SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 23: An attempt by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to introduce a universal Islamic or Hijra calendar failed as most of the Islamic centres and mosques in America and Canada ignored its dates for the beginning and end of the month of Ramazan.
In August, ISNA announced a five-year Hijra calendar to unite the Muslim ummah and to get a designated Eid holiday from the government. The five-year pre-determined Islamic calendar is based solely on astronomical calculations. The ISNA has ruled that the actual sighting of the moon which has been practised by the majority of Muslims in the 1400-year history of Islam has to be disregarded.
The ISNA calendar was also rejected by a number of prominent North American Muslim groups, including The Hilal Sighting Committee of North America, the Islamic Shariah Council, Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a member of the Islamic Shura Council of North America and Imam Waris Deen Mohammad, leader of the African American Muslims. About 30 per cent of Muslims in America belong to the African American community.
In Canada, the Hilal Committee of Metropolitan Toronto and Vicinity, which represents 75 mosques and Islamic organisations, announced the sighting of new moon after receiving witnesses.
Most of the Muslims in North America celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr on Oct 23, the same day as projected by the ISNA calendar, but they followed the traditional moon-sighting committees’ decisions and not the ISNA forecast. They began fasting one day later than the ISNA calendar. That is why it was 29-day fasting for them while the ISNA projected a 30-day Ramazan.
Besides giving traditional arguments for moon sighting, the critics pointed out that for the ISNA calendar, the new Islamic lunar month begins at sunset of the day when the conjunction occurs before 12:00 noon GMT. If this calculation is used then for the 12-month period from this Rajab 1427 to Jumadi-ul-Sani 1428, the new moon cannot be seen for at least five months (Rajab, Ramazan, Shawwal, Zi Qa’adh, and Rabi-ul-Sani) in North America. In other words, the followers of the ISNA calendar will be obliged to begin the Islamic month one day earlier, including Ramazan 1427.
Some scholars say that the ISNA calendar is an attempt to initiate the Jewish community which abandoned the traditional moon sighting to calculate their lunar calendar and adopted the calculated calendar in the 4th century AD.
The Fiqah Council of North America, which originally suggested the calendar that was endorsed by the ISNA, argues that the new moon is just a sign of timings. “Criterions of visibility are not agreed upon even by the Muslim astronomers and scholars.”
