Moon
Sighting and Moon Fighting
By Dr Imad-ad-Dean
Ahmad
iad@speakeasy.net
In an article Moin Moon Khan
asks 19 questions about the seemingly interminable
indecision over the Islamic holiday dates. Those
of his questions that are not rhetorical deserve
an answer. As a Muslim with a deep interest in
these questions and with a PhD in astronomy and
astrophysics, I am pleased to make the following
observations:
1. What’s the boundary of moon sighting?
Is it limited to a city, state, region, country,
or centered on Saudi Arabia or the entire hemisphere?
The boundary to the moon’s sighting is completely
arbitrary. The organizations that have presumed
to offer an “official” sighting have
made their task politically and scientifically
difficult by choosing to reject sighting from
outside the 48 contiguous states and Canada. This
arbitrary decision means that they must reject
not only sightings from the Arab world (which
are largely irrelevant as the moon tends to be
more easily seen in the west than the east at
any given latitude) but also from places west
like Alaska or Hawaii. Were they willing to accept
(or even send observers to make) sightings from
places west of the contiguous 48 states, but which
share part of the nigh with the east coast of
the US, most of the disagreements would vanish.
2. How late should we wait for the declaration
of the moon’s sighting?
This depends on the answer to question 1 and on
the efficiency with which sightings are investigated.
The more thoroughly sightings must be investigated
and reviewed, the longer it will take. The further
west we are willing to go for a sighting the longer
it will take, yet if we go far enough to the west,
we need not wait at all since sighting becomes
a near certainty and we can depend on the calculation
being verified.
3. How many people should confirm it?
There are different schools of thought on this
issue. Some say one, some say two, some say 50,
and others say this requires consensus. The further
west we are willing to go the larger the number
of people who would see it. By accepting sightings
from west of the contiguous 48 states, as I have
proposed, we could have as many observers as any
school might wish.
4. Is there any standard checklist? Has
it been placed on Internet for discussion and
inputs?
For a checklist and a detailed discussion of the
entire issue see Proceedings of the Lunar Calendar
Conference, I. A. Ahmad, ed. (Herndon, VA: International
Institute of Islamic Thought 1988).
5. Does the “birth” of a crescent
depend on a chance?
There is no randomness in the time of “birth”
of the new moon. There is some randomness in the
time the crescent first becomes observable, but
that is NOT the source of the problem.
6. Won’t there be a colossal collision of
stars if the cycle of the moon’s rotation
gets slowed as suspected by moon watchers?
The moon’s orbital period is gradually slowing
down, but this will have no effect whatsoever
on the stars, which are much farther away from
us compared to the moon than the moon is compared
to the clouds.
7. Why do our religious scholars try to
ignore the findings of science and technology
collected by NASA on the moon’s issue?
That question is rhetorical.
8. What do national Islamic organizations
achieve by issuing the press release on the moon
sighting, when more than 50 percent people don’t
follow it?
Rhetorical.
9. In the past, if major national Islamic
organizations supported Brother Khalid Shaukat’s
project for moon sighting, why do not they have
the wherewithal to accept it once and for all?
The dichotomy is like Zogby: it performs the opinion
poll but its staff members do not believe it.
It is politically difficult for a Muslim organization
to reject the sighting report of a sincere Muslim
when sighting is (even remotely) possible. Although
such sightings often could be scientifically rejected
on technicalities (e.g., the moon was not oriented
correctly in the observer’s report) nonscientists
would be angered that a sighting was rejected
on a technicality.
10. Why do not the major national Islamic
organizations either denounce the calculation
theory or adopt the moon sighting process or vice
versa?
Accepting both is like saying that a woman is
half pregnant or a Muslim is half fasting.
Rejecting calculation would make them seem primitive,
while rejecting sighting reports would be politically
costly. If they would agree to accept westerly
sightings (as I mentioned above) they could put
an end to this dichotomy.
11. Are our national Islamic organizations
under the grip of Islamic neo-conservatives?
Rhetorical.
12. When are we going to put an end to
this annual spiritual circus?
Rhetorical, yet I’ll answer it anyway: When
we send observing parties to the places sharing
part of the night with the US east coast, where
sighting is determined to be practical, even if
those places are to the west of the 48 contiguous
states.
13. How long does the community have to
be a victim of the paralysis of analysis?
Rhetorical.
14. Why do we make the eleventh hour decisions
every year? Is there any possibility of ending
it?
As long as we insist that intention to fast or
break fast must wait until the sighting is actually
accomplished, we must wait till the “eleventh
hour” because EVEN restricting sighting
to the contiguous 48 states and Canada mean that
an 11 p.m. Eastern Time sighting on the West coast
is valid.
15. Why do we need to thrive on the state
of confusion and make it a hallmark of our characteristics?
We cannot ask calendar makers to put two days
for fasting and two days for Eid as organizers
of the Eid prayers are making reservations for
banquet halls for two days.
There is no reason why we cannot ask calendar
makers to put down the earlier date as the official
date and a footnote that it may actually be observed
a day later. After all, the Eid is a three-day
holiday. However, I think it would be vastly preferable
to be able to give a single date, which accepting
sightings west of the contiguous 48 states would
allow us to do.
16. Why do the physicists of the Muslim
community fail to take a pro-active role in this
debate and allow the conservatives a free ride?
I am a physicist and I have been taking such a
role since 1988. My calculations of the dates
for the Eid are published annually in the World
Almanac and usually coincide with the dates actually
observed by the national organizations. If those
organizations would accept sighting west of the
contiguous 48 states, then the dates would ALWAYS
coincide.
17. What is the sin or kuffara thereof
for people who started fasting one day late or
one day earlier?
Please, brother, no one who fasts or breaks fast
with good intentions is guilty of kufr. As for
the possibility of sin, my practice has always
been to observe Eid with my own community and
if they have fasted one day short, then to make
up for the missed day at a later time. Allah is
merciful.
18. If Ramadan begins on two days, then
who will determine the days of Lailatul Qadr when
the sins of previous years are forgiven and supplications
are accepted?
Allah decides these things. If you are in doubt
observe two nights and seek Allah’s mercy.
We do not even agree on which of the odd numbered
nights in the last day of Ramadan is Lailut Qadr
as it is.
19. Is it fair to believe in one person’s
sighting of the moon for the entire country of
the size of United States?
Allahu a`lam.
[Imad A. Ahmad is an astrophysicist, graduate
of Harvard and the University of Arizona, who
has worked for NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory. He is author of Signs in the Heavens:
A Muslim Astronomer’s Perspective on Religion
and Science and A Uniform Islamic Calendar for
the Western Hemisphere, and teaches Honors courses
in religion and science at the University of Maryland.
He can be reached at iad@speakeasy.net]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
