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Eid: How Can We All Have it On The Same Day
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
(1983)
Eid days are meant to be occasions
when the Muslims of an entire town join together in prayer and in
thanking Allah for His blessings, in rejoicing at the great
religious traditions of Islam and in forgiving one another for any
personal excesses we may have committed towards one another.
But, alas, over the past many years these
occasions have been marred by differences among our organizations
over when should Eids be celebrated.
Many brothers and sisters in many
communities have become greatly disturbed at these differences and
quite rightly so; for, if we cannot join together twice a year in
celebrating our holy days, there can be hardly anything which we can
do together.
Some of the brothers and sisters have
become weary of the differences about Eid days and abandoned all
hope that they may ever be resolved. But we must never abandon hope,
for the Holy Qur`an says that only those abandon hope who have gone
astray. (15:56)
With faith in God's power, hope in His
mercy and right course of action we can Inshah Allah solve all our
problems, including the problem of Eid days.
The right course
of action needed to solve the problem of Eid days has the following
four steps. If we take these steps we
will Inshah Allah be able to celebrate each Eid on the same day.
1) We should
develop the will to solve the problem
God sometimes grants us with favors
without our trying or asking for them, but as a rule He requires
that communities and nations should strive for what they are
granted. The Qur`an says:
"(Generally) there is for man
only what he strives for."
So the first step toward
solving the problem of Eid days is that we should have the will to
solve it.
Now an overwhelming majority of our
community members do desire to have Eid on the same day. But
they are naturally dependent in this regard on the decisions taken
by the officials of various organizations in the community.
Consequently, we should expect that it is these officials who have
to show a will to solve the problem under consideration. However, it
seems that the will of these "officials" is hampered by at least two
factors:
a) Mutual
jealousy: The Holy Qur`an says that people
have often differed among each other because of mutual jealousy,
baghyam baynahum. It seems that at least part of the reason that
our organizations and mosque committees fail to agree about Eid days
is this baghyam baynahum.
b) Influence of
foreign funds: Some of the organizations
in our midst are almost totally dependent on funds from outside
sources such as the Saudi government. This makes them keener to heed
to the wishes of their funds than to the needs and wishes of the
community they are supposed to serve. And,
unfortunately, the wishes of most
outside sources of big money are to divide and control the Muslims
and not to unite them.
What our community needs to do is to try
to remove the above two factors, so that officials of our
organizations and members of our mosque committees will
develop a will to solve the problem of Eid days and other problems
facing our community. The best way to achieve this is to make sure
that:
2) Our affairs
are entrusted to persons elected by the entire community
At present the affairs of our community
(managing our mosques, deciding about Eid days, etc.) are conducted
by persons who are either self-appointed or friends-appointed.
Hadith teaches us that in this situation, divine help does not come
to the help of the community. In a tradition agreed upon by both
Bukhari and Muslim the Prophet is reported to have said:
"Do not seek any
position, for if it is given to you for the asking, you will be left
to your own resources, while, if it is given to you without asking,
you will be aided (by God) therein."
Thus self-appointed, or what is almost
the same thing, friends-appointed, public officials do not get God's
help and consequently if in a community like ours decisions are made
by such officials then it will not be aided by Allah in its affairs.
And can a community get anywhere without Allah's help?
So an important step
towards the solution of our various problems is that our affairs be
managed by persons elected by the entire community or appointed by
such elected persons.
3) Examination
of the religious questions concerning Eid days
Once we have entrusted our affairs to
elected persons, we must find answers to some religious questions
concerning the Eid days. This will not be hard, since for people
willing to live by the divine guidance, Allah and His messenger have
for every question either given an answer or shown the way how to
arrive at that answer ourselves.
Since many brothers and sisters are not
clear about the religious questions underlying the problem of Eid
days, let me briefly outline here these questions. In this outline I
restrict myself to Eid al-Fitr. The questions about Eid
al-Adha are similar.
The Holy Qur`an enjoins upon us fasting
during the month of Ramadan (2:185). This month, like all others
mentioned in the Holy Qur`an, existed in pre-Islamic times in the
Arabic system of reckoning dates. In that system, a month started
and ended with the successive appearances of the crescent and it is
clear that the Holy Qur`an is using the same system (since it does
not give any new definition of Ramadan). Hadith makes the point more
explicit and gives some additional guidance on the matter. The
contents of those Ahadith on which there has been a universal
agreement among Muslims of all ages and places may be summarized as
follows:
"Start fasting when you see the crescent
for the month of Ramadan and end it when you see the next crescent.
If because of clouds you cannot see any of the crescents, complete
30 days for that month (Sha'ban or Ramadan, as the case may be).
Everyone does not have to personally see the crescents. The fasting
may be started or ended on the testimony of any number of
reliable witnesses who have seen the crescent.
There are also other traditions bearing
on the question but their authenticity or authoritativeness is not
universally accepted by Muslims or they are understood differently
by different sections of the Ummah.
The guidance outlined above on the basis
of the Holy Qur`an and Hadith was quite sufficient in the days of
the Prophet, since in those days almost all Muslims lived in Arabia
where the sky was almost always clear. Crescent, if it appeared in
one place in the land, was also visible in other places. The
character of the Muslims was generally very high, so that no one
will untruthfully say for personal or political reasons that he had
seen the crescent without having actually seen it. Everything went
smoothly as far as the start or end of the holy months was
concerned.
However, when the Muslim world expanded
over vast areas of the globe and more recently with the development
of science, a development that in large measure started under the
influence of Islam and Muslims, some new questions about lunar
months arose. For example: How far from one's place must the
crescent be visible before we can start or end fasting? Can we start
or end the fast in Morocco, for example, if the crescent has been
sighted in China? Can we see the crescent with the help of some
visual aid such as a telescope or must we use the naked eye? Is
"seeing" significant in itself or is its purpose to provide a sure
standard for starting or ending a month? If "seeing" is merely a way
of defining a lunar month, then can we use some other predictable
way based on mathematical calculations?
God did, of course, know that one day
the Muslim world would expand to vast areas of the world and indeed
it is His will that one day Islam should prevail over the whole
world. (9:33) He also knew that one day man would make great
scientific and technological advances and indeed it is His will that
man should ponder over the world around him and control the forces
of nature for his benefit. (2:164, 3:190-191, etc.) So if He had
willed He would have answered all these questions for us. But life
is a complex phenomenon. No matter how many questions are answered
there still arise some new ones to be answered. It would have been
confusing for the people if God would have answered questions before
they arose. Moreover, to contain answers to all these questions we
would need books after books which no one could master. So, for
these reasons God and His messenger gave us a few manageable volumes
of guidance containing basic principles and some specific
injunctions, too. Along with these He ingrained within us a
permanent source of guidance: our intelligence
and other faculties of discernment. After learning what God
and His messenger have given us we should make use of these
faculties to answer any new questions that arise in our individual
or collective lives. This is, in fact, how everything else works in
life. Teachers, for example, guide the students up to a suitable
point and then leave them to do their own research into new
questions. Directors of companies and presidents of countries give
general guidelines to their subordinates and then leave them to work
out the details. Likewise God and His messenger have given us some
basic guidance and then left us to find our own answers to new
questions that we may face from time to time.
In regard to questions concerning the
Eid days this is exactly what some of our scholars have been doing.
On the basis of their ijtihad (mental exertion) they have
offered their different answers to these questions and discussed and
debated them among themselves.
However, our scholars have not
done one needful thing and that is to reach a conclusion on the
basis of their ijtihad, discussions and debates. Yet,
Hadith does teach us the way for this
discussion and debate to end in a decision instead of going on and
on endlessly.
4) Reaching a
decision
This way to reach
a decision in matters not clearly settled by God and His messenger
is the principle of majority. In one Hadith,
the Prophet (may God bless him evermore) is reported to have said:
"Follow the largest group" (Ibn
Majah, on the authority of 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar)
and
"It is your duty to be with the
community and the majority"
(Ahmad ibn Hambal, on the authority of Mu'ad ibn Jabal)
Thus on questions relating to Eid days
we should first determine the views held by a majority of
(knowledgeable) persons in the community and then all of us should
follow those views.
It should be at
once emphasized here that this principle of majority is valid only
in matters where the Holy Qur`an and authentic Traditions of the
Prophet do not give clear guidance. In matters
which have been settled by God Most High and His messenger or which
are questions of haq (truth) and batil (false), good
and evil a Muslim need not follow the majority; indeed, in such
matters he should take a stand even if he is a minority of one, as
is illustrated by the conduct of Hadrat Abu Bakr when some new
converts to Islam refused to pay zakat despite clear
commandments of God in the Holy Qur`an.
The questions raised above regarding Eid
days, however, are admittedly among those that have not been clearly
decided by God and His messenger. They are also not questions of
good and evil, haq and batil. They are like the
question of qibla about which the Qur`an says that having
this or that qibla is not what determines good or evil.(1) Consequently,
questions concerning Eid days should be decided by the majority
principle.
We can apply this principle locally as
follows: When a city-wide council or majlis ash-shura (board
of directors) has been elected to run our affairs it should bring
together knowledgeable persons in the community, belonging to
various religious groups and schools of fiqh (Islamic Law and
Jurisprudence), to discuss the question of Eid days and whatever the
majority of these persons decides should be accepted by the entire
community.
The decision reached in this way for the
problem of Eid days will Inshah Allah be acceptable in the
sight of Allah. For, after all it is He Himself who has left various
questions about Eid days for the Ummah to decide and it is His
messenger who has instructed us to follow the largest group in such
matters.
To summarize: although God and His
messenger have not given us answers to all the questions about the
determination of Eid days, they have given us clear guidance as to
how we can arrive at those answers. Let us therefore follow that
guidance and not dispute in the matter, lest we become like the
people of the book about whom God says:
"They did not fall into
schisms until after clear guidance had come to them." (98:4)
The Holy Qur`an warns us:
"Be not like those who get
divided and fall into disputations after receiving clear
guidance; for them is a dreadful penalty." (3:105)
So let us follow the straight and clear
way of deciding the question of Eid days suggested above, on the
basis of Hadith, and in this way ensure what Eid days will be
celebrated by the entire Muslim community on the same day.
Note
(1)In
Surah al-Baqarah God says:
"It is not goodness that you
turn your faces towards east or west, but goodness is to believe
in God and the last day, the angels, the Book and the
messengers; to spend your money, out of love for Him, for your
kin, for the orphans and the needy, for the wayfarer and those
who ask and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer
and practice regular charity; to fulfill your promise when you
make a promise; to be firm and patient in suffering and
adversity and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the
people of truth, the God-fearing." (2:177)
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