Fictitious Unity. Ramadhan at the same time.

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Some of the well-intentioned, yet  self-styled defenders of Muslim unity insist that the whole Ummah should start fasting on the same day, and should celebrate Eid on the same day as well, as a sign of solidarity across the Ummah.

Some show regret that even after 1400 years Muslims are unable to agree on when it’s the first of Ramadan, or the first of Shawwal. Especially now when communication is so easy, we can simply use a tool like Facebook to unite all Muslims and once the moon is sighted, or calculated to have been sighted, we should all agree.

If not at an Ummatic level, at least at a national level we should agree on one day, goes the argument…..

Some of us rationalists talk about the scientific calculation of moon phases, those of us from the fiqh schools talk about moon-sighting, some Sufis from us trust their shaykh and some of our salafi brothers talk about Makkah or Medina (perhaps with the Umm ul Qura calendar) being the reference point to unite the entire Ummah.

Although it stems from good intention, in my humble opinion, this is not a show of true unity.  I believe that this is a non-issue.

First of all there is no concept of country in Islam and hence no concept of national identity (granted that it is controversial, but this is a topic for another post). So those to try to rally their nation around it, well, lets talk some other time. There is an Ummah, and there are your loyalties to your communities at a local level, some sort of a federation model, if you please. 

And at an Ummatic level, it is impossible to have the same calendar, since the Geographical time zones are spread across the globe. 

The idea that I have understood from our scholars from Salafis, to Shafa'is to Ja'faris, is that the observance of the moon is a local phenomenon, and is to be followed by people in the same geographical area (or moon phase). Also, it may be determined scientifically (astronomically) as well, as long as there is no doubt. But that is again topic for another post. Having said that, people in the same geographic area do differ sometimes, and that is another issue, and it is well beyond my capabilities to discuss. 

My concern in this post is only those who believe that the whole ummah should celebrate at the same time, and I believe that not only it is a position contradictory to the general understanding of Muslim scholars throughout history, it is also an illogical position.

I would just like to quote one well-known narration, known as the the hadith of Kurayb which is narrated in Muslim, Tirmidhi Abu Dawud, Nasa’i, Ahmed, Bayhaqi and Daraqutni (with variants), and relates as follows: 

Kurayb reported that Umm Fadl, the daughter of Harith, sent Fadl to Damascus. While in Syria, the month of Ramadan commenced, and he witnessed the new moon of Ramadan. When he returned to Medina at the end of the month, Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas informed him that they had seen it a day later in Medina and thus begun the fast later. Ibn Abbas stated, “We will continue to observe fast till we complete thirty [days] or we see it [the new moon of Shawwal]. When Kurayb asked, “Is the sighting of the moon by Mu’awiya not sufficient for you?” Ibn Abbas replied, “No, for this is how Messenger of Allah (salallahu alayhi wasallam) has commanded us..” 

What has been deduced from this narration is, as Ibn Rushd writes in his Bidayat al-Mujtahid, that a location outside the “moon-phase” of a confirmed sighting is not obliged to (yet free to) follow the reported easterly sighting.  And that each geographic area can, and perhaps should have its own reference level to start a month. 

There have been arguments about this narration. Imam Shaukani and others tried to argue to reject it on the following grounds:
 

1. Ibn Abbas (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) did not quote the actual words of the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasallam). (Comment: There are several versions of the Hadith "La tasumu…", quoted above.)
2. He required a testimony of at least two witnesses. (Comment: Why is there no mention of number of witnesses, but rather "Visibility".)
3. It was his Ijtihad, and his Ijtihad is not binding.(Comment: Ibn Abbas(May Allah Be Pleased With Him) did not mention anything like this, but rather, he explicitly mentioned: "Amarana..." Rasoolullah (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) Ordered us?…?
4. Kuraib was not a reliable witness. (Comment: Again, there is no mention of Kuraib being unreliable.)
5. Kuraib's testimony was only news/information, and not a Shahadah (eyewitness account).(Comment: If Ibn Abbas (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) took it as news only, then why did he continue asking questions?)

As an after thought,  if unity is observance of religious obligations at the same time, then we can extend it further. For example the whole Ummah should pray fajr (or any other salah) together with Makkah or Medina. We can easily broadcast the azaan from the haramain world over, and then do the iqamah together, a true show of Muslim unity. No matter if the ummah extends from Morocco to Maluku, and that maybe fajr time in Arabia is Isha time in New York?

 

So perhaps, instead of feeling dejected on this apparent lack of Muslim unity, we should instead focus our energy to organize ourselves into local trustworthy bodies (not national Hilal Committees, unless you are a small nation, like Singapore perhaps) that can help us determine the dates, and organize local moon-sightings, and so on and so forth. Perhaps such local bodies can later serve to be the rudiments of an Islamic political system as well. Who knows? 

Wallahu 'Alam.