sighted the new moon of Shawwal on Saturday night. The result of the joint moon-sighting exercise undertaken by the Sultanate Moon Sighting Committee and the Nigerian National Moon-sighting Committee on Sunday clearly showed that the monarch erred in the pronouncement he made on Saturday prematurely terminating the Ramadan fast in Nigeria.
The
Sultan, who is also the President of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic
Affairs [NSCIA], commissioned the joint moon-sighting investigation after his
Saturday call triggered controversy, with some of the nation’s foremost clerics
as well as the Secretary General of the NSCIA, Is-haq Oloyede, openly
questioning his judgment. The result of the investigation, also endorsed by the
Sultan’s representatives, was unambiguous: The claim that the moon was sighted
on Saturday was questionable as it was impossible for anyone to see the moon
anywhere in the world at that time.
The
committee carried out its assignment between 6:45PM and 7:45PM on Sunday. The
report of the joint committee, compiled by Usman Mahmud, a research officer
with the National Moon Sighting Committee, reads in part: “I write to inform
you that we (the National Moon Sighting Committee) and the Sultanate Moon
Sighting Committee went to the Sighting of Moon today (Sunday, July 27, 2014).“
The
moon was not sighted with naked eye or with telescope and binocular. However,
we used some programmes and software applications like Skymap, Stellarium and
Virtual Moon to get the details of the moon.“The details of the Moon are: Age:
19H (hour) 05M (minutes); Hour Angle/DE:04H 45M 11S(seconds)/ +12 21’11′;
Distance between sun and moon: 3.5′.”Experts say the result of the
investigation suggested that the Sultan erred by declaring the end of Ramadan
and beginning of Shawwal even when a new moon had not been born.“ It was a big error,” said Sheikh Abdulrazaq
Ishola, a member of the Moon-sighting Committee Worldwide, who himself was at
the AlBayrouny Observatory in Mecca that Saturday in search of the moon. “The
(Sultan’s) announcement embarrassed Nigeria all over the world because in no
other place was such ridiculous claim of sighting the moon on Saturday made.“
How
can anyone claim that he saw the moon even when conjunction of the moon and the
sun had just taken place? That is impossible. In any case, where should we ask
people to find a moon that had not been born?”Mr. Ishola explained that after
conjunction takes place, (which he said occurred at 11:47 PM on Saturday), it
usually takes about 17 hours for the moon to be sighted with a telescope and
between 18 and 23 hours to be visible to the naked eye.“
What
happened in Nigeria is disrespect to Islam and Muslims,” the cleric, who is
also a a member of the Abu Dhabi-based Islamic Crescent Observatory Project,
said. “We are in the 21st century, yet we are still living in the past in
Nigeria.” Sultan Abubakar had around
midnight on Saturday announced the sighting of the new moon and therefore the
end of Ramadan, making Nigeria the only country in the world which celebrated
Eid on Sunday.“ The new month of Shawwal
was sighted in different places within Nigeria and therefore tomorrow (Sunday)
is the first day of Shawwal equivalent to 27 July 2014,” the Sultan said in an
announcement aired on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
kai
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