong with that.
What is wrong is that you have eid on 2 different days in the same city. Like Blackzero said they had two eids in the UK. We have that every year here in NY and NJ (a mere stone's throw away).
There is some masjid committee politics involved in this but it is largely due to the ignorance of the people regarding this.
I aggree that there should be some uniformity (atleast) in the same localities.