Moon
Sighting
By
Dr. Omar Afzal
The Committee for Crescent Obser vation
International
1069 Ellishollow Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
ISNA and ICNA did it
again! Muslim community was badly divided about the
beginning of Ramadan. In every city and town of
North America some started fasting on Friday and
others on Saturday. WHY?
** Because of the
ignorance of the Muslim leadership. They don’t
know that a crescent moon is never visible 1-2
minutes after sunset. Fiqh tells us that on a clear
sky a large number of Muslims must see a crescent.
ISNA Fiqh Council has been told of these two facts
for 20+ years yet it imposes its wrong decisions on
the community.
** From entire North
America only a man and a woman (husband and wife)
claimed from Austin TX of seeing something on
Thursday evening (Oct. 15). At 8:30 pm ISNA’s own
moon-sighting experts, Brs. Khalid Shaukat and Mohib
Durrani, declared that it was not Hilal. No other
claim came. ISNA Fiqh Council asked the experts to
check the same witnesses again at 10:50 pm.
** ISNA’s experts
rejected these 1½ witness. But the leadership of
ISNA and ICNA still went ahead and announced the
start of Ramadan on Thursday night at about 11.10
pm. Is there any sense? Of course, NOT.
** The number of
witnesses didn’t fulfill the Shari’a
requirement. All schools of thought (Madahib) agree
that if the weather is clear then a larger number of
witnesses are required.
** After Austin,
Muslims in Dallas, Lubbock, TX and many other cities
and towns in Arizona and California, looked for the
crescent moon on Thursday night. But they didn’t
see any, because there was no crescent to see.
** All astronomical
calculations revealed that crescent moon sighting
was not possible on Thursday night. For the
visibility curve please visit: www.ulemacouncil.com
Concerned Muslims
should request our fellow Muslim brothers and
sisters to call ISNA and ICNA leadership to stop
spreading confusion and disunity in the name of
crescent. Muslim youth are confused, and
disheartened due to this show of disunity every
year.
Please ask you local
Imam to follow the Ulema Council of North America (www.ulemacouncil.com)
for crescent sighting in all 12 Islamic months.
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