Eid al Adha 1440 / 2019: Let the Moon Wars Commence!

Did Saudi Arabia see the moon?

Sighting reports of the New Crescent have emerged from Saudi Arabia tonight, meaning that Saudi Arabia will now begin the month of Dhul Hijjah.

Once again, Saudi’s moonsighting report tonight is mired in controversy. Those from the astronomy community have declared that Saudi Arabia’s alleged sighting was scientifically impossible. In other words, the moon was not yet large enough to be detected by the human eye, or even a conventional telescope. 

As we can see in the image below, Saudi Arabia falls outside of the visibility curves, and it would not be possible to have sighted the moon there at all.

The data used to create this image comes from HMNAO – Her Majesty’s Nautical Almanac Office. You can read more directly from their website, which confirms the moon was not visible in Saudi here.

Was the moon sighted locally?

Here in the UK, the moon was not sighted anywhere; nor indeed was it sighted in any of our surrounding areas of Europe, Morocco or North Africa.

For those who follow local moonsightings, whether Saudi sighted the moon or not is irrelevant to them. They argue that Saudi Arabia is a distant location over 5,000km away, which has different visibilities to us here in the UK. Indeed, Saudi base their own calendar on their own local visibility of the moon, and don’t follow anyone else. 

As such, we will be having yet again two different dates where people will be celebrating Eid, as follows:

Saudi Followers: Sunday 11 August.

Local Sighters: Monday 12 August.

Do we have to follow Saudi?

No.

Never in the history of Islam did Muslims feel compelled to follow Makkah for Eid, even for Eid al Adha. Muslims have always had calendars based on the visibility of the moon in their region. Ironically, Saudi Arabia’s own religious scholars, including Grand Mufti Ibn Uthaymeen, advise all regions to follow their own local moon, and advise not to follow Saudi.

The vast majority of Muslims do not follow Saudi Arabia around the world, and continue with local/regional moonsighting practice. This includes Muslims in: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Morocco – and of course, Saudi Arabia themselves, who follow local moonsighting!

There is not, and has never been, a problem with celebrating Eid on a different day to Saudi Arabia. What’s more, there is strong evidence to suggest that Makkah and Madina did not celebrate Eid on the same day even during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad!

So what is the solution?

The New Crescent advocates a UK Islamic Calendar based on lunar visibility here in the UK.

We believe local sighting is the only position that all Muslims in the UK would be able to communally accept, as it is closest to the practice of the Prophet Muhammad and his generation. It is also the practice of Muslim communities historically; and indeed is the current practice of the vast majority of Muslims abroad.

Just as other countries have their own Islamic calendars and don’t rely on word from Saudi or any other country, we can establish our own calendar here in the UK based on our local moon visibility.

This will require us all to work together to revive the great sunnah (tradition) of moonsighting, and set up sighting locations up and down the country. We have 3 million Muslims in the UK and almost 2,000 mosques – there is no reason why we couldn’t do it!

With your support and prayers, we can achieve this together, insha allah.

Whenever you do choose to celebrate Eid – Eid Mubarak!