Ramadhan was announced on the wrong day???

This is the second time that I have noticed that you have made incorrect assumptions regarding the Islamic faith. Where do you get your misinformation from? Like I suggested before you may want to go to the Qatar Guest Center or visit their website www.qatarguestcenter.com and get an idea of the faith of the people you live amongst instead of thinking they are a bunch of unreasonable illogical heathens.

point of note:

Different countries deal differently with starting the Islamic months (lunar). For example Turkey always follows the scientific method (as told to me by a Turkish friend).

Where others depend on a visible moon sighting, for which the method is that they start looking for the moon after the 28th day (as the month can be 29 days or 30 days). If they do not see the moon due to clouds or haze, the month is assumed 30 days and Ramadan 1 would be after that.

Though, scholars have differed regarding the validity of either of the above methods in this day and age, both have their practical short falls.

Although the practically it would seem like following the scientific method would be fool proof, but in practice it has not been. For example in Tunisia (as told to me by a Tunisian friend), where they started following the scientific method and within a few years the calendar became obviously off by a few days.

Isn't that part of somebody's job, sit outside and look for the moon? When they see it or don't see it, they are supposed to tell the rest of the believers, "now is the time". If science can tell when the moon comes up, we wouldn't need the person with the job of looking for the moon.

Even on cloudy nights, science knows what is happening with the moon.

isnt somebody checking for moon sighting, atleast they tell us in the newspaper to look out for the moon.how elsee is ramadan month declared, unless i have missed out on some new gadget in the market that tells you the new moon is out.

if the country is offsetting the ramadan time by a week, good luck arguing with the country imams that it is wrong, cos me shall fast. and i still stand by the importance and spirit of ramadan month.the month is pretty important for me as is for many others who religiously follow it.

i thought the whole thing based on the moon? no?

Ahhh Rubbish. A lot of places were going off of the tables calculated by said astronomers who knew that the moon would not be visible friday.

How could anyone start looking on Friday? If they started counting the days from the beginning Rajab and Shaban and even by the 13 14 15 of Shaban which clearly was observed by the officials here and in Saudi they could have easily deduced friday was a pipe dream.

It is a move to shift the blame off the government officials and stupid calendars/tables created by none other than the Astronomers. The same with the sunrise/sunset tables which are astronomical sunrise/sunset not actual sunrise/sunset times. I am tired of this stupid discussion. Its the same thing every year in America. They came up with the excuse that going by the tables will stop the confusion of having the Eid on different days and unite the Muslims.

The Ulema I know made excuses for this even though they knew the day was not right. Only Allah knows their intentions for not speaking up.

Act your age not your shoe size

helloqatar what do u mean they would be "out of work"?

"does not matter if it starts on the right day or not, its the importance and spirit of the month that should be taken into account."

What if it's overcast for a week? Ever thought of joining the 21st Century!

what the hell has moon sighting got to do with religious leaders?

whenever our scholars view the new moon, the next day will be eid. does not matter if it starts on the right day or not, its the importance and spirit of the month that should be taken into account.

If they depended on science to know when the moon rises and sets, it would put a lot of religious leaders out of work.

Aisha, says who and since when are modern scientific methods used to determine the onset of Ramadan? That is absolutely untrue.

Well I didn’t check the link.. and to tell the truth I don’t really care. The wisdom behind the whole thing won’t be affected by such a “mistake� if it were one. I think they depend on science now to tell when the exact day is. That’s a flexible modern religious attitude. I like it :-)

Yes we know it was announced wrong. Eid will still happen. We've just got to discover astronomy and planetariums before calling it right!