Sighting the Moon this Safar: Challenges and Opportunities

Outsourcing the Moon Abroad 

Today in the UK, there is no UK based Islamic Calendar, nor is there any consensus on how we should conduct our calendar locally. Instead, we have various groups who 'outsource' their moonsighting decisions to different countries. Some groups, for example, follow Morocco, others follow Saudi, and so on.

Different countries see the moon on different days, and have different ways of calculating their calendar. It is inevitable that each of these respective groups who follow different countries here in the UK will, as a result, start Islamic months on different days.

The New Crescent Society hopes to work together with Muslims and institutions to remedy this problem, and eventually convene our own united calendar here in the UK. 

We believe that if we are able to set up the infrastructure to sight the moon here in the UK (moonsighting locations with trained sighters, a reporting mechanism), we could have our own calendar, just as they have in other countries across the world.

Moving onto the topic of the upcoming moonsighting of this month - again, there will be diverging views on when Safar could theoretically start in the upcoming week. 

Let's explore why this will be the case for this month a bit closer, as the circumstances around this month are particularly interesting!

Sighting the Moon for the Upcoming Month of Safar

Sunday 29 September will coincide with 29 Muharram, which is the traditional date that Muslims go out searching for the moon to mark the beginning of the Islamic month of Safar.

If we were following the most traditional method of conducting the Islamic Calendar in the UK, the following would occur:

• If the moon is seen on the 29th, Muharram will have 29 days. Monday 30 September will be the 1^st of Safar.
• If the moon is not seen on the 29th, Muharram will have 30 days. Tuesday 1 October will be the 1st of Safar. 

Will the Moon be Visible on Sunday in the UK?

Before we delve any deeper, we need to understand when the moon will first be sighted in the UK. Let's look at Sunday and Monday.

Sunday 29 September

Please consider the following map:

In the UK on Sunday, the moon will be in the region marked under the ‘B’ code in the South of England, and in the ‘C’ code in the North of England and Scotland.

This is defined as:

B Code: visible under perfect atmospheric conditions
C Code: visible to the unaided eye after found with optical aid

The age of the moon in the UK will be around 23.5 hours at sunset.

In our practical experience of moonsighting, including the experiences of the government astronomers from Morocco and Pakistan, we have never been able to successfully see a ‘B Code’ New Crescent which was younger than 24 hours with the naked eye. Please note that we have been able to seen a ‘B Code’ New Crescent on many occasions when it was older than 24 hours.

Therefore, the data and our practical experience would suggest that it will be extremely difficult to see the moon with our naked eyes on Sunday in any part of the UK, if at all possible.

However, the moon will be visible in the UK on Sunday with a conventional telescope, weather permitting.

NB: This can sound confusing, as the map criteria suggests the moon would be visible without a telescope in a 'B' code. This has not been our practical experience, and we have confirmed that the Moroccan government have had the same experience as us also. 

Monday 30 September

On the following day, Monday 30 September, the moon will be visible easily everywhere in the UK, and indeed the rest of the world.

Thus, if we were following a traditional Islamic Calendar, which is based on local naked-eye sightings alone, we would suggest that Sunday would yield negative sighting results in the UK. Muharram would have the complete 30 days, and the month of Safar would start on Tuesday 1 October.

Yet many Muslims who say they follow ‘local sightings’ will in fact start Safar a day earlier on Monday 30 September. Why is that the case?

The Morocco Backstop

When early Muslim migrants came to the UK, they were unable to convene a UK Islamic Calendar as they found it difficult to sight the moon in the UK due to weather conditions. Thus, they sought other solutions for their Islamic Calendar. Today, the most oft used solution is to outsource the moonsighting to another country. In this regard, Morocco is a very popular country with mosques, because they are the closest Muslim country and have extremely robust moonsighting practices. 

Indeed, there are many mosques today who regard themselves as ‘local sighters’ but actually follow Morocco. They will at first try to attempt to sight the moon in the UK, however if they fail to see the moon, they will then fall back on Morocco’s sighting announcements as a backstop. In practice however, as there have not been many sunnah moonsightings in the UK over the last 30 years, these mosques have more or less relied on Morocco month on month, and have little reference to UK sightings. As a result we have people in the UK who call themselves 'local sighters', who do try to sight the moon in the UK, but in effect simply follow the Moroccan calendar.

Most of the year, the visibility of the moon in the UK and in Morocco is, in fact, the same. However, around 3 months a year we find occasions where the visibility of the moon in Morocco and the UK differ. The upcoming month, Safar, is such a month. 

The moon will be visible to the naked eye in Morocco on Sunday, a day before us. Thus, for those Muslims who follow Morocco, they will begin the month on Safar on Monday 30 September, and not on Tuesday 1 October.

If we did have a UK based Islamic Calendar, we would suggest that the local date for Safar would be on Tuesday 1 October.

What's the Problem with a Morocco Backstop?

Morocco has some of the best practices in Islamic astronomy and moonsighting globally, and we were proud to visit their National Lead Astronomer on a trip there.

Nevertheless, Morocco is not in the same region as the UK in terms of moonsighting. Even the Moroccan government astronomers agreed that UK Muslims following Morocco would mean that our Islamic Calendar in the UK would not be properly aligned to our local moon. 

You can see a video of our Director, Imad Ahmed, discussing this with the National Lead Astronomers in Morocco here:

To summarise the problem: we do not follow the prayer times of Morocco as they differ from ours in the UK. Ideally, we should not be following their moonsightings either, as they differ to ours in the UK also!

There are some other practical problems that arise by becoming dependant on Morocco too. For example, if we follow Morocco and begin our months occasionally a day earlier than UK moon visibility, it means that for the following month we will be searching for the moon a day earlier too! This would make it much harder to sight the moon on the 29^th for the following month.

Another issues that has arisen from outsourcing our moonsighting to Morocco is that those who follow other countries say – if it’s OK for you to follow Morocco, why can’t we follow Turkey, Saudi, South Africa, or any other country?

Ultimately, in order to come to a UK based solution we need to be able to stand on our own two feet, and not outsource our moonsighting responsibilities abroad.

  

Telescopes: Bringing Clarity or Magnifying the Problem? 

Weather permitting, it is true to say that the moon should be visible in the UK on Sunday 29 September using a conventional telescope.

Should this be accepted as a valid sighting in the UK?

The view of the New Crescent Society is that we need to have a public conversation and come to a consensus on how we together as a community choose to move forward on this issue. We need stakeholders from across the country to give their opinion so we can come to a collective decision.

We have found that allowing for sightings which are only visible by telescope makes moonsighting far more inaccessible. It would mean that we would start some months when the moon wasn’t visible to the naked eye, and thus a day earlier. It would mean that only the few who owned telescopes would be able to meaningfully participate in the communal sunnah, tradition, of moonsighting all year round.

We would also fall into a further debate about which telescope is acceptable and which telescope in unacceptable. There are indeed very powerful telescopes available which allow us to see the moon all of the time, even at 7am in the morning when it is totally invisible to the naked eye.

What’s more, it would be difficult to come to a UK based consensus on the telescope as there are people in the UK who simply will not accept moonsighting reports unless it is conducted by the naked eye.

Our suggestion is thus to simplify matters and convene a calendar based on naked eye sightings. By all means, one can use equipment to help locate the moon, but the New Crescent should be visible and viewable to the naked eye. This is the practice of many countries, such as Morocco, South Africa, Oman, Pakistan, India, Brunei, Bangladesh etc etc. In our view, this would be in the spirit of the calendar too - as the Islamic Calendar was initially designed to be something which is communal, and easily accessible.

Bringing the Moon Back Home 

The New Crescent Society advocates that we return and unite on the sunnah of moonsighting. For too many years we have relied on word from abroad. Now we have over 3 million Muslims in the UK, and have almost 2000 mosques, we have the manpower and ability to set up sighting locations around the country and re-establish the sunnah of a unified, local calendar based on moonsightings.

If we were to agree to a UK Islamic Calendar based on UK moonsighting, in practice this would be pre-calculable too. We could print the calendars in advance, as we have very good moon visibility data - thus those who are traditional can sight the moon, and those who want to have a pre-printed calendar can be satisfied too!

To learn more about what you can do to help, read our blog piece here.

To learn how to spot the moon (most likely on Monday), watch our training video here.

 Thanks for reading - any comments or questions, please leave them below