verily, Allah alters not His blessing from any people until they themselves alter their condition (13:11).

Alhamdulillah! we have many hilal committees in the UK today who are striving to revive the blessed sunnah of moonsighting. Trying to actually sight the moon each month rather than following age old pre-calculated calendars that do no one any justice. When no positive sighting made on the 29th of lunar month they are gathering information from neighbouring countries who have authoritative hilal organisations and also countries who have reliable and trustworthy systems in place namely south africa. But only after attempting to sight the moon here in the UK do they follow the rule which in hanafi fiqh allows the muslims to use information from the east.

Subhanallah!! i was overwhelmed with joy when i saw pictures from south africa (below) where muslims go out to attempt to sight the new moon in the thousands. yes! thousands. NOT a handful or even 100 but thousands. sadly, in the UK muslims take it as a non-issue. When no positive sighting made on the 29th, these UK organisations are also going out on the 30th in order to keep a record for future predictions etc.

After all this how can muslims continue to blatantly blind follow saudi arabia, when there is no basis for it in the shariah. many have made many claims about it’s validity and that saudi is also to the east of UK, but when you look at the saudi calendar system it all goes out the window. those who support following saudi dates do not tell their fellow muslims of the corrupt and erroneous nature of the saudi calendar.

• the pre-calculation calendar is based on the birth of the moon and not predicted visibility
• their months start and finish exactly as the pre-calculation
• claims of sightings made and accepted before birth of new moon
• and many other erroneous factors

The public need to wake up and start questioning their masjid committees and imams who are directly responsible for muslims starting fasting when the month hasn’t actually begun, so that fast will not count. And then celebrating eid when the month of fasting has not actually ended, in effect they shall be liable for that fast. Then qurbani/udhiyyah being done when it is actually the day of arafah. i suppose the common person won’t catch on or have the courage to stand up and ask the question, but there are many learnered brothers and sisters out there who need to step up to the challenge or you will find yourselves being asked that which you will not be able to answer on the day of qiyamah. unfortunately, there are also committees under the pretence of hilal organisations who present and promote themselves as  who discuss debate and gather information on the issue and then decide when the month should start/end but sadly they are just taking the public for fools, by just announcing what comes out of riyadh yet making the public believe that they are actually doing something genuine and constructive.

some say that we live in a non-muslim country with no islamic governance, so no one will be held accountable. unfortunately, it is quite the opposite. we have no islamic governance, so it’s every man for himself. the duty is on every individual shoulder to learn the deen and act upon it. if you are deaf dumb and mute and you follow or make an error then inshallah it will be forgiven easily. however, if you are knowledgeable, able, competent, proffessional and you just sit back and follow like sheep then you are in for a tough ride.

some follow up reading on the topic:
— why two eids.?
— cesarean moon births
— who’s to blame for the split.??
— hanafi fiqh on starting ramadan on the testimony of one or two person