PHC moved against proposed Hijri calendar

PESHAWAR: A petition was moved in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday seeking restraining order to stop forthwith the federal minister for Science and Technology from publishing the Hijri Calendar on the state or private media.

A citizen Shahid Orakzai filed the writ petition in the high court. He made Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Hussain Chaudhry and federal government through Ministry of Religious Affairs, Hajj and Auqaf as parties to the petition. The petitioner stated that before the end of the Ramazan the respondent minister issued a lunar calendar for the next five years of the Islamic Hijra Calendar and thereunder declared June 5 as Eidul Fitr, first of Shawal. Under the same calendar, he said, he declared the August 12 next as the Eidul Azha. It said that Eidul Azha is celebrated on the 10th day of the month of Zilhajj, which is observed just after the Hajj congregation at Arafat.

It said that the month of Zilhajj is the only lunar month, which is to start strictly on the basis of the sighting of Hilal (crescent) and is not to be pre-determined or forecast by any other method. “The respondent minister is simply unaware of the universality of the event called the Hajj. And without any Quranic knowledge he has prefixed the days of Hajj for the next five Hijra years,” the petitioner stated. It was further stated that the respondent minister had taken the oath that he shall strive to preserve the Islamic Ideology which is the basis for the creation of Pakistan and he did not make any oath whatsoever about Science and Technology. The petitioner requested the court to declare that the new calendar contravenes the Quranic commandments about Hajj and shall not be publicised in Pakistan. He prayed before the high court to instruct the federal government that no authority or organization in Pakistan shall make any public declaration about the days of Hajj and the petition be accepted with cost on the federal minister.