Moon Sighting
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi
Minister for Science and Technology seems to have picked up the cudgels against Mufti Muni bur Rehman, Chairman,Ruet e Hilal Committee, who thinks it is his, and his prerogative alone, to tell us when to celebrate Eid in Pakistan.
Isn’t there a Hadees that says, “If you arrive at a place where Eid is being celebrated and you are fasting, you should break your fast and join them for the Eid, and vice versa”? Now, by any stretch of imagination, could such a place be 30, 40 or even 50 miles away from where you started to observeSom (Roza). That means during the times of the Holy Prophet SAW there were places 50 miles or less apart where one was celebrating Eid and the other was observing fast. Then why can’t the same happen in a country 1,100-mile long and 400 to 500 miles wide? I don’t want to go into the geophysical technicalities but it is quite possible in a country of this size that the new moon could be sighted in some part of it and not seen in other places. Then why must there be one Eid throughout the country? If it is necessary to have one Eid, for some administrative reason, then can such a necessity override the Shariah?
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