Even within Pakistan we have different moon sightings in different areas or even  different moon sightings in one area. For example the Imams in Peshawar are consistently different  :-)

Ashar

On 16 May 2012 16:57, David Patte <dpatte@relativedata.com> wrote:
Different countries calculate a 'secular' start of Islamic month differently than others. I am aware for example that the astronomical rules used to calculate this 'secular' stat of month are different in Egypt, than in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. But the Imams have the right to declare the religious start of month whenever they deem fit, which in the case of some countries could be before the their 'secular' calculation.


On 2012-05-16 6:29, Ian Abbott wrote:
On 2012-05-16 10:28, Tim Thornton wrote:
Regarding calculating Ramadan:
The Islamic calendar is lunar, not solar, and is about 11 or 12 days shorter
than the "normal" Gregorian calendar.
Months (including Ramadan) start when the first crescent of a new moon is
sighted. This varies according to the atmospheric conditions and the exact
positions of earth, sun and moon, but can be calculated to within about a
day for any given location, which is good enough for tz data in the absence
of any further specific information for a location.
There is also an ongoing debate in Islam on whether the calculated date is
good enough, or whether they should stick with past practice of having
official observers watching the sky to announce the start of the month.
What cannot be done is to say that it always falls between a given pair of
Gregorian calendar dates, due to its shifting.

Tim

In practice, how much does the observed (as in astronomical) date differ from the calculated date?  Does it ever start _before_ the calculated date?



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