Moon sighting has been quite a controversial topic in Pakistan. Since the entire Islamic calendar relies on moon sightings to mark the start and end of Islamic months, it is paramount that a centralized authority takes the responsibility of determining whether or not the moon has been sighted for the entire country.
The very idea of two Eids in one country isn’t a new one for Pakistanis.
We’ve all seen this happen before. The majority of the country marks the end of Ramazan, and consequently Eid, under the advisory of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, while a sizable chunk does not follow this. This creates a rift amongst the people of the same country. With one group celebrating Eid on one day and the other group celebrating it the day before, you get this awkward dual celebration of the same thing.
The Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhry, announced the launch of Pakistan’s first official moon sighting website today.
Today ll launch Pakistan first official MoonSighting website and Hijri Calender
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 26, 2019
Then, he announced that the website had been launched and revealed the URL to everyone.
MoonSighting Pakistan launched….. https://t.co/1HSEzw7cMf
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 26, 2019
Obviously, I checked it out, and hey, the website itself isn’t that bad.
There has always been this stereotype around government websites that they look like something from the 1990s. It is kinda true tbh. But I’ll give credit where it is due, this one isn’t that bad. So the homepage has a carousel displaying the title as well as references from the Quran about the heavenly bodies.
The website offers four main services.
The Monthly Reports section will have moon sighting reports on a monthly basis and they will be accompanied with pictures and videos.
You can also view the Hijri calendar overlayed onto the Gregorian calendar we use globally.
There is also a section which allows you to view important dates like the beginning of Ramazan, Eid, etc.
This last one is, in my opinion, pretty cool. You can check the visibility of the moon for different months depending upon your geographical location.
The Twitter army did react to the news of the launch. Of all the tweets in reply to his, this one absolutely nails it! It’s been half an hour and I’m still laughing.
🌜Well done Sir 🌛 pic.twitter.com/ptaluZYyHJ
— ημ₥₳ĩŘα (@Noxious_Numaira) May 26, 2019
This person had a good suggestion as well.
Well done .. in parallel there should be live feed/ streamingof crescent sighting also to fulfill the religious/ Shariah requirement.. this will allow whole population to see the moon
— Astute (@IRSoothsayer) May 26, 2019
Some people criticized the website for just rebranding something that had already existed.
Except… that a website can’t actually sight the moon. And the Islamic Hijri calendar was actually launched 1400 years ago. But yeah, sure, whatever. https://t.co/V1G0bIckxG
— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) May 26, 2019
Fawad sahib also kept up with the comments on his project’s launch and helped people get a hang of it.
Go on websit click moon click Visibility maps and you ll find areas of moon sighting https://t.co/9fCtj4njDW
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 26, 2019
Some people are still against this because of the fact that it doesn’t involve actually sighting the moon by a human. What do you think about this? What’s your stance? Let me know in the comments below!
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