Ramadan 2020 Dates: The Curious Case of the Umm al Qurra Calendar and the Phantom Crescent in the Night-time.

When is Ramadan 2020 / 1441 in the UK?

or

The Curious Case of the Umm al Qurra Calendar and the Phantom Crescent in the Night-time.

Imad Ahmed

It’s at this time of year that the New Crescent Society begins to get flooded with the following two questions:

• When will Ramadan begin?
• Will we commence Ramadan together on the same date?

Unfortunately, it does not appear that we will commence Ramadan together this year, and we’ll have another year of confusion.

This blog will explain

1. State the dates for Ramadan this year;
2. Explain why we have these different dates;
3. Update you on some curious developments in how Saudi Arabia conduct their calendar; and
4. Offer a proposed solution to UK Muslims for the future.

1. Dates for Fasting.

In the UK, we can say there are two main positions with regards to calculating the calendar in the UK (this is an oversimplification). This is as follows:

• Local Moonsighting: First Fast will be Saturday 25 April, insha allah, based on astronomical data.

• Follow Saudi: First Fast will be Friday 24 April, based on our knowledge of Saudi Arabia calendar and moonsighting system, but with the caveat that Saudi can be sometimes unpredictable and may change their mind.

2. The Explanation 

One way of characterising the moonsighting divide in the UK is between two groups:

• Those who base the calendar on moonsightings, and as much as possible UK based moonsightings
• Those who follow Saudi Arabia’s calendar system

There are other ways of characterising the divide, and we have done so in our blog – but let’s stick with this one for now, as it is a helpful way of understanding what is causing the divide this Ramadan.

Let’s took at each group in turn, and work out when Ramadan will commence for each.

Local Moonsighting: Sunnah and Simple

Understanding and predicting Islamic Calendar dates for those who follow moonsighting is fairly straightforward, as their months adhere to the sightings of the new crescent – the visibility of which is easily predictable and readily available to access by the public online.

An Islamic Calendar Month can have 29 or 30 days. This is because the lunar orbit is 29.5 days, but of course a month cannot have half days. Thus, around half the months have 29 days and the other half have 30 days. The way Muslims decide which months have 29 and which months have 30 is based on when the crescent moon is first seen.

Muslim go out to look for the moon on the 29th evening of every month. If the crescent moon is seen, this means that the month had 29 days. When the moon cannot be seen, it means it has 30 days.


So for us to work out when Ramadan begins, all we have to do is look at the moon visibility data for the 29th of the month before Ramadan, which is the Islamic month of Shaban. If the moon is visible that day, Ramadan will most likely begin as we would anticipate the sighters to easily see the moon. If it is not scientifically possible to see the moon on that day, we would not expect the moon to be seen, and so it means we have to wait an additional day, and Shaban will have have 30 days. 

This year, the 29th of Shaban will be on Thursday 24 April, as determined by our moonsighting in the UK. This is also the case for moonsighters in our neighbouring countries of Europe, North Africa, and indeed all of Africa, who saw the Shaban moon on the same day.

Let’s take a look at the data together.

On this date, Muslims will go out and attempt to se the moon, as per the sunnah of the Prophet

ﷺ

, irrespective of whether they have access to the above data or not.

As you can see from this map, the moon will not be scientifically possible to see in the UK, or indeed in any of our neighbouring countries.  So whilst sighters will go out looking for the moon, we know from science that they will not be able to see the moon. 

Accordingly, this means that Ramadan will not start on Thursday night, but the following night after sunset. Remember, Islamic dates start after maghrib.

Thus, Ramadan will technically commence from Friday night.

To summarise: the first fast for those who sight the moon will be on Saturday 25 April, insha allah.

Simple!

Following Saudi: A glitch in the calendar

To get a good understanding of Saudi Arabia’s calendar, and why they will probably fast a day earlier than the countries who follow moonsighting, please watch the video below we have made on this topic, here. This video clearly explains the systematic glitch in Saudi Arabia’s calendar.

Saudi Arabia tend to begin Ramadan a day before countries which conduct moonsighting every year due to one of the ‘glitches’ in their Islamic Calendar system. 

The reason Saudi Arabia have a glitch in their calendar is because they use a ‘mixed’ calendar system which attempts to use both moonsighting reports and a calculated calendar. Their calculated calendar is called the Umm al Qura Calendar.

In this mixed system, Saudi Arabia:

• Use a calculated start date for the month 8 months a year.
• Abandon their calculated start dates, and use moonsighting reports 4 months of the year: Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhul Hijja and Muharram.

Unfortunately, the calculations used in the Umm al Qurra calendar do not match the actual visibility of the moon. This is something that Saudi Arabia admit themselves on the Umm al Qurra website. In fact, their formula tends to calculate calendar months commencing a day earlier than the moon is actually visible in Saudi! This explains why Saudi Arabia tend to start their months a day earlier than everyone else. 

You can read more about the Umm al Qurra calendar on our blog here in detail, here briefly, on an academic website here. Alternative you can watch our video on it here.

The glitch arises when the months switch over from a calculated month (which mostly start too early) to a moonsighting month.


Let’s take a look at this for the month of Ramadan, where we see this ‘glitch’ every year. 

The month preceding Ramadan (Shaban) begins with the calculated Umm al Qurra date – which as we have just read, tends to be start earlier than lunar visibility in Saudi. For Ramadan, moonsighting is used and the calendar is switched over. However, when moonsighters go out looking for the moon in Saudi Arabia on the 29th of Shaban, they are still going out on the Umm al Qurra date, which means they are looking on the wrong date - one day too early,  often year on year!

In other words they should be looking on the 29th of Shaban but in reality they are looking on the 28th of Shaban! This has been the case for many of the years in the past.

Here's what would happen this year:

• Saudi Arabia would be going out looking for the moon on Wednesday 22 April. 
• As we have seen above, countries which follow moonsighting will go out looking for the moon on the next day, Thursday 23 April.


• Neither the moonsighters on Thursday 23 April, not the Saudi early sighters on Wednesday 22 April, will see the moon. 
• Both will declare that Shaban will have 30 days. This means that local sighters will start their fast on Saturday 25 April, and Saudi Arabia fast a day earlier on Friday 24 April. 

Adding to the problems of Saudi Arabia’s calendar, the moon would not have been visible in Saudi Arabia even on Thursday 23 April (which corresponds to their 30 Shaban). One would always expect to be able to see the moon on the 30th of any Islamic month, as a rule. Again, this shows that Saudi Arabia will be starting their fast a day too early.

To summarise: We believe Saudi Arabia will complete 30 days for Shaban, and their first day of fasting will be Friday 24 April.

3. The Curious Case of the Umm al Qurra Calendar and the Phantom Crescent in the Night-time. 

However, as it often the case with Saudi Arabia, things are not as simple and they are hard to predict. They have become aware of this problem in their calendar and have begun to address it... but with no actual change in outcome of date!!

The glitch replaced with a phantom crescent? Last year's curious case:

In recent times there have been some curious developments in Saudi Arabia’s calendar, which do appear to address this glitch ... but then replace it with another issue!

For example, last year, citizens were urged to sight the moon on the 29 Shaban Umm al Qura date, which would have corresponded to Saturday 4 May 2019. According to moonsighting, the correct date to look for the moon would have been the following day, Sunday 5 May 2019.

However, (perhaps after some social media pressure?) Saudi Arabian Press Agency (the official government press agency) released the following statement:

فإن المحكمة العليا بالمملكة العربية السعودية ترغب إلى عموم المسلمين في جميع أنحاء المملكة تحري رؤية هلال شهر رمضان المبارك مساء يوم السبت التاسع والعشرين من شهر شعبان لهذا العام 1440هـ حسب تقويم أم القرى، فإن لم ير فيتحرى رؤية الهلال مساء يوم الأحد الموافق للثلاثين من شهر شعبان حسب تقويم أم القرى التاسع والعشرين من شهر شعبان حسب قرار المحكمة العليا المنوه عنه.

"The Saudi Supreme Court requests all Muslims across the Kingdom to attempt to sight the crescent moon for Ramadan on the evening of the Saturday 29th of Shaban (4 May 2019). If they do not see the crescent, then they should look again on Sunday night (5 May 2019), which corresponds to the 30th of Shaban according to Umm al Qura, but which would be the 29th of Shaban according to the decision of the Supreme Court"

This press release is remarkable because it concedes that Saudi would have asked its citizens to look a day too early. It then addresses it by asking its citizens to look again on the correct date, the following Sunday night, 5 May 2019. It goes as far as to say that 5 May 2019 is the actual 29 Shabaan according to the Supreme Court, which has now overruled the date of the Umm al Qura Calendar.

The question of course arises - why did Saudi Arabia send out their citizens to look for the moon on the 28th? This was a huge bone of contention and debate last year, as this adheres to no known Islamic norms. It appears that this happened last year in Saudi Arabia because it was a last minute decision. Saudi have not made this mistake again this year (see below).

What then happened last year was that Saudi Arabia sent out sighters on the following evening, Sunday 5 May 2019, when the moon was scientifically not possible to see. However, they produced a moon sighting result anyway (!) and the month of Ramadan began - a day too early.


By producing a sighting report, albeit scientifically impossible, no one could accuse them of having started Ramadan early due to a glitch in their calendar any more.

 In other words, they replaced a systematic glitch in their calendar with a phantom moon report.

Glitch 'solved' again this year 2020 - déjà vu? 

The Saudi Press Agency were more ready this year, and released a similar report, but with far more notice this year. The wording is almost identical with one key difference, and states: 

 فإن المحكمة العليا بالمملكة العربية السعودية ترغب إلى عموم المسلمين في جميع أنحاء المملكة تحري رؤية هلال شهر رمضان المبارك مساء يوم الخميس الموافق للثلاثين من شهر شعبان حسب تقويم أم القرى، التاسع والعشرين من شهر شعبان حسب قرار المحكمة العليا المنوه عنه.

"The Saudi Supreme Court requests all Muslims across the Kingdom to attempt to sight the crescent moon for Ramadan on the evening of the Thursday 30th of Shaban (23 April 2020) according to the Umm al Qura calendar, or the 29th of Shaban according to the decision of the Supreme Court."


Again, this is a remarkable statement because it admits that their calendar date is wrong. Saudi have also learnt from the previous year, and have not asked its citizens to go out on the 28th of Shaban, and then to repeat the sighting a day later on the 29th of Shaban.

So Saudi Arabia are sighting on the right day! What will happen?

Saudi will this year actually be sighting now on the same day as everyone else. So what will happen?

If we take a look at the map we will remember that the moon is not visible that day for most of the world, including Saudi Arabia:

If previous years are a precedent to go by, we believe Saudi Arabia will most likely see another 'phantom' scientifically impossible moon on Thursday 23rd April. 

This is what happened last year. Indeed the majority of moonsightings conducted under such conditions have led to Saudi Arabia being able to see the moon. There have been some academic studies which have studied Saudi crescent reports over a period of more than 20 years, demonstrating inaccuracies and false sighting reports.  Examples include Ayman Kordi's paper (2003), and Gadi's paper (2007) [NB: we can't find an accessible pdf online of Gadi's paper, but here is a video of him presenting his paper on false sighting reports from Saudi Arabia, in Arabic]

We will keep a slight caveat and say there is a very slim chance Saudi Arabia will claim not to have seen the moon. However, this would have meant they had a Shaban month of 31 days, which goes against the basic rules of the Islamic calendar and cause a bit of embarrassment. Whilst this is possible,  we do not anticipate this happening.

UPDATE: Some people contacted us making the following point: There were mosques in the UK who INSISTED on following Saudi Arabia's initial Shaban month claim, and celebrated the 15 Shaban accordingly. They insisted (apparently) that they had spoken to Saudi officials - even though they were told it could not have started so early. However, the Saudi government themselves declared their initial Shaban date did not match moonsighting and asked for a date adjustment. So - why did these mosques insist on following Saudi, and secondly, who were they (allegedly) speaking to the Saudi government, when the government themselves contradicted this claim!!

4. What's the Solution?

We have written about this more at length here - please read this important blog entry.

An extract from the blog states:

Proposal

Muslims in the UK to have a UK Islamic Calendar based on lunar visibility in the UK - just as other countries have their own local calendars (e.g: Morocco, South Africa, Bangladesh, Oman and so on).

Is this possible?

Yes. In the past it was believed that the UK was too cloudy to have its own calendar, though we now have ample evidence to suggest otherwise.

For this solution to be viable, there needs to be the following three things:

1. Enough moonsighting groups nationally, who are trained and attempt to sight every month.
2. A mechanism to collect sighting reports, verify reports, and announce the sightings
3. Community buy-in

We have made a lot of progress with this, with people now sighting the country up and down the country.

Insha allah, with your prayers and after the coronavirus pandemic has eased, we can get back to solving this issue in the UK and entering into the next phase of this journey.

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