Shaykh Asrar on moonsighting

Incidentally, at the last minute, minhajis celebrated on Sunday.

 

{ یَـٰۤأَیُّهَا ٱلَّذِینَ ءَامَنُوۤا۟ إِن جَاۤءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإࣲ فَتَبَیَّنُوۤا۟ أَن تُصِیبُوا۟ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَـٰلَةࣲ فَتُصۡبِحُوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلۡتُمۡ نَـٰدِمِینَ }
[Surah Al-Ḥujurāt: 6]

Brother alhamdulillah I concede as much as you that the mainstream media is the first entity to fail the Surah Hujurat verse 6 test.

Nonetheless Eid Al Fitr by the entire Palestinian nation can't be faked/staged. It was reported everywhere that the grand mufti of Jerusalem said he had shahadahs, and Palestine did do Eid on Sunday, along with Lebanon. Incidentally my Palestinian friends themselves raised the point if there were sightings there, then Jordan, Egypt and Syria (Monday Eid) too should have seen.

I'm with you. I have zero to no respect for anything that's Saudi.

 

Is this just hearsay? Or confirmed?

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If Saudi is able to sight the moon at Tumair or elsewhere with optical aid, surely they can readily provide images or video/photographic evidence of such sighting. If Barghash family can see it (even while others around them can't see, with or without optical aid), can the images/videos not be published to silence the doubters?

Given Saudi's dodgy past and present, why do govts/qadis of other lands not demand that evidence? Is announcement evidence itself?

In this age of smartphones, my whatsapp gets flooded with crescent sighting images whenever/wherever people are able to view it. Why is the evidence lacking besides shahadah from the same suspect sources (year after year)?

We all need to eat/smoke what the Barghash family eats/smokes!

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Let's set aside the science/validity of moon visibility charts for the time being:

1. How do you explain the oddity of viewing inside 12 hours of moon birth?

2. Why does such anomalous/caesarean sighting always happen only in Saudi (i.e. why are other countries and public deprived of the same fortune/coincidence)?

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You're right. Solar eclipse (effect) per se is not the reason/cause for moon not to be sighted. Eclipse is just a proof of no/new moon in that longitude.

The path of eclipse (on 29th Mar) may not have included Saudi, but the path traverses west to east cutting the same longitude. This is proof enough that in that very longitude the moon was in new moon phase on that day. Note that even though the moon visibility moves from west to east, it doesn't do so strictly in step with longitude (but is always protruding/bulged around equator/tropics).

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Note that I'm not arguing against celebrating Ramadan/Eid with Saudi. I understand that there is a valid body of fiqh (hanafi) permitting masses to follow the hakim/qadi of the land, even if the announcement is incorrectly based on spurious shahadah.

My quibble is against the anomalous sighting of moon against all scientific odds.

 

No blanket yes or no brother. At times their sightings are corroborated by other states (not talking abt khaleej). This time apparently even the grand mufti of Jerusalem said he had shahadahs.

As for out of uk, I can tell you in north America, consciously desi Barelwis and devbandis only accept local sighting from the region, whereas the rest of the awam including a significantly sizable chunk of desis too just follow ISNA/ICNA who somehow follow global sighting including but not limited to saudi arabia.

Now I know us Barelwis as well as devbandis wait to get reports all the way from newfoundland in the east or Seattle or Vancouver on the west, as well as some contacts in mexico - not sure if their sighting contacts also include Bahamas, Caribbean, and Hawaii too. Hawaii is 5 to 6 hrs behind EST (NYC, Toronto) so if someone would want to wait for shahadah from Hawaii, it could well be until 1 or 2 AM (next calendar day) on the east coast - not too sure if I ever heard desis announce sighting that late based on a Hawaii sighting.

The reason I bring in Hawaii, is that it is one of the western most points of the planet and a lot of times visibility is possible there more than Europe or east coast and even west coast at times, if you follow the visibility charts from moonsighting.com. so north America observers should make it a point to consider there - it's in the region, well far far western end of it; administratively it is under usa governance anyways.

Our Sunnis - https://moonhotline.com/

devs - https://chicagohilal.org/category/declarations/

 

Would you accept their sighting as valid? I am just interested to get an opinion of someone not in the UK.

 

Sorry bro, no straightforward answer to this.

 

@AbdalQadir what is your view on Saudi and its 'methodology when it comes to moonlighting?

 

The solar eclipse wasn't visible in saudi on that day. They weren't on the trajectory.

 

Even deobandi can't digest Saudi moonsighting declaration.




at 2:04 the famed Barghash family testifying the sighting on TV. It's the same kazzab family that I cited earlier.

 

This article and same one in Hindustan Times have gone viral on whatsapp since yesterday.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/eid-ul-fitr-2025-phantom-31309113

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I had posted about the farce of Saudi moonsighting attempts at Tumair earlier here


In 2011, Saudi declared the moon had been sighted by looking at Saturn!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/05/astronomers-query-ramadan-end

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These same najdis vehemently deny the mu'jizah of sun returning after setting; but they themselves manage to magically sight the moon long after it has set! The najdi followers world over uncritically lap up this legerdemain by the master illusionist. Is this sleight/trick not a form of istidraj?

 

2. Yesterday (29th Mar 2025), it was partial solar eclipse in northern hemisphere. Solar eclipse is always on new moon (i.e. no moon), while lunar eclipse is always on a full moon.

Solar eclipses happen only at the new moon phase, when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun i.e. eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting a shadow on Earth that blocks or partially blocks our view of the sun.

https://www.weather.gov/fsd/suneclipse#:~:text=A solar eclipse can only,eclipse the rarest of all.


Saudi pulled the same trick of sighting the moon on full solar eclipse day couple of years back.

 

There I go again with my rant!

Yesterday's moonsighting announcement by Saudi was patently wrong (i.e. physically impossible) for 2 reasons:

1. It was impossible to sight the moon anywhere except parts of America.

See the moonsighting charts below (1st one for 29th Mar evening and 2nd for 30th Mar):






Also see the attached pdf that was prepared by Greenwich observatory in Feb'25.

Earliest the moon can be visible by telescope is 12.1 hours (15.5 hours for naked eye) after its birth. Yesterday (29th Mar) morning moon was born (mahaq) at 5:38am BST morning and set at 6:53am. So adjusting for Saudi timings, earliest it could have been sighted by telescopes in Saudi would have been around 9:00pm local time, by which time moon would have already set!

https://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/crescent#:~:text=However, the time that the,12.1 hours after New Moon.

 

Check this thread on use of Morocco and/or South Africa.

Use of South Africa is due to similar diaspora and similar hanafi methodology. UK ulemas (or members of ruyat committee) are able to speak (on video/phone call) to witnesses in South Africa to get direct corroboration.


Please note that announcement by one qadi (or moonsighting committee) is not sufficient for another qadi of the neighbouring area. The 2nd qadi needs to independently ascertain the sighting. He needs to get direct testimony from the same 2 (minimum) witnesses that the 1st qadi in his area used. 1st qadi's pronouncements don't meet the requirement of minimum 2 witnesses for the 2nd qadi.

 

Check sherkans reply in this thread where he hyperlinks a few posts, it should provide some clarity.

 

Had a couple of questions:

1. The UK usually ends up following Morocco these days- this position doesn't seem to fit into either local sighting (because what exactly counts as local) or global sighting (as it would ignore other countries who may potentially have sighted the moon). So on what basis was following Morocco chosen as a position?

2. I understand that there have been times when we followed south Africa but as this isn't a Muslim country, why was this position taken, has it been abandoned and the same issue above i.e. It's not a global or local sighting.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar

would relying on calculations to ascertain or deny the sightings come under following the jews and christians cubit by cubit?

see this rabbi say something at the 32 minutes mark (i didn't see this video, just wanted to see what he says about his ways at random points in the video, and came across that just by luck)

https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/1643088/jewish/Astronomy-and-Torah.htm

 

I too have always felt - that just like previous ulama used rhymes and poetry to make rules of grammar, hadith, tasawwuf, aqaid etc. easy to memorize - Alahazrat's na'at serve as a quick intro to sunni aqayid for the awaam who can't or won't learn otherwise.

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In fact, as I have state previously, at the lowest point in my formative years, my only unbroken link to Sunni views were Alahazrat's na'at (at the time I din't know they were his or anything much about him) - since I had been consuming wahabi literature for quite some time.

They have that attribute where one looks at it and says: "Oh this is not the work of a liar or heretic - it's the ode of a genuine lover".

 

jazak Allah for this

there is a similar hadith that says the same thing, and asks to sight the moon. i didn't mention it due to time constraints.

but these ahadith are the reason that we have a well established fiqh principle for ruyat that shahadat by upright Muslims supercedes the astronomers' calculations.

its not just the moving averages, time series analyses, fourier transforms, nasa supplied data coupled with AI-based computer simulations, etc. of our times

even in the times of Imame Aazam or when Fatawa Alamgiri was compiled, our rotten brahmin neighbors were doing astronomical and astrological calculations, and the concept was indeed well and truly known to the scholars of those times too

 

actually, I was being lazy - since the hadith positively mentions "we do not rely on calculations" - I tried to dodge that word in favor of "empiric".

What I meant is, "calculation" is a type of "deduction" - which we have been disallowed.

I agree that sighting with the naked eye is empirical by definition (going by the hadith).

But what I meant by "empirical" is, any astronomical phenomenon known to preclude visibility with certainty (this was hypothetical as I have not done any reading on this).

Because I keep hearing of such things around Ramadan and Eid moons - like "oh today is amawas, so the moon will not be visible" etc.

If there is no such thing - then my question is invalid.

 

there is a missing piece here brothers have not considered.

the rulings of moonsighting follow an established framework - the guidance in the hadith being the first principles and then extrapolating on those nuSuS in a manner that they do not contradict hadith (in this issue) or violate general principles of fiqh.

one of the hadith mentioned in this regard is: "we are a nation that does not do calculations"

hadith of bukhari and muslim:

we are a nation that does not write, nor does calculations. the month is thus and thus - that is, it is either 29 days or 30 days.​

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ibn Hajar notes: "we are a nation that does not write" refers to the muslims present (who were overwhelmingly in that category) at the time of this saying."

summary of ibn hajar's commentary on this hadith:

arabs were predominantly illiterate and "we do not calculate" refers to the fact that they did were not aware of the methods of astronomical calculations. and as a concession for them [raf' al-Haraj], the start of the month was identified with the sighting of the moon (ru'yah) which was easy for every one. if it is cloudy, just complete the 30 days.

[aH: i.e. if RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam had asked them to establish it according to calculations - it would become a demanding exercise as even in this day, there are very few people who truly understand how to do calculations. how many people can even read and comprehend the tech-papers brother sherkhan has shared? so do not rush to conclusions or think about how this hadith seems to be problematic].