c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Khalid Shaukat and Omar Afzal were once childhood chums in India. Now, more than 50 years later as immigrants in America, the two find themselves on opposite sides of a celestial schism that could influence when the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims celebrate their religious holidays.
Since its inception in the 7th century, Islam has operated on a lunar calendar, meaning that a new month started with the naked-eye sighting of a new moon. Muslims have for centuries followed this practice, established by Islam’s prophet Muhammad, including deciding when to start the holy month of Ramadan.
But in recent decades, Muslim scholars have often disagreed when a new moon has been sighted, and whether communities should go by moons sighted locally or in Saudia Arabia, the birthplace of Islam.
That’s why the Fiqh Council of North America, a panel of Islamic scholars that advises U.S. and Canadian Muslims on religious matters, asked Shaukat and other Muslim astronomers to compute a lunar calendar based on astronomical calculations. Last month, the Islamic Society of North America declared that it would no longer rely on naked-eye sightings. According to the calculations, the new moon appears Friday (Sept. 22), meaning Ramadan starts Saturday (Sept. 23).
But Azlan, a retired linguist from Cornell University in New York and a self-described astronomy and math expert, said such a move contradicts Muhammad’s command and goes against Shariah (Islamic) law. He said it will be impossible in North America to see the moon until Saturday, meaning Ramadan starts Sunday.
“There is not a single Muslim in the world that will agree with the ISNA decision,” said Azlan, a founding member of the Committee for Crescent Observation International, who runs a moon Web site, http://www.moonsighting.net. “You can’t calculate the moon accurately, there’s always some error.”
The stellar uncertainty has presented both theological and practical difficulties, not least of all for Muslims in predominantly non-Muslim majority countries.
Without knowing in advance the exact date of Eid, for example, Muslim Americans can only offer approximate dates to employers and school officials when requesting time off. Muslim organizations reserving prayer spaces or banquet halls, meanwhile, often plunk down two reservation deposits, knowing one will be lost.
“Not knowing has been very costly,” said Shaukat, an astronomer and research engineer with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Maryland, who runs the Web site http://www.moonsighting.com
According to Shaukat, religious authorities in Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and at least four other countries have already adopted astronomical calculations. Still, he acknowledges some Muslims will take convincing.
“Some sort of an educational phase is needed to educate the people who take the words of Prophet Muhammad literally,” he said.
On Sept. 12, responding to a flurry of complaints, the Fiqh Council issued a detailed explanation of its decision, arguing that Muhammad relied on naked-eye sighting because that was the only method available during his time. Muhammad’s objective was not sighting of the moon, scholars argued, but establishing the “start of Ramadan with certainty.”
The Fiqh Council concluded, however, that unity was more important than astral hairsplitting.
“Muslims must show unity during (Ramadan and Eid) at least locally if not nationally or internationally,” the council said. “That is the true spirit of Islam.”
KRE/JL END SACIRBEYEditors: See mainbar, RNS-MUSLIMS-RAMADAN, transmitted Sept. 19.
