Predict or not to predict: Experts rebuff chief of moon-sighting panel

Eidul Azha to be celebrated on September 13

ISLAMABAD: The Ruet-e-Hilal committee announced on Friday that the Zilhaj moon was not sighted in the country and Eidul Azha will be celebrated on September 13 as environmental experts took exception to Mufti Muneebur Rehman’s remarks asking the Met Department to avoid making any kind of predictions before the moon sighting being finalised by the committee.

In a statement on Friday, chairman of the committee Mufti Muneeb said the committee did not receive any testimony relating to the moon sighting.

However, the meteorological office had said that there were ample chances of the moon being sighted as the weather had remained clear.

The experts expressed concern over the ministry’s attitude and stated that predicting the sighting of the moon was based entirely on scientific calculations. They added that it was the Met office’s right to inform the public when to expect Eid well before time.

Chairman of the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee (RHC) Mufti Muneebur Rehman, in a letter, to the Ministry of Religious Affairs on August 31, had urged it to restrain the Met office from making predictions about moon sighting to avert confusion.

Disapproving the committee’s remarks, former director general Pakistan meteorological department Dr Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry said that it was the responsibility of the Met office to predict the moon sighting through scientific calculations while the Ministry of Religious Affairs was responsible for officially announcing it.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2016.