Oh No, Again

So Pakistan still haven't sighted the moon, meaning that their first fast will take place on Thursday. This is bad news. In a nutshell, Eid in Pakistan may now be on Friday 4th or Saturday 5th, the latter being the day I fly back.

Obviously I don't want to spend my first Eid-ul-Fitr in Pakistan on a plane. Now, our only hope lies in the fact that the previous two months in Pakistan were both thirty days long, implying that Ramadhan will have to be 29. But that's logical and I've given up on that now. It will of course totally suck if Eid isn't on Friday.

As an aside the ugly issue of division in the UK arises yet again. It seems now to be pretty well split between the traditionalist and younger mosques (ardent followers of Saudi, btw) instead of along more arbitrary lines like it used to and even though I took the word of the latter this year I do think they got it wrong. Pakistan isn't the only source starting on Thursday; I hear that New Zealand is too and the MCB have also announced Wednesday for their start. Apparently moon charts prove that there was no visible moon on Monday night (even though the same charts also prove the new moon had been born).

Personally, I think that following Saudi, although commendable in its intent to create a single definitive global source for sightings, lacks a bit of credibility, especially when UK Islam has developed enough to allow us to form our own. Love 'em or hate 'em, the MCB seems more of an appropriate source to blindly follow.

But anyway. None of this changes the fact that I'm flying back on what may turn out to be Eid in Pakistan. Oh man.