Allah Is My Guide

In the Name of Allah, he Gracious, the Merciful

Assalaamu alaykum, 

Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated here in Mumbai (India) on Thursday, 2nd of October, 2008. In Pakistan, it was celebrated on Wednesday, 1st of October. And in Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday 30th of September. On 3 different days in 3 different parts of the world! ‘What’s wrong with that?’ some Muslims ask me. ‘Don’t Muslims say their prayers at different times at different places?’ they ask.

If Muslims in Mumbai are saying their Maghrib prayer now, those in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) can offer the same prayer 2 hours and 30 minutes later. That’s true. But consider what happens when the Eid is celebrated on different days. The 1st day of the Islamic month of Shawwal occurred on Thursday the 2nd of October in Mumbai, on Wednesday the 1st of October in Pakistan and on Tuesday the 30th September in Saudi Arabia. 3 different calendars in 3 different parts of the world! No wonder then that the Islamic calendar is dicarded even by the Islamic countries. They have to use the Gregorian calendar for international transactions. The world has virtually now become one global village. The use of such Islamic calendars is impracticable. If I have my son’s marriage ceremony to be performed next month, say, on the 10th of November, I can’t give the corresponding Islamic date, because I don’t know when the 1st of the next Islamic month will fall. Our Islamic calendar is useless for fixing any appointment beyond the current month. It cannot give us a definite date for our next Eid. There is a perpetual indefiniteness in it. We cannot fix any Muslim holidays in advance. In short, our lives would be more difficult, if we did not have the benefit of the Christian (Gregorian) calendar.

Can this state of affairs be that of a religion perfected by Allah Almighty Himself!? What is the cause of this evident imperfection? Is Allah wrong in declaring Islam to be perfect? If we say yes, we’re clearly then outside the pail of Islam. What then has made the Perfect Religion seem imperfect, particularly in this context? We don’t need the Google Search to find out. We know it very well. It’s the hadeeth that has made new-moon-sighting the criterion for determining whether a particular Islamic month has 29 days or 30.

This hadeeth, which has caused this imperfection, cannot then be part of the Allah-perfected Religion of Islam! The divine Guidance - Qur’aan - does not make new-moon-sighting the criterion, but makes (Verse 2.189) the fixed time - fixed for the entire mankind living on the earth - when the phenomenon of the new moon occurs every month in the cosmos, the criterion.

During the Prophet’s time there was no means available for determining the fixed time of the occurrence of the new moon. The Prophet (peace be upon him) had therefore no alternative but to take new-moon-sighting as the criterion for change of month. It did not matter since the Islamic world then was restricted to the area now known as Saudi Arabia. The hadeeth was time-specific, whereas the Qur’aan is valid for all times till the Last Day. Alas! The Muslims today are blind to this reality.

The Muslims can still have a viable international Islamic calendar by adopting the criterion prescribed in Verse 2.189. I have no reason to doubt that it shall be more accurate than the Gregorian calendar; for, the former is Allah-sponsored, while the latter is man-devised. But will the Muslims awake??

Wassalaam,
Mohammad Shafi
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