UAE Sets Up Moon-Sighting Committee as Ramadan Nears End

Abu Dhabi, MINA — Sultan bin Saeed Al Badi Al Dhaheri, the UAE’s Minister of Justice, has issued a decision to set up a moon-sighting committee to detect the beginning of the month of Shawwal, which will mark the end of Ramadan and start of Eid Al-Fitr.

The committee will hold a meeting after Maghrib prayer on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.

The meeting will be under the chairmanship of the Justice Minister along with a number of senior officials, state news agency WAM reported.

The decision also calls on all Sharia courts across the country to look out for the crescent moon and inform the committee of any sightings.

Last week, the International Astronomical Centre (IAC) said that Eid Al Fitr is expected to start on Friday June 15 in most Islamic countries.

The IAC said that on June 14 the moon crescent is likely be seen through a telescope from the east and southeast of Asia and Europe while it will be seen with the naked eye with difficulty from all Arab countries, except in the far west.

It added that the crescent will rise on that day 54 minutes after sunset in Nouakchott, 49 minutes in Rabat, 46 minutes in Mogadishu, Khartoum, Tripoli and Algeria, 45 minutes in Djibouti and Tunisia, 44 minutes in Sanaa, 43 minutes in Cairo, 42 minutes in Riyadh, Amman and Jerusalem, 41 minutes in Beirut, Damascus, Manama and Abu Dhabi, and 40 minutes in Baghdad, Kuwait and Muscat.

Eid Al Fitr is one of two holy feasts in the Muslim world. It translates into ‘the feast of breaking the fast’. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj IslamicNews Agency (MINA)