When is Eid al Fitr 2020? A Rare Eid Together, but Socially Distant

When is Eid al Fitr 2020?
A Rare Eid Together, but Socially Distant

Imad Ahmed

Introduction: Ramadan in Isolation

It has been a peculiar Ramadan for Muslims in the UK living with the coronavirus pandemic. The mosque doors have been locked, and we have observed our fasts in isolation.

Whilst it appears that the mosques will be closed for Eid prayers – Muslims are of course keen to know: when will we celebrate Eid in the UK?

The date for Eid al Fitr in the Islamic calendar is the 1^st of Shawwal, and begins when the crescent moon is seen at the end of Ramadan.

In each locality throughout history, Muslims have gone out looking for the moon on the 29^th of Ramadan every year. If they saw the moon, it meant that Ramadan had ended, Shawwal had started, and Eid had begun in their locality. If didn’t see it, it meant there remained one more day of fasting, and Eid would begin the day after that.

This follows the famous saying of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ :

صُومُوا لِرُؤْيَتِهِ وَأَفْطِرُوا لِرُؤْيَتِهِ فَإِنْ غُمِّيَ عَلَيْكُمُ الشَّهْرُ فَعُدُّوا ثَلاَثِينَ

Fast when you sight [the moon], and complete the [month of] fasting when you sight it; and if it is obscured from you, then count the month as 30 days. [Bukhari]

Sadly this sunnah practice has remained largely abandoned in the UK, until very recently.

A myth had emerged amongst the Muslim community over the past few decades that the new crescent was not visible in the UK due to the weather, and thus it was not possible to have a UK Islamic Calendar. Instead, Muslim communities in the UK have opted to ‘outsource’ their moonsighting abroad, with different communities choosing different countries to outsource to. This, unfortunately, has caused much confusion and division – which you can read more about here!

Alhamduillah, New Crescent Society has made huge strides towards shattering this myth, and demonstrating that the moon is visible in the UK all year round. Whilst there is no UK based Islamic Calendar yet, we believe we have made massive steps towards achieving one, insha allah.

Ramadan Crescent 1441 / 2020 in London

An isolated instance of a unified Eid al Fitr

This year, the New Crescent Society predicts that Muslims in the UK will celebrate Eid on the same day – but by ‘fluke’!

Indeed, Muslims celebrating Eid in the UK on the same day is a rare occurrence.

In the last 30 years, Muslims in the UK have only twice began Ramadan and celebrated Eid al Fitr on the same date!

There have only been a further four occasions in the last three decades when, like this year, Muslims in the UK did not commence Ramadan on the same date, yet all still celebrated Eid al Fitr on the same date (see appendix for details).

So whilst Muslims will be happy that UK Muslims are having a unified Eid date, they should be aware that this is an ‘isolated’ occurrence.

Unless we continue the progress we have made and address the issue, we will continue to have divided dates for Ramadan and Eid until we take active steps to solve this problem.

The rest of this blog will:

1. State the dates for Eid al Fitr 2020
2. Explain why we have made this prediction
3. Update you on our progress towards a united Islamic Calendar in the UK, so that we can have united Eid dates every year, and not just once in a blue moon!  and
4. Ask you to get involved and help us in this journey!
5. Appendix: When did Muslims in the UK celebrate Ramadan and Eid on the same day? A survey of the last 30 years (1989 - 2019).

1. When is Eid al Fitr 2020?

In the UK, we can say (in a very simplified way) that there are two major positions regarding the Islamic Calendar in the UK.

We predict that they will celebrate Eid as follows:

• Local Sighters: Sunday 24 May, insha allah, based on our knowledge of how local sighters operate, and astronomical data
• Saudi Followers: Sunday 24 May, insha allah, based on our knowledge of the Saudi Arabian calendar and their moonsighting practices - with the caveat that Saudi are very unpredictable and may change their mind!

We predict a rare, united Eid: Sunday 24 May, insha allah.

2. An explanation of this prediction

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

This is an oversimplification, but a helpful way of understanding the divide. There are other ways of characterising the divide, and we have done so in a previous article which you can read here.

Let’s look at each group in turn, and see how they respectively will determine their dates for Eid al Fitr.

There are quite a few interesting caveats to explain this year regarding how both local sighters and Saudi followers operate, so please do read carefully!

Local Moonsighters: Still Striving for Sunnah Sighting

In the UK, we do not yet have a UK based moonsighting system.

Those Muslims who try their best to adhere to a local calendar system currently follow the following practice: 

• First attempt to sight the moon in the UK on the 29^th of the month
• If the moon is not visible, borrow news from the closest Muslim country (Morocco)

For them, this is an interim solution until they can revert back to the practice of true local sighting, and not rely on word from abroad.

So let’s take a look at the data for the 29^th of Ramadan, and see if the moon is visible.

Typically, the moon is only visible in the Green Zone. As you can see, the UK is in the Yellow Zone, with the South West tip of England falling somewhat within the Green Zone.

As such, there is a slight chance that the moon will be seen in the South West of England– but it will be very challenging (we do have groups looking!). If they do see the moon, then Eid would occur on Sunday May 24^th.

Let’s assume no one sees the moon in the UK – what then?

If we look further south to Morocco, we can see that it is squarely within the Green Zone, and the moon will have an age of more than 24 hours. We would expect Morocco to easily be able to see this crescent, and declare Eid for Sunday 24 May.

Thus whether or not the moon is seen in the UK, we would expect local sighters to borrow the moonsighting from Morocco, and celebrate Eid on Sunday 24^th May.

Is there a problem with this?

Borrowing a moonsighting from Morocco, even very occasionally, is not an ideal solution for local sighters. This is particularly acute for some months where the visibility of the moon in the Morocco does not match the visibility of the moon in the UK. For now, however, this solution is their ‘closest’ approximation to local sighting.

To be clear, if Eid was celebrated in the UK according to UK based sighting and the moon was not seen, local sighters would have celebrated Eid a day later, on Monday 25 May.

Local sighters will be the first to tell you that they would prefer not to rely on word from abroad at all. 

However, as there were hardly any UK moonsighters in the past, they were not able to convene a UK Islamic Calendar. As such, they felt that they had little other choice. Things are changing though: due to a massive increase in people attempting to sight the moon, we do see a future where local, traditional, sunnah sighters could rely solely on the UK moon.

With the sunnah of moonsighting being revived in the UK, we could have our own calendar soon

Saudi Followers

Saudi Araba started their month of Ramadan with some controversy.

They changed their start date for Shaban, told the public to go and sight the moon on the 30^th instead of the 29^th, and eventually commenced their fasting before the moon was visible in Saudi Arabia. You can read about this here.

As Saudi Arabia started their Ramadan a day earlier than local sighters, they will go and search for the moon for Eid a day earlier too.

Let’s look at the data for that date, Friday 22 May.

As you can see, Saudi Arabia is immersed in the Red Zone, and to the right of the white line with a 0 on it. The Red Zone means that at sunset (which is when they will go out to look for the moon) the moon will actually already be below the horizon. The fact that it is to the right of the '0' means that, in addition, the moon has not yet even reached conjunction.

As such, the moon cannot be credibly sighted on this date. We predict Saudi Arabia will say that they have not seen the moon, have an additional day of fasting, and then celebrate Eid on Sunday 24 May.

[Curiously, one of the reasons Saudi Arabia changed the date for Shaban was that it did not want people sighting the moon before its conjunction - yet this is precisely what will happen on Friday 22 May - another indication that their month started too early].

What about a Saudi fake-moon news?

Saudi Arabia have a long history of producing early sighting reports, which astronomers have dismissed over the years as impossible. You can watch our video which explains an instance of this happening for Eid al Adha a two years ago, and another video for Eid al Fitr last year too.

False sighting reports actually occur for most years in Saudi Arabia. There are also several academic reports which have looked at Saudi crescent sighting reports over a period of more than 20 years, demonstrating historical 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].

So how can we be so sure that Saudi Arabia won't produce another scientifically-impossible sighting report on Friday 22 May?

Why Saudi probably won't claim to see the moon on Friday 22 May

Our reasoning comes after consultation with members of ICO (International Crescent Observers) who have informed us that Saudi Arabia have the following internal rule for moonsightings:

• If the moon is below the horizon at sunset at Makkah, then sighting reports of the moon will not be accepted.

This rule was also adopted for their calculated Umm al Qura calendar in the year 2002. You can learn more about the Umm al Qura calender here, and their adoption of this rule here.

Indeed, we can see that since the adoption of the rule in 2002, Saudi Arabia have not accepted any moonsighting reports when the moon is below the horizon at sunset.

Before 2002 'sightings' of the moon below the horizon or before moon-birth (conjunction) have been reported by Saudi. Examples include Rajab 1421/2000 and Shaban 1422/2001, where claims of the moon being sighted occurred before moon birth / conjunction!

Since 2002, false sightings still do occur, but it is a case of Saudi Arabia claiming to see a moon which is too thin, too low on the horizon, and impossible to see, rather than claiming to see a moon which is below the horizon!

Therefore, we predict a non-sighting report from Saudi on Friday 22 May, and we all will celebrate Eid together here in the UK on Sunday 24 May!

Again, this is heavily dependent on Saudi Arabia not breaking their own rule - but they have not done so for the last 17 years, so we do not have any reason to believe that they will embarrassingly 'see' a moon before conjunction and whilst it is below the horizon again this year.

3. New Crescent Society’s Proposed Solution, and our Progress Towards it

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

This year we made huge progress with this, particularly with (1) and (3). For example, the number of people who attempted to sight the moon for Ramadan and Shaban was huge: we received an unprecedented amount of messages from across the country where people had attempted to sight the moon

In the last twelve months, we saw the moon every month on the first day it was visible in the UK, apart from in December (Jumada I). In that particular month, it was cloudy in England, though weather reports stated it was clear in Scotland – but we did not have anyone in Scotland looking for the moon. 

Insha allah, with your prayers and after the coronavirus pandemic has eased, we can resume normal business and working with the community, hoping to solve this issue in the UK and entering into the next phase of the Muslim community’s history in the UK.

Local sighting group

4. Get Involved!

Follow us: on Facebook and Instagram

Set up your own moonsighting: It's easy. Watch this video, you can do it from your own home!

Online Training: We have an online training session coming up this Wednesday 20 May at 4pm! You can sign up to the training by clicking here: https://bit.ly/may2020moonsighting

Receive training for your own group / locality! Do you want to receive training in your locality in how to sight the moon? 

If there is a group of you and have a good number who want to set up a sighting location, email us at: info@newcrescentsociety.com

Obviously - we may have to wait until the coronavirus restrictions have eased up before we can conduct in-person training! 

5. Appendix

When have Muslims in the UK celebrated Ramadan and Eid on the same day? 

A survey of the last 30 years (1989 - 2019).

New Crescent Society has analysed calendar data dating back to 1986, which was kindly provided by Islamic Crescents Observation Project UK (ICOP UK).

Red: Celebrated on different dates

Green: Celebrated on the same date

It doesn't happen very often at all!

Years when Muslims in the UK began Ramadan and celebrated Eid on the same date in the last 30 years, 1989 - 2019

Islamic Year (AH)	Gregorian Year (AD)
1417	1997
1439	2018

Years when Eid al Fitr was celebrated together, including the years where Ramadan did not commence on the same date in the UK, 1989 - 2019

Islamic Year (AH)	Gregorian Year (AD)
1417	1997
1420	2000 (Jan)
1421	2000 (Dec)
1430	2010
1437	2016
1439	2018

Any questions or comments? Leave them below. Thanks for reading - and Eid Mubarak to all from the New Crescent Society!