The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for the ‘general’ Category

This blog is now closed to new posts and comments.

All previous posts and comments, many of which contain valuable information and knowledge, will remain accessible to all.

It happened in 2019, it happened before 2019, and it has happened again this year in 2023!

The Saudi Arabia authorities declared on the evening of Thursday 20 April that the moon crescent was sighted in Saudi Arabia and therefore Eid-ul-Fitr would be on 21 April. However, it was entirely impossible to sight the new moon anywhere in the world at the time when the sun was setting in Saudi Arabia.

The first sighting reported anywhere in the world was in the USA at a time when in Saudi Arabia it would be about 3.30 am on Friday 21 April.

Previous experience and all evidence shows that the Saudi Arabia authorities must actually be determining the date of Eid long in advance by using scientific data. But they do not announce the date for fear of opposition from people who believe only in sighting by eye. So they pretend that they follow moon sighting by eye. Then, on the evening before their calculated date, they simply issue the claim that the new moon has been sighted, regardless of whether it was sighted or not.

The UK Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat has been determining Ramadan and Eid dates by scientific data every year since long ago in 1978, and announcing them in advance in a plain, above-board way

In the tale of the emperor with no clothes, at least the emperor believed that he was wearing clothes. He thought the reason he couldn’t see his clothes was that they were only visible to the intelligent people. In this case of moon sighting in Saudi Arabia, the emperor knows that he is wearing no clothes. But he is telling people that he is fully dressed and the subjects are saying: We believe him, even if someone can demonstrate to us that he is totally naked.

What a sad and sorry state of affairs!

— Zahid Aziz

Read the 2023 Eid-ul-Fitr Message from Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya.

Read the 2023 Ramadan Message from Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya.

Please visit this link for photographs and report.

At this link see the Eid-ul-Adha Message, July 2022, by Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya.

At this link see the Eid-ul-Fitr Message, May 2022, by Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya.

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

I saw an interview with the new chairman of the Ruyat-i Hilal Committee of Pakistan, Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad, on GEO TV. He stated that the arrangements for determining the new moon will now be such that there will not be any disagreement in the country about the date of Eid. He also disclosed that the work of this Committee costs the government 4 million Rupees (I am not sure if he meant annually or on each occasion).

I don’t know what solution the Maulana has devised, but the real problem is due to the fact that while scientific data can tell us for certain which evening it is when the moon will be new, the question of whether the new moon will be visible is not a matter of certainty, but probability.

This year 2021, in Pakistan on the evening of 12 May, which will be 29th Ramadan there, the age of the moon at sunset will be about 19 hours. It might be possible to sight it using a telescope, but sighting it with the naked eye will be almost impossible. Consequently, the Committee will find it very difficult to accept any report of sighting as correct.

So the Committee may well announce on 12 May that the moon has not been sighted. Unfortunately for them, since the age of the moon on the evening of 13 May will be about 43 hours and it will be out in the sky for about 90 minutes after sunset, people observing it will wonder how such a large and long-lasting crescent can be the new moon.

Therefore, objections will arise whichever date is selected! And the same has happened several times in previous years.

The solution is found in a very short verse of the Holy Quran: “The sun and the moon follow a reckoning (a ḥisāb)” (55:5).

Muslims happily follow the first part of this verse. Hence times of starting and ending the daily fasts are published. If it is cloudy, no one is worried about finding out when the sun will set and when they can end their fast. Unfortunately, Muslims in general are not willing to follow the second part of this verse, about the moon. On the basis of one or two hadith reports on this issue, they are setting aside and ignoring the guidance of the Quran.

It is a matter of deep embarrassment that while Muslims are found to be discussing every year whether the new moon has been sighted, non-Muslim nations (dubbed by Muslims as kafir) reached that same moon more than fifty years ago, and today they are able to send machines to the planet Mars, several hundred times further away than the moon is, and move them about by remote control.

— Zahid Aziz

The London Mosque Fund was a body founded in 1910 by certain prominent Muslims, mainly of Indian origin, and some British sympathisers of Islam, with the aim of building a mosque in London. Its work led eventually to the establishment of the East London Mosque, now located in Whitechapel, London.

The minutes of the meetings of its Executive Committee have been published by Cambridge University Press. These contain several references to the Woking Mosque and Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, showing that the London Mosque Fund set up the Woking Mosque Trust as the body to hold the Woking Mosque and appointed Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din as Imam in 1913.

The London Mosque Fund also approved a grant for Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din to rent a location in Central London for the holding of Friday prayers. The Fund approved a form of wording for the announcement of these prayers, which was as follows:

Allah – O – Akbar

The Jooma Namaz will be held at the Lindsay Hall, Notting Hill Gate, W., regularly every Friday at 12 Noon until further notice.

Mr Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din of the Mosque, Woking will deliver the sermon and the Dua will be recited by Haireddin Effindi and Lord Headley respectively in Arabic and English.

All Moslems are cordially invited.

For full details please see the latest addition to the Woking Muslim Mission website at this link.