Yet another ‘false Eid’?
It appears that this Eid is going to be another “two-day” affair, with a large number of mosques planning to hold their Eid on Thursday following the announcement from Saudi Arabia. I’ve been asked by one brother when Eid is going to be, and I referred him to the Moonsighting.com (MSC) website, which is run by a consultant to the Islamic Society of North America. That website makes it clear that Eid cannot be this Thursday anywhere except Polynesia and western South America.
The website also has a list of sightings of the moon around the world by MSC members; three attempts to sight the moon in the UK (at Oxford), the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and Germany (Berlin) failed. Attempts in various southerly and tropical countries succeeded, including in Morocco. I can’t therefore understand how it can be Eid earlier than Saturday, given that we are supposed to wait an extra day if we can’t see the moon. But Thursday is simply out of the question.
The MSC site links to two articles on this subject; the second, from the Canadian Islamic group TARIC, ends with this statement:
The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) made no attempt to know, or to inform the Muslims in the areas around Medina about when the Hajj was in Mecca. Every Muslim community prayed according to its own sighting of the crescent of Dhul Hijjah. Accordingly, all the scholars of Islam are unanimous that Eid ul Adha is on the 10th of Dhul Hijjah which is determined by the sighting in each locality, and NOT ON THE 10th OF DHUL HIJJAH IN MECCA. It is a bida to try to impose a Vatican-like dogma on the Muslim ummah, although the propagators would tell you that they are simply following a ‘universal horizon.’ Don’t be fooled. In Ramadan of 1999 it was claimed that the moon was seen in Yemen and Libya, and the Muslims of those countries began fasting on December 8, 1999. Those who claim to accept any sighting anywhere in the world conveniently ignored those Muslims, opting for the ‘universal sighting’ of their choice. The Companions of the Prophet (pbuh) opposed every attempt to impose the moon sighting in one town over the others, even in close proximity, when it was not seen on a clear horizon, or when the horizon was cloudy on the 29 day of the Islamic month.
A brother reported on a number of Yahoo forums that seven so-called big mosques in London (this included the Tawhid Mosque in Leyton – this speaks for itself I think); there are the usual calls “not to split the jama’at”, but another brother reports that “All the Sunni Barelwi Mosques are celebrating Eid on Friday”. Given what I received from an email list associated with Minhaj al-Qur’an, I believe it’s a safe bet that they will be holding Eid salaat on Friday as well (Romford Road A118, just west of Upton Lane junction, near Forest Gate railway station).
Update: the following mosques have announced Friday Eids: Slough, Berks; Hounslow, Middx (west London); Cricklewood; Neasden (NW London; I’m not sure if these are one and the same, but there’s only one mosque in Cricklewood to my knowledge).
