ICNA’s Position on Moon Sighting
JAMAICA, New York (Aug 8, 2009) – Instead of making any moon sighting decisions the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has decided to guide its members and the general Muslim community to celebrate the beginning of the month of Ramadan and the Eid holidays with their local masajid, communities and Islamic centers.
ICNA would like to see more harmony and unity among the Muslim community at a local level. We hope that American Muslims will observe the month of Ramadan & the Eid holidays with full piety and dignity—making dawah to our neighbors, co-workers and friends as we embrace this joyous season.
We pray that Allah (SWT) showers you and your families with blessings. Please keep us in your prayers and accept our warmest congratulations on this blessed occasion!
I am really disappointed by the ICNA’s decision on moon sighting. With due respect, can I ask why is it always so difficult to follow sunnah and Quran? One of my brother here said that we should follow saudia? My question is why? Are we following them for salat too, or anybody heard or read a hadith which instruct us to do so?
I don’t understand why the simplest method of sighting the moon with the naked eye cannot be followed which is by the way told in hadith. We used to Follow ICNA for moonsighting as they were following the correct method. Why the people following the sunnah are blamed for creating disunity and not those who are actually doing innovations in deen.Please follow this link and you’d understand my point if I am not clear here.
http://www.hilalsighting.org/papers/HilalSightingReportCaliforniaConference.pdf
Salaamualaikum…
Everyone refers to celebrating Eid according to their local areas… This works for Islamic countries, but in the west where the muslim community is from the whole world this does not work.
What is local? In populated areas, there are mashallah lots of mosques.. A mosque in one block starts Ramazan today, the mosque 10 blocks away is still thinking, and awaiting guidance from their ‘mothership’ mosque….
What we really need is ‘local committees’ with members from all nationalities that reside in the area… and then decide on Ramadaan/Eid for the whole state/county/city regardless of national origins of the managements of the mosques…. so that all mosques within a county celebrate Eid on the same day.
same thing in local masques, they called each other u are wahabi, ur hanfi ur this and u r that, why we can’t be muslim why we fight for moon, just follow MAKKAH if they called ramadan so its ramadan go with thier decission and if the do wrong, they are going to be judge on the day of judgement but atleast we all will be on same page on every occassion, and world will know that this day is the starting of Ramadan and this is the day of eid…………….and easy to represent ISLAM to non muslims
NASA has been to the moon but we muslims are fighting for the moon. Please act like true muslims.
This is a very good descision. Instead of confusing people it is a very good suggestion to guide them to follow their local mosques.
why we spend Ramadan in fasting? for the sake of ALLAH, so now why we are arguging all the time for moon, why we dont forget our differences and get together and decide when start Ramadan Karem all together and spend eid on same day, why we can’t forget our differnce and unite and show the true face of Islam to non muslims and tell them how organized and well behaved we are, instead of doing any good deeds we start our holy months with problems, come on guys and our all ULAMA’s get united and give us a peace.
yes i understand the convenience of celebrating our holidays on a local level. However it is Sunnah to determine fasting from sighting the moon, or make a 30th day of shabaan if the moon is not visible. This is our Islamic custom, and part of our Muslim identity. We should fast if we see our ‘Local sighting” in my opinion
Salam Brs and Srs,
Ramadan Mubarak.
The first thing we have to figure it out, in my opinion, is, or let me put it this way, the biggest question is ” Should we relate Unity to Moon sighting or to celebrate EID one day?” If v look back v dont c any examples at the time of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) or ammong sahabas, that they were worried about unity and moon sighting because history tells us they conquer more then half of the world sighting moon locally and starting ramadan and praying eid prayers according to their local moon sighting.That’s what I think but I also think that things can be done differently here in USA, without crossing the lines but for that we have to work very hard and in my opinion the first best thing to do is start showing up in our masajids for 5 times prayers like we go for Jummah and start getting to know each other better.
Masslam and Fi Amaanillah
Salam
To show unity is the most important spirit in all our prayers which unfortunately has been a problem amongst muslims in north america .As ICNA decieded to be more flexible in this matter but we still want to know what is right in the light of Muhammad’s ( PBUH) teachings