The Moon Sighting Controversy: Should Muslims Really Have One Eid?

There was a time in my childhood where moon hunting at the end of Ramadan was performed as family ritual. Much like Sid narrates in post over at the Karachi Metroblog, I too can recall scenes from the distant past when I was still in school. Soon after dusk on the 29th of the month I and my sisters would hurriedly break our fasts if we were fasting (or just join in the elders in aftari if we weren’t) and quickly rush to the rooftops thereafter in search for the coveted crescent. But that has all changed.

Moon-sighting has acquired the state of such a contentious issue in recent years, not just in Pakistan locally (where we’ve been having no less then three different Eids for the past several years) but globally everywhere in the larger Muslim community that at least I have completely given up the ‘moon hunting’ ritual of my childhood. Instead, we now suffice with being glued to our TV sets, and waiting for the National Ruyat-e-Hilal (Moon Sighting) Committee to give their verdicts. And this year, the committee told us that they sighted the moon on Saturday the 12th of October. So Pakistan (or at least majority of it anyway) will be observing Eid tomorrow, on the 13th of October.



Despite the fact that even locals -like A for [pine]Apple, who caught this picture of an ultra-thin Shawal crescent today- have verified the claims of the committee, a sizable chunk of folks up in the Pakistani North, including people in Quetta, Peshwar, Mardan and Swat as well as some 200 odd people in Karachi, all offered their Eid prayers on Friday, the 11th of October. Some of these actually claim to have seen the moon earlier while others are adherents of the phenomenon of ‘global sighting’. The latter’s belief is stemmed reportedly from one narration of the Prophet where he asked locals to break their fast a day earlier after travelers to that part testified that they had already seen the moon elsewhere during their travels.

Local sighting advocates too will show you ahadiths (sayings of the Prophet) backing their methodologies as well stories of how the Saudis never really ‘witness’ the moon. One such critic of the Saudi authorities, namely the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom, will point you towards astronomical calculations that always predict the moon to be seen later then the Saudi’s claim to have seen it. But their views aren’t shared by the Fiqh Council of North America and the Islamic Society of North America, who in accordance with their Saudi counterparts celebrated Eid on Friday.

So you’d think that at least the whole of North America and the UK will have had Eid on Friday and Saturday respectively, but obviously not. My Aunt lives in the state of North Carolina, the two biggest cities there, Raleigh and Durham, are less then a full hour drive away from each other. But local mosques in Durham followed the Suadis while those in Raleigh (dominated largely by expat Pakistani and Indian Muslims) set up their own local moon sighting committee, and promptly asked their adherents to come for prayers on Saturday. Towards the west coast, my sister in Davis, California followed her local mosque and prayed Eid prayers on Friday. In the mid-west, my uncles in Texas ‘saw’ the moon themselves and went to prayers on Saturday. In the North East, in New Jersey, other cousins all went to Eid prayers on Saturday too.

From Canada, Opee shared his thoughts with the Bloggers Association of Pakistan mailing list just before leaving for Eid prayers on Saturday morning. "Middle Eastern mosques" he said, run primarily by Saudis, celebrated Eid on Friday "without moon sighting with naked-eye or by scientific methods". Opee him self, like the majority of Non-Middle Eastern mosques in Canada followed the "Toronto Hilal Committee" which saw the moon on Friday, and celebrated Eid on Saturday. Cross over to Europe and you have the same confusion. Sohaib Athar on the same mailing list said that while most of Manchester where he was based celebrated Eid on Saturday, local authorities in Cambridge, where his brother lives, asked people to offer Eid prayers on Friday.

Elsewhere in Europe, Desicritics Sports editor Huzaifa Das reported that Muslims in Netherlands as well as neighboring Belgium all followed the Saudi route and celebrated Eid on Friday. In the rest of the Muslim world, including in Iran, Iraq and Malaysia, Eid will be celebrated on Saturday. But the most populous Muslims country in the world, Indonesia, celebrated it a day earlier on Friday. I’m not sure when all of our 170 odd million Muslims brothers and sisters in India celebrate Eid, but I was forwarded a link by fellow Desicritic Bhaskar Dasgupta which described how some minor riots broke out in Bhopal when one cleric announced Eid on Sunday.

Three people were left injured in these clashes between supporters of two different Muslim clerics. Quite tragically, these clashes started not because opposing supporters differed on the date of Eid, but who announced it. I’ve written before about how the Muslim ummah needs to grow out of its hypersensitivity over petty issues, and whilst the date of Eid isn’t a petty issue, who announces it certainly gets as petty as it can get.

As a layman, who has little understanding of both the Islamic fiqh of moon-sighting and the astronomical principles associated with the same, you’re often left very confused. There is after all only one moon, how so many different people can passionately claim to have seen it on at least three different days is quite bemusing. It’s not the matter of local sighting vs. global sighting vs. scientific calculations that’s actually confusing for me, but rather how possibly, logically speaking, all of these different methods can come to different conclusions. Scientifically speaking, shouldn’t the moon only be ‘visible’ only on one day? Shouldn’t all these different methods of moon sighting all come up with the same dates for Eid?

Well, no! Tariq Mustafa who blogs at Pakistan Next Generation Issues clarified my ignorance-induced confusion on another mailing list, “Fundamentally” he said, there was no problem in having a number of Eids. “This may sound right out of cracks head but think for a while - there are so many prayers of Fajr and Zuhar according to each area and we don’t' make any fuss out of it. That Eid is a form of worship - something really unique to Muslim faith - we do not jump in joy and get drunk and go wild even when celebrating - allows it to be celebrated in different places at different times without any problem.”

That’s a fair enough argument but as my friend Nadya Qureishi would contest, some problems do arise with having three different Islamic calendars around the world. “Calculating the difference in terms of many, many years is it possible somewhere down the line we would have different number of years to quote since the birth of the Prophet as we do for references?". Indeed, there are difference of opinions on that front between various Muslims scholars.

Perhaps then, calls for outright consensus on such issues may not only be a pipe dream in these times of polarization and schism, but also a failure to respect valid difference of opinion. I may not out rightly agree with everything that organiasations like the Muslims for Progressive Values may propagate, but their recent call for "compassion, patience and peace" between different groups on the issue of moon sighting is a welcome effort.

It is true that Muslims today lack unity as religious assemblage. A large chunk of Muslims countries are monarchies, the rest either weak democracies or out right dictatorships. We all claim to follow the same God, the same Holy Scripture and the same last Prophet, but few of us pray in the same way, observe our holiest days in the same way or have anything like an accord on our views of Islamic history and ideology. But another way of looking at this dis-unity if you will is diversity.

The four greats imams of the four different Sunni schools of thought (Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi’i and Imam Hambal) all had disagreements, yet in their collective work you can always find a hint of great respect for each other, respect that embodied refraining from despising each others’ differing opinions as either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and instead identifying them as just ‘different opinions’. Even Sunni and Shia leaders, often with vastly differing view points, have emphasized this need to have greater tolerance for each others views.

In fact, I remember watching one religious program -where viewers’ questions are answered in turns by Shia and Sunni scholars- that termed the two sects ‘mirror images’ of each other. Even the four great caliphs, Abu Bakar, Umar, Usman and Ali, may Allah be pleased with them, all had disagreements from time to time. Yet the admiration and respect they shared for each other, is something that modern Muslims and their numerous sects can only dream of aspiring.

Perhaps consensus would be ideal. But ideals are thing of fantasy, and in the hope to achieve them, we can not jeopardize the real that we do have. As Tariq Mustafa concluded in his email to me, “one must appreciate that it [Eid] is actually a 'spectrum of celebration' that is actually a band that can extend from date 1 to date 2 across the world and people can perform this celebrative worship according to their local moon [sightings].” This makes logical sense too.

Eid celebrations after all are greatly predominated and influenced by local culture across the Muslim world, so much so that you’d find a big difference in the way it’s observed from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia. We all eat different kinds of festive food, we all wear different kind of festive clothes, we all really do have our own special way of celebrating Eid. And if we all don’t celebrate Eid in the same way, why should there be an expectation to have it on the same date of the solar calendar?

Besides, as blogger Adnan Siddiqui rightly pointed out to me on Facebook, there are other issues, much more pertinent and pressing then Eid, which Muslims really ought to strive to reach some consensus on, but we never bother touching those. Eid hence provides us with another occasion to try to respect our differing views while setting aside the tendency to label different views either ‘wrong’ or "right", and instead recognise them as just that, different views.

So whether you’ve celebrated Eid on Friday, Saturday or will celebrate it on Sunday (like me), I hope you’ve had a spiritually fulfilling Ramadan and a joyous and blessed Eid to follow it. Taqabbal Minna Wa Min Kum (May Allah accept the good deeds for me and you).

“Oh Allah! Let the crescent moon appear over us with security and eman; [O Moon!] my Creator and your Creator is Allah”
-Quoted from Tirmidihi, this is the Prophet Muhammad’s supplication for moon sighting as presented in Javeriya’s blog.

See Also:

Frequently Asked Questions at moonsighting.com
Eid 101 by Muhammad Alshareef

Image Credit: A for [pine]apple, originally published at the Islamabad Metroblog, all rights reserved, reproduced here with permission

Disclaimer: The above, is at best, a layman’s perspective. For a more detailed fiqhi and scientific perspective, see either the FAQ section on moonsighting.com or go visit the imam of your local moque! Walahu Alam (Allah Knows Best)!