Hisab par Ramadan Karna

The proposal he is answering is stated first, and fairly. Some people write, again and again, that a decisive calculation is now available, so Ramadan and Eid should be decided by calculation and the whole world united on it; and they press in particular that everyone should adopt Saudi Arabia’s calendar, which runs a day ahead of sighting.

He asks the people of knowledge to think about one thing before anything else: will an obligatory act of worship like the fast actually be discharged on that reckoning? He calls it a question for the whole Muslim world, not for one country.

Then he states the fact plainly. The Saudi calendar is built a day before the moon is sighted; on it, Ramadan begins before Ramadan, and in reality a day of the month is still left over at the end, so people leave one obligatory fast and keep Eid. “This is entirely the reality.”

The body of the piece is the eight hadiths and two verses, arranged as four things the Prophet ﷺ insisted on:

1. Begin the fast having seen the moon, and keep Eid having seen the moon.
2. Never begin the fast without seeing it, and never keep Eid without seeing it.
3. If the moon is in the sky and still is not seen, complete thirty days without fail.
4. And with emphasis, that Ramadan must not be brought forward even by a single day.

The question he leaves the reader with is the one that follows from them: given that in nine hadiths the Prophet ﷺ insisted in this way on beginning the fast and breaking it (that is, keeping Eid) on a sighting, tell us how the obligatory fast will be discharged if the fast is begun, or Eid kept, without the moon being seen.

The same argument worked from the moon’s own position is Ittihad-e-Matla, and the case where the date moving does not invalidate the worship is Be-waqt Hajj.