The Council of Imams of Ottawa-Gatineau has issued an official statement to clarify the decision for Eid al-Fitr 1441/2020:
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Below is my personal perspective, for those who may be interested (it’s long, so I would appreciate if you could please read carefully till the end):
As discussed previously, there are multiple scholarly approaches to determining Islamic dates. See this post for details: https://www.facebook.com/sikanderhashmi/posts/10157197690545866
Back in 2015, a year after I moved to Ottawa, there was a discussion within the local Council of Imams to have a unified stance on moonsighting. Now, this REALLY excited me because I had that in mind as a goal (which I had shared privately with some members of the community) and it would be a major achievement – one that is hardly seen in most diverse cities and communities nowadays!
Alhamdulillah, it came together without me having to do anything, so I don’t take credit for it. My respected fellow elders on the Council put aside their long-held views on the issue and united on global moonsighting. Amazing, Masha Allah!
This meant that any official declaration based on sighting from a Muslim jurisdiction east of us would be accepted. We do not have the ability or resources to investigate sighting reports overseas, so we would leave it to the authorities there.
For those who know me, you know I’m a traditionalist who values research, science and data. 😀
My personal view was that global sighting was great, but it should be qualified by science so that if there were declarations from somewhere where sighting was not deemed as being possible scientifically, they wouldn’t be accepted. I suggested using visibility maps as a basis for this.
I actually didn’t sign on to the first declaration, although I made it clear I wasn’t going to break ranks on the issue and would still follow along.
Lo and behold, that very Eid, confirmed sighting reports came in from parts of North America where sighting was not possible based on the visibility maps I was looking at – not even by optical aid! Clearly, the visibility maps were proven to be wrong.
I took that as a clear signal to back down and not trust visibility maps. If they could be wrong in one part of the world, they could be wrong in others as well.
Alhamdulillah, the Council continued making announcements for Ramadan and Eid by accepting official declarations of sighting from any Muslim jurisdiction east of us, and if there was no declaration, we would look for the moon ourselves and wait for reports from the Americas. Since sunset is quite late on the west coast, Isha local time was set as the cut-off time for making a decision. There was a discussion on this too, but this is what was decided.
Fast-forward to Friday, May 22. We are not expecting sighting announcements as the visibility maps show no possibility of sighting anywhere. But of course, we can’t say so with certainty.
A draft statement announcing Eid on Sunday is ready to go at Isha time. Our (KMA) Drive-In Eid Gathering is set for Sunday. Home preps are lined up for Sunday. Basically, I’ve got everything going for a Sunday Eid and I’m pretty confident. Life is good, alhamdulillah! 🙂
Then…..
We start seeing reports of sightings in Somalia and other African countries. Crescent Council of Canada announces Eid for Saturday. We need a meeting! So at iftar time, we call for an urgent meeting. Everyone sees it and joins, except for one respected member of the Council. Unaware of the meeting, he has the Sunday announcement sent out as planned earlier. (An honest misunderstanding, which we will avoid in the future, Insha Allah).
In the meeting (around 10 pm), we discuss the sighting reports from Africa. Then, during the meeting, I come across the statement from Mauritania and I share it in our meeting.
I firmly believe in following through with agreements and criteria we have agreed to. What’s the point of having criteria if it’s going to change at the last minute? We have accepted reports from other jurisdictions at face value before and have agreed (in my understanding) to follow the valid fiqh opinion that astronomical calculations are not to be considered and that they do not overrule witness reports, so why should we not accept it now? Not doing so would be unfair and going against what we had agreed to, and would exhibit a double-standard – which I am firmly against.
To be clear, I’m personally for qualifying sighting reports with science, but if we have agreed not to do that (and we haven’t qualified sighting declarations with science in the past), then we must stick to what we agreed to.
One or two members of the council ask about science. I tell them the moon birth had occurred and that moonset (the time when the moon disappears below the horizon) had occurred after sunset in Mauritania. I later realized I got the first part right (the moon was already born in Mauritania) but I was mistaken regarding the second part – moonset was just one or two minutes before sunset in a number of cities. I regret the mistake (may Allah forgive me) and have apologized to my fellow members. Later on, I discovered a research paper that stated that 2 minutes is actually the margin of error of seeing sunset (and possibly moonset) due to various factors.
I have no doubt my brothers and sisters in Africa saw what they sincerely believed was the new crescent of Shawwal after 29 days of Ramadan (as any rational person would), but perhaps it was something else. There have been a couple of theories floated about what it could have been. Allah knows best.
But again, this was irrelevant based on the valid scholarly approach we agreed to follow.
Later on, we learned of other sighting reports from Hawaii and Arizona. Did they really see the moon? It’s hard to say definitely but those reports cannot be ruled out with certainty. It was possible to see the moon with difficulty, and this has been confirmed with astronomers and simulation software.
Based on the criteria we agreed to and based on the multiple declarations coming from Africa, I believe we made the right call.
Moving forward, I am personally in favour of only accepting sighting reports when moonset occurs after sunset in a given area. This science is definitive and should be accepted, and I will be advocating for this, Insha Allah.
However, unlike moonset and sunset times, the science of determining when the moon can and cannot be sighted is not definitive, and perhaps should not be considered (at least not at this point).
Remember, our criteria must be one that can bring most segments of the local community together. (Unity on this issue across Canada or North America would be nice, but we have to start locally first, then move forward). This can change over time, but for now this is what I believe can work.
In the end, I will abide by whatever the Council decides, because for us to be united is more important than my view.
May Allah accept our efforts and the concerns of those who expressed them sincerely and genuinely, and may He forgive us for our shortcomings. Jazakum Allah khair for reading and for your understanding.
