New Crescent Society

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 State the dates for Ramadan this year; Explain why we have these different dates; Update you on some curious developments in how Saudi Arabia conduct their calendar; and 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, ba...

A simplified explanation why we cannot agree on Ramadan or Eid dates within the UK, and a possible solution By Imad Ahmed Introduction With Ramadan just over a month away, we of course will be faced with the same annual confusion: when do we fast? When shall we celebrate Eid? And why is it that we have this fight every year? This article hopes to be a short guide and restatement of the basic problem of the Islamic Calendar in the UK, and solutions. As this is a ‘simplified’ guide, we will not be discussing Saudi Arabia’s problematic moonsighting practices, but focus on issues within the UK and how we can solve this problem within the UK. If you want to know more about these problems in Saudi Arabia, please consult our following two videos, which outline them in detail: Moon Wars: Explains Saudi inaccurate sighting report for Eid al Adha 1439 Ramadan Roulette : Explains problems in Saudi's calculated calendar system This blog will cover: The Problem B...

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 calen...