Does Ramadhan 2024 start on Monday or Tuesday?
Sun 10 Mar 2024
Moonsighting activity will take place on Sunday 10 March 2024 (the 29th day of Sha'ban).
The new moon will be born around 10 March 2024 at 09:00 GMT/UT and and "will not be visible by the naked eye anywhere in the UK to Morocco (MA) region on that date." according to moonsighting.org.uk.
The early headlines are "The crescent moon has been sighted in Saudi Arabia." By 6pm the London Central Mosque will make the same announcement. Many other mosques will follow the London Central Mosque blindly.
"Naked-eye sightings as early as 15.5 hours after New Moon have been reliably reported while observers with telescopes have made reliable reports as early as 12.1 hours after New Moon" according to the Astronomical Applications Department of the United States government. That assumes you good conditions.
The Saudi announcements take place around 3pm UK time. At that time the moon crescent is only 6 hours old? The sighting could NOT have been made by the naked eye or telescope. Saudi Arabia has a habit announcing moon sightings when it is NOT humanly possible to do so.
All of Southall has decide to start Ramadhan on Monday 11 March 2024, for the sake of unity and not any moon sighting.
You can follow your leaders and they can take the blame for getting things wrong. There is NOTHING preventing you from making the correct decision when you KNOW that the people making the decisions are NOT reliable.
To say, I knew it was wrong and no one forced me but I still went along with it, is NOT an acceptable excuse for intelligent people.
Most people are aware of the fact that the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. Each month can be 29 or 30 days depending on the visibility of the moon.
This means that start of Ramadhan is decided upon the sighting of the moon and therefore it is not practical to pick a date in advance.
Ramadhan MubarakIf you have a local news story, share it with the rest of Southall, by using the contact form.
