Eid Sightings & Calculations

I wish you all a belated, impersonal Eid Mubarak.

The position of the Shafi'i school regarding the establishment of Islamic dates is that every locale must sight the moon itself. This is what is called ikhtilaf al-matali`. Jordan has historically done this for Ramadan and the Eid that follows it. However, this year they decided to follow Saudi Arabia. Of course, all four schools are acceptable and taking the Hanafi position that a single sighting suffices all Muslims (known as ittihad al-matali`) is also acceptable. Rather, when the established Islamic authorities in one's locale take a position from another school, it is generally obligatory to follow them. However, what is disturbing is how Saudi Arabia's sightings fly in the face of astronomy too often. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia offers awards for moon sighting.

The Shafi'i school distinguishes between absolute calculations and approximate calculations. Absolute calculations are facts that can only be rejected when the number of people reporting the contrary are so many in number that it would not be possible to reject their testimony. In essence, this would amount to a miracle being witnessed. Approximate calculations are rejected by the sighting of a single witness whose testimony is acceptable by an Islamic court. (Disclaimer: my knowledge of astronomy is nothing to be proud of.) While many visibility criteria are approximations, things like the birth, rise, and setting of the new moon are absolute: they are known well ahead of time and exactly. This past Eid Al-Fitr, Saudi Arabia sighted the moon when, in fact, it set before sunset. (The moon of a new lunar month can only be seen after sunset.) As such, I made up a day of fast after Eid Al-Fitr. This past Eid Al-Adha, Saudi Arabia sighted the moon even though it wasn't even born before sunset. I asked a top Shafi'i scholar what I should do regarding Eid Al-Adha, given that I was convinced that the day it was being celebrated officially was, in fact, the 9th of Dhul-Hijja. He told me that I could fast it, but would have to do so secretly. Also, I could always slaughter the next day. He also said that in the Shafi'i school, fasting the day of Arafah was the type of act that could be made up, so I could always break my fast on the 9th of Dhul-Hijja and then make it up later. I followed this latter opinion, as it was more in the spirit of unity.

One of the fundamental problems among Arabs is that they can't quite grasp that Eid Al-Adha is not Hajj. As I pointed out in Muslim Intellectual Stagnation and Abraham's Sacrifice, Muslims have stopped studying classical Islamic texts. If most Arabs had any sort of Islamic education, they'd realize that the Shafi'i school (which many Arabs follow) states that Islamic dates are to be established by local sightings even in the case Dhul-Hijja. Even Ibn Othaimeen, the late Mufti of Saudi Arabia, indicated that every country should follow its own sighting, saying that this opinion was supported by the preponderance of evidence and was the position of Ibn Taymiyya. When ISNA tried to follow ikhtilaf al-matali` consistently, the Arabs broke rank with them, forcing ISNA to return to its lopsided policy of following local sightings for Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr and Saudi Arabia for Eid Al-Adha. Mufti Taqi Usmani firmly rejected this inconsistent approach. (Lately, ISNA has not been using sightings at all for Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr but still follows Saudi Arabia for Eid Al-Adha, so the criticisms still hold.)