By Omar Afzal via e-mail
ISNA and ICNA created chaos last Thursday (November 15) night by accepting Dr. Durrani’s advice about Tucson AZ sighting. Against all astronomical rules, he accepted one totally false claim of moon sighting as ‘valid’. Thus the Shura Council decided to violate a basic Fiqh guideline: Not one, but a large number of witnesses are needed to testify if the sky is clear.
The Ramadan moon was NOT SEEN anywhere in N. America on Thursday evening. Thousands of observers scanned the sky from sunset till moonset, many using binoculars. They did not find any moon in the clear skies from Florida to California. There were very strong reasons to reject the claim of the lone witness:
1. The Tuscon witness claimed seeing the moon before or at sunset (which is impossible). One cannot see a 29th-day crescent moon at or before sunset. He saw something in the wrong direction, quite high in the sky. Obviously, what he saw was not the new moon.
2. No moon was visible hundreds of miles west of Tucson. A large number of observers in Tucson (8, at the same location), Kingman (AZ), Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach (CA), etc. did not see any moon in the clear sky. All must have seen a moon if it was seen in Tucson.
3. ISNA’s other expert (Br.Khalid Shaukat) rejected the Tucson claim and told the Shura Council that it was ‘impossible’.
4. All prediction models excluded Tucson (all of N. America) from visibility.
5. Br. Durrani was told that ICNA and CFCO Hilal observers have confirmed non-sighting everywhere in N. America.
He ignored all evidence and misled the Shura Council into believing something totally false.
Ramadan and Eidain dates have become a nightmare for Muslims. The chaos created by the Shura decision split the Muslims, tormented the local Muslim communities all night, and cost thousands of dollars on phone calls. Now they are confused about the correct date of Lailatul Qadr and may be forced to celebrate Eid on the last day of Ramadan (if 30 days of fasting are completed and the Eid moon is not sighted.
ISNA and ICNA should issue a public statement accepting their blunder.
By Zaheer Uddin
Hilal Coordinator for ICNA / Center for American Muslim Research and Information (CAMRI)
It was impossible to see the crescent last night (Nov. 15) in North America even with a telescope. The claim and “authentication” of sighting of the crescent last night is like seeing the sun at midnight!
Our brothers Dr. Muhib Durrani and Dr. Khalid Shaukat are very good friends of mine but this time they are wrong. We have our own teams of experienced brothers in Arizona and west to it in California and each team reported non-sighting of the moon. Moreover, Arizona was NOT in the visibility curve.
ISNA has made such mistakes in the past and they did it again.