‘Moon-sighting a religious issue, not technological’

Federal Minister for Science & Technology Fawad Chaudhry has been facing backlash from religious groups after he formed a committee of experts to determine the exact dates for key Islamic months and festivals.

Rejecting the announcement of the committee’s forming, religious scholars say that moon-sighting is a religious issue and not a technological one. On Tuesday Chaudhry had announced forming the committee to finalise the calendar to indicate the exact dates of Ramazan, Eidul Fitr, Eidul Azha and Muharram for the next five years, saying that the body was constituted to resolve the moon-sighting “controversy”.

Mufti Muhammad Naeem, principal of the Jamia Binoria Al-Alamia, a key seminary in Karachi, said the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee is a sharia issue, and religious scholars have the authority to look into sharia affairs.

“Chaudhry is completely unaware of religious matters. We totally reject his committee for proposing calendar for key Islamic dates,” he said in a statement. He said the minister should not try to teach Islam and sharia to religious scholars and, instead, focus on his own work.

Dr Muhammad Tariq Masood of the Ministry of Science & Technology has been named the committee’s convener, with Waqar Ahmed of the Comsats University Islamabad, Nadeem Faisal and Abu Nasan of the Meteorology Department, and Ghulam Murtaza of Suparco its members.