Saudi Arabia، Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia have announced the end of Ramadan and the celebration of `Id al-Fitr or Eid al-Fitr tomorrow, Thursday 8 August, 2013 as a the first of the Arabic month of Shawwal 1434 AH. Oman, however, will continue to fast on Thursday and will hold the feast on Friday. In South Africa too the crescent was not sighted so the Muslims there will have to fast out the month of Ramadan to the maximum of 30 days and the 1st of Shawwal will be on Friday.
Now we will have a scenario where Oman and South Africa will have a lunar calendar at variance from those of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. I do not have an update on Egypt. All this will impact 70 days later with the calendar for hajj. Again those countries that ended Ramadan later will most likely be out of sync with the hajj calendar. India and Pakistan have yet to announce their sightings on Thursday. It is not clear what US Muslims who follow sighting will do. They might follow the Middle East’s sighting or they might insist on local crescent sighting and that decision will be made in several hours time. The Islamic Society of North America had announced in advance the beginning and end dates for Ramadan based on calculation and accordingly `Id al-Fitr is tomorrow Thursday 8 August 2013.
It is not even clear to me whether the crescent was sighted in the Gulf. The Minister of Justice of the UAE said “that after a number of legitimate measures, as well as several contacts with neighboring countries, it was established that Wednesday was the last day of Ramadan.” No mention was made of sighting. However a Qatari source reports that sighting took place
Islamic lunar calendar confusion continues until proper scientific conventions are adopted and the lunar calendar is predictable and certain and not subject to the vagaries of sighting.
@DukeU prof @EbrahimMoosa says there's solution to #Muslim moon debate: http://t.co/I2eJ5lNCOI Not sure it's that simple, hence the debate.
— Manya Brachear (@TribSeeker) August 7, 2013
[…] Many Muslims are calling on religious scholars to rely on astronomical calculations to track the moon and jettison the sighting of the moon as a means to determine the start of a new month. […]