Yesterday, I received an e-mail asking me to comment on the following:
“The current regime occupying the Holy Land of Hijaz Al Muqadas formally known as the Kingdom of Al Saud has announced the first day of Shawaal 1429 Hj, (Tuesday, September 30, 2008) claiming to have sighted the new moon. Claims were made as the new moon entered its 7th hour. It was impossible for the human eyes to have seen the hilal at that time, hence neglecting the Sunnah Method of entering a New Islamic Month.”
Because the recurrent disunity of the ummah (Muslim community) over the date of the eid is fundamentally a political rather than a scientific or fiqh (jurisprudential) problem, I want to share my answer (slightly edited) with our blog readers:
Dear Brother:
As you know, I do not approve of the Saudi method of determination of the new month because it is unscientific. However, to accuse them of not following the sunnah is unfair. The problem is not that they neglect the sunnah, but that they follow it too literally. The sunnah is that one looks for the new moon on the 29th day of the month and accepts the sighting of a Muslim witness whose testimony has not been impeached. The critics of this method correctly note that there are times when this method will admit of a sighting which is scientifically impossible, as in the present instance. They are correct that this particular sighting was scientifically impossible (which is why I do not approve of the Saudi system), but they are unjust in saying it contradicts the sunnah, at least in a literal sense. The Prophet (as) never rejected a sighting claim because of its scientific impossibility and specifically rejected the suggestion that calculations be used. While it is my personal belief that such a restriction against calculations is outmoded because circumstances of the ummah have changed (i.e., we are no longer a “people who neither write nor count”–see my pamphlet on the Islamic calendar [*]: Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, A Uniform Islamic Calendar for the Western Hemisphere, Bethesda, MD: Imad-ad-Dean, Inc.), nonetheless it is a fact that the Saudi scholars do not agree with me and have CHOSEN to follow the sunnah literally. Whether one thinks they are right to do so or not is a worthy subject of debate, but to claim they do not follow the sunnah is simply, flatly wrong. It is akin to saying that women who wear the hijab (I mean the headscarf) do not follow the sunnah because they provoke harassment rather than avert it. We can argue whether they attract or avert harassment, whether or not they follow the muqaasid-ash-shari`a (purposes of the law), but we cannot honestly say that they do not follow the sunnah.
Perhaps I should add that the belligerent wording of your correspondents are out of place here. They are blaming the Saudis for the disunity of the ummah, when they should attend to their own role in that disunity in faulting those in the Western hemisphere who celebrated Eid on Tuesday with being unscientific. They know, or should know, that the new moon was visible Monday night from the South Pacific. They insist on a definition of the matla` (acceptable domain of moonsighting) in such a way as to guarantee disunity in the community. If instead they had defined the matla` to include anywhere that shares part of the night with the East Coast of the United States they would have promoted unity without violating their own desire to be able to make the intention to fast or break fast before dawn based on actual sightability. If they choose not to send an observer to look for the moon where it can actually be seen, but to insist on looking for it where they happen to be, they should admit their culpability in the disunity they deplore.
Allahu a`lam. (God knows best.)
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad
Minaret of Freedom Institute
www.minaret.org
[*] I will send a copy of the pamphlet on the Islamic calendar mentioned in this blog to anyone who wants it. Just send $1 for postage and handling along with your address and a request for the pamphlet to:
Minaret of Freedom Institute
4323 Rosedale Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
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