The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for June, 2019

Around the last weekend I had read by chance in a local online UK newspaper, Birmingham Mail, speculation about the date of Eid-ul-Fitr. In this connection they displayed a table showing that on Monday 3rd June the new moon would not be visible in Makkah, Rabat the capitlal of Morocco, or various UK cities. (Note: Makkah and Morocco were listed because Muslims in UK follow moon sighting reports from these places, Makkah for obvious reasons, and Morocco because of being the nearest Muslim country.)

When Monday 3rd June came, the same online newspaper published the following news: “The date of Eid al-Fitr 2019 has been confirmed after a sighting of the first crescent of the new moon.The moon was seen at Mecca in Saudia Arabia on Monday, June 3, which is the 29th day of the holy month of Ramadan.”

On this, I e-mailed the reporter and said that this sighting was astronomically impossible, and in proof of this I referred them to the earlier story in their own newspaper (!), as well as other sources. I thought this would be the end of the matter, but the newspaper decided to publish a story based on this, to which I of course readily agreed. In fact, they published two items on this, the links to which are: item 1 and item 2.

I had hardly recovered from seeing my name in these items that a relation let me know that it had been picked up by Apple News from the UK national newspaper the Daily Express. See link.

I will let you read these yourselves, rather than summarising them.

— Zahid Aziz

Addendum to the above:

Here is a news item from The Economist, London, 8 June 2019, about moon sighting and that the Saudi Arab sighting was not accepted in some countries of the Middle East.

Here is a news item from the Urdu Daily Ummat, Karachi, 8 June 2019, about the error in the Saudi Arab announcement.

Here is a link to my Eid-ul-Fitr khutbah of today in London.

— Zahid Aziz

A well-known Muslim astronomical and moon sighting website carries the report that the first sighting of the moon anywhere in the world was in Brisbane, Australia, Tuesday 4 June. This would be at 5.00 pm, local sunset time. That corresponds to Tuesday 4 June, 10 am in Makkah, 9 am in Europe and 8 am in UK. See:

https://www.moonsighting.com/1440shw.html

It was announced from Saudi Arabia on the evening of Monday 3 June that the moon had been sighted. Due to this false announcement, most people in Saudi Arabia and many people in Europe and UK had already said their Eid prayers on Tuesday 4 June even before the new moon was sighted anywhere in the world.

— Zahid Aziz

Here is the Eid-ul-Fitr Message, June 2019, of Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.

Welcome to the Ramadan Daily Quran Studies for 2019

(Note: Any new posts during Ramadan will be filed below this post.)

As an introduction, here is a short article (English translation / Urdu original) by Maulana Muhammad Ali containing some humble prayers, which he published for the Ramadan of the year 1948.

• Fast 1 — Fasting
• Fast 2 — Fasting: Its purposes
• Fast 3 — Fasting: Developing good qualities
• Fast 4 — Fasting: The month of Ramadan
• Fast 5 — Fasting: Further information
• Fast 6 — Prophets Isaiah and Buddha
• Fast 7 — The Quran: called an honoured book and a guide right at the beginning

• Fast 8 — The Quran: “No doubt” in the Quran
• Fast 9 — The Quran: “No doubt” in the Quran — the challenge of the Quran
• Fast 10 — The Quran is for all times
• Fast 11 — The Quran as a guide
• Fast 12 — Guidance for those who make efforts
• Fast 13 — Having belief requires knowledge
• Fast 14 — Another verse sheds more light

• Fast 15 — Belief in the Unseen
• Fast 16 — The Unseen
• Fast 17 — Prayer
• Fast 18 — Prayer (continued)
• Fast 19 — Prayer (continued)
• Fast 20 — Night prayers and simple life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
• Fast 21 — Heart-felt nature of prayers in Islam

• Fast 22 — Other fundamentals of Islam, and charity
• Fast 23 — Charity (continued)
• Fast 24 — Charity (continued)
• Fast 25 — Submission to God and service of humanity as the fundamentals of Islam
• Fast 26 — Only the principles of religion bear fruit — not desires or labels
• Fast 27 — Belief in all earlier revelation
• Fast 28 — Belief in all earlier revelation and prophets of all nations

• Fast 29 — Some miscellaneous points for consideration
• Fast 30 — Conclusion to Chapter 2 of the Quran

Thanks to Allah for passing us through another month of Ramadan. May He keep us safe and well over the next year, ameen. Eid Mubarak to all readers!