Every year, the confusion over which the date for Eid reminds me of that iconic scene from the film ‘Sholay’, where Gabbar Singh looks impatiently at his men and shouts in exasperation, “Holi kab hai? Kab hai Holi?” (when is Holi?) Friends seeing ‘Eid Mubarak’ messages on social media will call or text to greet me, only to find that I am still fasting and they are a day early, and I will call friends and relatives on Eid only to find that I am a day late. As the annual confusion dies down with Muslims in different places having celebrated Eid on different days as usual, and their non-Muslim friends not knowing who to wish, when and for what, a brief explanation of this phenomenon is in order.
Ramzaan (or Ramadan as it is called by those who borrow their pronunciations from the internet) is a month in the Islamic calendar when Muslims fast from pre-dawn to dusk. In the lunar calendar, a month begins with the sighting of the new moon and ends with the sighting of the new moon, marking the commencement of the next lunar cycle. ‘Ramzaan Mubarak’ or ‘Ramadan Kareem’ is the greeting you see trending when this holy month starts, and ‘Eid Mubarak’ is the greeting exchanged when this month ends. The first day of the lunar month of ‘Shawwal’ that follows Ramzaan is the day we know as Eid-ul-Fitr. An interesting aside is that according to traditions of the Prophet’s time (peace be upon him), any moon sighting is believed if it is reported by two Muslim witnesses in the area.
Why Is the Length of Lunar Month Unpredictable?
The lunar month is 29.5 days long, and therefore, some months of the lunar calendar are 29 days and some are 30 days long. Whether it is 29 or 30 will depend on the moon cycle. The lunar year is 354 days, ie, 11 days shorter than the solar year, and so, lunar months keep moving relative to the solar year. This is why you will find that Ramzaan falls in different seasons and overlaps with different Gregorian (English calendar) months over time.
So, Eid-ul-Fitr will now fall around 3 May only after 33 years, by which time, the Islamic calendar will actually have gained one full year on the Gregorian calendar – yes, I’m actually one year older by the Islamic calendar than I am by the Gregorian, and that might explain the popularity of the Gregorian calendar.
Most Hindu calendars, by contrast, add an additional 13th month to the year every three years to keep the months and festivals occurring in the same seasons every year. So, it’s like the Hindu calendar has a leap year every three years, except that this leap year has not one day but one whole month extra.
Most ancient calendars were lunar because they were based on a physically observable event, ie, the moon phase. Before calendars and diaries acquired a life of their own, the date could be told by simply looking up at the night sky. If you think about it, switch off all your devices and stop your book-keeping, and you have no way of saying what day of what month it is without counting from the last date you remember. The lunar calendar, on the other hand, is nature keeping a record of time in the sky.
The Visibility of the Moon
At any given time, the moon phase is the same all over the world, irrespective of geographical location, although the exact time of, say, 100% (full moon/Poornima) and 0% (no moon/Amavasya) visibility varies by a few hours with longitude. For example, this month, the moon’s completely dark phase was between 30 April and 1 May, with the exact moment of 0% visibility varying slightly across regions with a change in longitude. For eg, 16:28 am on 30 April in New York, 1:58 AM on 1 May in New Delhi, and 6:28 AM on 1 May in Sydney. Therefore, although theoretically, the moon was already waxing on the evening of 30 April in some parts of the world, Eid would depend on a second factor – the visibility of the moon.
Did you know that the new moon actually rises in the morning? But the crescent moon is too slight to be visible in daylight. Although it is in the sky all day, it’s only after sunset that it becomes visible.
Then, there is a small window between sunset and moonset timings when the new crescent moon is visible on the horizon just before it sets. Its visibility depends on various factors, the most important amongst which is the altitude or elevation of the moon above the horizon at sunset.
How a Few African Countries Caused a Meme Fest in 2020
If the elevation is insufficient, the moon will not be visible as the glow of the setting sun and the atmospheric haze is closest to the line of the horizon. Typically, 10 degrees is the elevation above the horizon required at sunset for the moon to be visible to the naked eye, with an elbow room of around another 1 or 2 degrees if the conditions are unusually clear or if viewed through a telescope, or in areas of low atmospheric haze/pollution. The angle of elevation of the moon at sunset on any given day is different at different points on the globe, and the angle decreases as we travel from west to east.
I remember in 2020, some African countries such as Morocco, Somalia, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Senegal and Mali were the first to declare Eid when the angle of elevation of the moon there was simply too low for it to possibly be visible, leading to a meme and counter-meme fest on the internet, and some astronomy centres seriously speculating that the Africans must have mistaken Venus or Mercury for the Moon.
'Seeing is Believing'
So now, armed with the above data, how do we decide when to celebrate Eid? This is where differences arise. Different Muslim communities have different methods for using the calendar that they subscribe to culturally/nationally. Now, as I said, the degree of elevation on the moon at sunset on any day of the Gregorian calendar is known in advance. You can find this data for each day of every year on the website timeanddate.com.
Therefore, the Australian National Imams Council simply calculates the phase of the moon at sunset in advance and decides when the moon should become visible, without taking into account actual visibility on the day concerned. Meanwhile, small immigrant Muslim communities in European countries often follow the calendar in Makkah or their native country.
The Dawoodi Bohra community in India follows a unique ‘Misri’ or Egyptian calendar of their own that has been fixed relative to the solar calendar. Theirs is thus a perpetual calendar with alternate months having 29 and 30 days, and a leap year every four years where the last month has one extra day. Their Ramzaan and Eid dates are, therefore, known years in advance and are often different from everyone else’s. For instance, last year, the Bohra community celebrated Eid a day before almost anyone else in the world and two days before India. This year, their Eid coincided with Makkah and most of the world but was ahead of the rest of India by one day.
In India and a number of Asian countries, we subscribe to the thought “seeing is believing” and assume that the month is 30 days unless the moon shows up and proves otherwise. Saudi Arabia, as usual, is stuck in no-man’s-land, trying to balance Islamic and Western traditions, with eight months of their calendar year being fixed in advance and four months containing the festivals of Ramzaan, Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Zuha (the time of the Hajj pilgrimage) being determined by moon sighting. Of course, this brings more errors into the system as the fixed months reduce the flexibility of the remaining four months.
There are Differences Even Within India, Too
In India, Kerala – as it is by the sea on the western coast and experiences lower pollution levels – has the advantage of greater visibility over the horizon as the moon sets into the sea. The altitude of the moon is also slightly higher in the Kerala sky. Therefore, the likelihood of Kerala seeing the moon earlier than the rest of the country is typically somewhat greater, and consequently, the state is often a day ahead of most other states of India in their declaration of the start of Ramzaan as well as Eid.
It may also be relevant that Kerala has much closer ties with the Arab world compared to the rest of the country. Kerala had been on a trade route with the Arab world for centuries. Also, many households in Kerala have a family member in the ‘Gulf’, ie, in Saudi Arabia or the UAE, and perhaps for this reason too, their celebrations are more likely to concur with that region.
On account of a mix of these factors, Kerala typically declares moon sighting a day earlier than the rest of India. Although last year, Eid in Kerala was a day before New Delhi, this year, Eid has coincided for both regions.
There is another factor that causes such differences among cities. If the new moon marking the beginning of Ramzaan is sighted a day earlier in one country, then given that the margin of error is only one day (meaning the lunar month is either 29- or 30-days-long) if the month of Ramzaan happens to be 30-days-long – like it was this year – Eid for them cannot coincide with countries that started the month a day later as that would make Ramzaan a 31-day month, which is not possible in the lunar calendar.
Most other Muslim communities of the sub-continent have traditionally been deeply rooted in their local traditions and celebrate their festivals based on moon sightings in their own cities, without worrying about who is doing what in which other parts of the world. Therefore, since the moon sighting in India happened on 2 May, Eid in India is being celebrated on 3 May, a day behind most of the world.
The Endearing Suspense of Chaand Raat
While this local connection can sometimes lead to absurd situations like cities separated by a few hundred kilometres celebrating Eid on different days, some of us have come to love this endearing suspense of the chaand raat of Ramzaan and Eid-ul-Fitr.
I, for one, love the annual “Eid kab hai, kab hai Eid” moment that is our contribution to the chaos in the cosmos. I remember occasions when we have called up our relatives in other towns and cities and hit our heads against the walls to find that we are having to continue fasting stuck between cities on our east and west celebrating Eid.
It is noteworthy that this only happens on Eid-ul-Fitr, since Eid-ul-Zoha or Baqr-Eid falls on the 10th day of its calendar month (Zilhij), and so, we know the date of that festival at least 10 days in advance.
Some people get vexed at the difference in dates in different regions and believe that there should be a common date of Eid across the world. It is true that this does create a logistical problem, since things like bank holidays have to be fixed in advance and cannot wait till the previous night. Often, banks in India are closed for business on the day fixed in advance and end up working on the actual day of Eid.
But the way I look at it, this adds an element of local tradition to a global religion. In a country where “thinking globally and acting locally” has now come to be acknowledged as a stroke of genius, we must appreciate that here, too, Islam was ahead of its time.
(Nizam Pasha is a Delhi-based lawyer. He can be reached via Twitter @MNizamPasha. A version of this article was previously published on his website occupyjannat.com. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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