{"id":2096,"date":"2013-08-09T02:14:57","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T06:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2013-08-09T02:20:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T06:20:25","slug":"gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html","title":{"rendered":"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2100\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2100\" style=\"width: 580px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/lunarnetworks.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/earliest-possible-new-moon-captured-on.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/75\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg\" alt=\"Earliest new moon caught on camera, July 2013\" width=\"580\" height=\"498\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2100\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Earliest new moon caught on camera, July 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Arguably there is more drama surrounding when Eid starts than when Ramadan starts, because after a month of fasting the issue is a little more urgent \ud83d\ude42 This year was no different, but there was added drama in the Gulf region due to a startling near-admission of error from the Saudi religious authorities. It seems that some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/08\/06\/28-day-ramadan-saudi_n_3714437.html?utm_hp_ref=tw\">moonsighters claimed to have seen the moon on Tuesday<\/a> (6th August), which would have had problematic implications:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia will meet on Tuesday evening to hear from people who may have sighted the moon, an announcement that has startled many scholars worldwide as it would mean that this year&#8217;s Ramadan would have lasted only 28 days instead of the requisite 29 or 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>The statement by the court implied that there had been an error with the July 10th start date of this year&#8217;s Ramadan, and that the holy month of fasting should have started on July 9th instead. Saudi newspapers on Monday quoted a statement from the Supreme Court that encouraged members of the public to sight the Eid moon on Tuesday night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Court met on Tuesday evening and <a href=\"http:\/\/gulfnews.com\/in-focus\/ramadan\/no-moon-sighting-on-tuesday-saudi-arabia-supreme-court-says-1.1217224#.UgDFusIVm24.facebook\">ruled that Tuesday sighting was impossible<\/a> &#8211; after much outcry from other prominent scholars who adhere to the moonsighting tradition, including some who invoked astronomical calculations as further evidence.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ar\" dir=\"rtl\">\u063a\u062f\u0627 29 \u0631\u0645\u0636\u0627\u0646<br \/>\u0644\u0645 \u064a\u062b\u0628\u062a \u0631\u0624\u064a\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0647\u0644\u0627\u0644 \u0628\u0627\u0644\u0633\u0639\u0648\u062f\u064a\u0629<br \/>\u0627\u0644\u0647\u0644\u0627\u0644 \u064a\u0648\u0644\u062f \u0627\u0644\u0633\u0627\u0639\u0629 1:15 \u0628\u0639\u062f \u0645\u0646\u062a\u0635\u0641 \u0647\u0630\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u064a\u0644\u0629<br \/>\u0641\u0643\u0627\u0646 \u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0633\u062a\u062d\u064a\u0644 \u0623\u0646 \u062a\u062a\u0645 \u0631\u0624\u064a\u062a\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u064a\u0644\u0629<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \u062f. \u0639\u0644\u064a \u0627\u0644\u0642\u0631\u0647 \u062f\u0627\u063a\u064a (@Ali_AlQaradaghi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ali_AlQaradaghi\/status\/364793974139011072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>translation<\/em>: Tomorrow 29 Ramadan did not prove sighting in Saudi Arabia Crescent born at 1:15 after midnight tonight was impossible to be seen tonight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The problem here is that if the moon had been sighted on Monday, it would have implied a 28-day Ramadan, which contradicts the Qur&#8217;an &#8211; Ramadan must be 29 or 30 days. Therefore the implication is that the start date of Ramadan was in error, requiring Muslims to basically complete a &#8220;make-up&#8221; fast after Eid. The last time this happened in the Gulf was in 1984 when Saudi authorities admitted that they had indeed <a href=\"http:\/\/dohanews.co\/post\/57526798533\/saudi-bahrain-spur-eid-confusion-in-search-for-new\">made an error in moonsighting<\/a> the start of Ramadan. <\/p>\n<p>A similar controversy <a href=\"http:\/\/motalib.wordpress.com\/2012\/08\/16\/mumbai-muslims-the-moon\/\">arose last year for Muslims in Mumbai<\/a>, as blogger motalib angrily recounted. He concluded,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The idea that the collective decisions of scholars and learned men can somehow correctly guide people through their spiritual lives has never been better illustrated as flawed than by moments like this. Here are the \u2018leaders\u2019 ignoring practice, precedent, logic and knowledge to ensure that their primacy is not threatened. Here is one of the most sacred times in the calendar, something that by definition cannot be changed, altered to cover human error.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think that he is overly cynical here about the motivations of the scholars, but the plain truth is that human error afflicts humans, and committees magnify the error rather than minimize it. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve made my own case for <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/08\/my-contribution-to-the-moonsig.html\">why I follow the calculation method<\/a> in my debate with Irfan Rydhan on moonsighting, so I won&#8217;t repeat that here. However, I still do think that there is value in diversity of method. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/09\/in-motion-the-believers-reflec.html\">In motion, the believers reflect the heavens<\/a>! There is a place for moonsighting in our tradition and for calculations, and <a href=\"http:\/\/aamerj.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/07\/ramadan-kareem\/\">well-intentioned calls for unity<\/a> are I think subject to the same misguided impulse for perfection that eludes us all. <\/p>\n<p>However, mistakes like this do underscore the glaring deficiency of the argument that calculations have no place whatsoever in moonsighting. Such mistakes &#8211; missing an entire day&#8217;s fast! &#8211; never occur with calculations. Never.<\/p>\n<p>Related: <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/08\/my-contribution-to-the-moonsig.html\">my contribution to the moonsighting debate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arguably there is more drama surrounding when Eid starts than when Ramadan starts, because after a month of fasting the issue is a little more urgent \ud83d\ude42 This year was no different, but there was added drama in the Gulf region due to a startling near-admission of error from the Saudi religious authorities. It seems&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[99,24,60,46],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-eid","tag-islam","tag-moonsighting","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arguably there is more drama surrounding when Eid starts than when Ramadan starts, because after a month of fasting the issue is a little more urgent \ud83d\ude42 This year was no different, but there was added drama in the Gulf region due to a startling near-admission of error from the Saudi religious authorities. It seems&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-09T06:14:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-08-09T06:20:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year - City of Brass","og_description":"Arguably there is more drama surrounding when Eid starts than when Ramadan starts, because after a month of fasting the issue is a little more urgent \ud83d\ude42 This year was no different, but there was added drama in the Gulf region due to a startling near-admission of error from the Saudi religious authorities. It seems&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2013-08-09T06:14:57+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-08-09T06:20:25+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg"}],"author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html","name":"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg","datePublished":"2013-08-09T06:14:57+00:00","dateModified":"2013-08-09T06:20:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/files\/2013\/08\/earliest-new-moon-2013-july.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/08\/gulf-muslims-almost-had-a-28-day-ramadan-this-year.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gulf muslims almost had a 28-day Ramadan this year"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}