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Assalamu alaikum/greetings, for those who started the month of Shawwal on August 8, 2013, today, September 5th is the 29th of Shawwal. This makes the start of Dhul Qi’dah either tomorrow September 6th or Saturday September 7th.
Per http://www.islamicfinder.org, the Ummul Qura/Makkah calendar has the start of Dhul Qi’dah on September 7th.
Per http://www.islamicmoon.com:
The next New Moon occurs on 2013 September 5 at 11:36 UT/GMT. It will be visible in the southern hemisphere from Jakarta, Indonesia to Durban S. Africa i n the evening of Friday, Sept. 6, 2013, and in the northern hemisphere on Sept. 7 (Sat.) Please try and observe the new crescent moon in the western sky after sunset on each of the three or four days following the instant of the new moon given above. Observations, both positive and negative, should be submitted at http://www.islamicmoon.com and http://www.crescentmoonwatch.org/report.htm.
Per http://www.crescentwatch.org:
Crescentwatch.org encourages everyone to go out to look for the new crescent moon this Friday night (Sep. 6th) in anticipation of the beginning of the Islamic month of Dhu al-Qi’dah.
Qualified Muslim astronomers and reliable visibility forecasts indicate that on Friday the new crescent moon should be easily visible in Southern Africa, South America, and in the southernmost areas of North America, primarily Central America and the Carribean (check the visibility forecast for your region here).
Friday night would also mark the conclusion of 30 days of Shawwal (based upon the Aug. 8th day of Eid), so the new month would inevitably begin on Saturday, but we nonetheless encourage people to go out on Friday, and even Thursday, to practice and experience the prophetic tradition of moon-sighting.
Please go out to look for the new crescent moon and submit your moon-sighting report here. The crescent (hilal) would be visible shortly after sunset, slightly to the left, and above where the sun had set. It is a beautiful experience to sight its emergence, and it is a sunnah of our noble Prophet, sal Allahu alayhi wa salam, that we hope the ummah revives.
Per Moonsighting.com’s Dhul Qi’dah page:
The Astronomical New Moon is on September 5, 2013 (Thursday) at 11:36 UT. On September 5, the moon is not visible anywhere, except that there is a chance in Ploynesian Islands to see bt telescope. Telescopes may not be available to a small population of Muslims in those areas, so we do not expect any sighting reports. On September 6, it may be visible only in Africa, South & Central America and Polynesian Islands. On September 7, it will be visible almost everywhere except Northern latitudes in Asia and Europe. (See visibility curves).
Thus it seems the most likely date for the start of Dhul Qi’dah is on September 7th, if this indeed turns out to be the case, this would make the 29th day of Dhul Qi’dah correspondent with October 5th.
Inshallah will post updates once the start of Dhul Qi’dah is confirmed.
Assalamu alaikum, per global moon sighting (in Chile per CrescentWatch and moonsighting.com), the month of Shawwal began on August 8, 2013. for those who strictly follow a sighting within their local area, Shawwal began on August 9th, 2013, at least in North America.
Per the Ummul Qura calendar, Shawwal is calculated to have begun on August 8, 2013, this also falls in line with sighting reports coming out of Saudi Arabia which were demed by CrescentWatch and moonsighting.com to have been erroneous.
Given the above, the 29th day of Shawwal and hence the next time to go out and look for the hilal of Dhul Qi’dah will be on September 5th for those following global sighting and September 6th, for those following a local sighting in North America. Thus the first day of Dhul Qi’dah will either be on the 6th or 7th for those following a global sighting, or the 7th/8th for those following local sighting in North America.
The calculated date per the Ummul Qura calendar for the beginning of Dhul Qi’dah is on September 7th. I’m not sure if the Saudi govnerment makes moon sighting announcements for any other months besides Ramadan, Shawwal, and Dhul Hijja, if they do and they can be found online, let me know.
Assalamu alaikum/greetings. Inshallah I’m going to be restarting my “moon bits” series. Mostly this is for myself only. If others get benefit out of it too then Alhamdulillah for that. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking though, about the moon sighting issue, as always lol, I mean what’s new? Ever since the whole “28 day ramadan?” controversy, and also ever since the post I saw online by Mohamed Ghilan.
Unfortunately, I’ve been in more “debates” (about moon sighting and other things), then I care to admit. But my main reason for restating this is just for record keeping purposes. I’d kinda like to review this every so often, and try to analyze, to the best of my ability, how often the local, global, pre-calculated and Saudi- (actual) moon sighting calendars converge/differ. Find the below links which will contain the info I’ll be using. Feel free to let me know of any other links that I may have missed which will help in this effort.
http://www.islamicfinder.org/Hcal/index.php : Hijri calendar via IslamicFinder.org which uses the Ummul Qura calendar.
Ginny's Ramblings 