The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for May, 2021

Please see my post below from 25 April 2021.

What I had said in that post, on the basis of scientific data, proved exactly correct: “This year 2021, in Pakistan on the evening of 12 May … the [Ruyat-i Hilal] Committee will find it very difficult to accept any report of sighting as correct.”

That is why it took the Committee 4½ hours to reach a decision!

The Ruyat-i Hilal Committee deliberated for about 4½ hours after sunset on 12 May 2021 (29th Ramadan there). Pakistan government’s meteorological department was announcing that the age of the moon was so short (i.e. length of time elapsed since birth of the new moon) that the crescent could not possibly be seen by the human eye or even by telescope. At 11.30 pm local time, after even tarawih prayers had finished, the Committee announced that it was accepting as correct the various reports of moon sighting it had received and hence Eid would be next day on the 13th.

The comedy is that, while the day in Islam begins at sunset, it was announced 4½ hours after this time, after the Islamic day had begun, that this day is not 30th Ramadan but 1st Shawwal!

The only justification for holding Eid on 13 May was that calculations showed that the moon was new. But not wishing to admit this simple truth, the Committee accepted erroneous reports, provably erroneous reports, that the moon had been sighted.

I may add that in the UK since 1978 the Lahore Ahmadiyya branch has been using the published scientific data about the moon to set the Eid date many months in advance. I know because I have been doing it!

So this year in Pakistan, those very strong believers in sighting the moon by eye found themselves setting an Eid day which is only justifiable by the known scientifc data and not at all by sighting.

— Zahid Aziz

Further to the above, the previous Chairman of the Ruyat-i Hilal Committee, Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, has refused to accept that Eid should have been on 13 May since the moon could not have been sighted on 12 May and the sighting reports are erroneous. He has asked all Muslims in Pakistan to observe a missed fast on 14 May.

See: Geo TV News  ♦  The Tribune ♦ Samaa TV