Clarifications On The Lehigh Valley Moonsighting Agreement

After consulting with my, fellow imams in the

valley and also after a a pattern of

several questions,

I wanted to sort of clear the,

the air

regarding some of the,

questions that have been presented

regarding the beginning of Ramadan and our approach

to moon sighting here in the Lehi Valley

because,

of course, it will

arise again when does the last day start

and arise again on Eid Day. So I

want to try my best inshaAllah, 'azza wa

jal, to dispel any uncertainties you have that

could discomfort you because that's important to me.

And also to,

detract, that could potentially detract from any of

the sweetness you're enjoying in this month due

to that uncertainty.

So a little bit of a background.

Any city in the United States

that has

noteworthy Muslim presence,

the month of Ramadan is beginning and there

is a whole spectrum of disagreement that is

spawned. Right?

You have

some masajid

sort of following a global moon sighting approach.

That's their approach.

However, of course, it gets complicated when they

start getting into the details of is that

a verified report or not. So even they

are not one group.

Then there is a second group of people

that follows a local moon sighting approach

And that also is complicated by what is

the cutoff for local,

and was this a verified sighting or not.

And then there is a third group of

people that follow a calculations approach.

We're going to calculate based on feasibility and

visibility and all of this,

and they'll predetermine the beginning of the month.

By the way, all three of these approaches

have scholarly precedent

meaning they are valid approaches full stop.

Okay? But it doesn't end there. I want

to add to you a few more layers.

Then there are the masajid

that will follow the approach of

the country of the majority of my constituents.

So I'm the Egyptian Masjid, whatever the Egyptian

wazara,

Ministry of Endowments or Islamic Affairs says, we're

doing that here in

Brooklyn, York. Right? And we are a Turkish

masjid, so whatever the Diyanet of Turkey Turkiya

says, we're going to sort of make that

operative for us. And then there is another

class of people that says whatever Saudi Arabia

says because they are under the understanding that

they represent every Muslim considering they house the

sacred sites or 2 of the 3 sacred

sites.

At the end of the day, the net

sum of this is what?

That you have Masjid

within the same city,

rather within the same mile,

rather Not an exaggeration,

within the same block

that are starting and ending Ramadan on different

days.

And of course, this means and I know

examples of this

that people within the same household

are celebrating

Ramadan and Eid on different days.

Because some of them want to go pray

behind this imam or prefer that masjid, others

want to go pray behind that imam and

that masjid.

So,

what do you do with this?

So the

religious leadership and also the management

of the Lehigh Valley said, What can we

do to make this better?

Because the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,

Your fasting is the day that you're all

fasting.

And you're firtu the day you break your

fast, the day everyone's breaking their fast.

And your abha, your day of sacrifice is

the day that

you're making the sacrifice, the people are making

the sacrifice. This religion is not sort of

individualized

in that extreme notion of the word, right?

To the extent by the way that our

scholars would say, pay attention here, that if

you started Ramadan

a day late compared to another country a

day late. I don't mean actually sort of

unacceptably late. And then you travel to a

country that started

a day earlier than you, like you're gonna

make umrah in Ramadan.

And then their Ramadan ends due to their

sighting a day earlier,

which means for them it was 29 days,

but for you it's 28 days and that's

unacceptable

because the month is either 29 or 30,

that's a verbatim hadith of the prophet shalallahu

alaihi wa sallam. What do you do? The

scholars for a 1000 years they've said, You

break your fast with everyone breaking their fast

because your fitr is the day that everybody

does fitr.

And you make up a day because the

minimum is 29. You're not sort of wrong,

or sort of penalized or anything but you

owe a day but you are not allowed

to fast that day

on the day of fitr when everyone around

you is celebrating fitr. So the imams of

the valley got together and said, What can

we do? The first thing we're able to

do is to tell everyone,

your fasting is the day you fast.

Meaning your masjid.

Respect your masajid and the opinion they followed

so long as a valid opinion.

If you're truly not convinced of the opinion

being stronger or sometimes the opinion being valid

depending on what we're talking about here, then

at least don't

crack the community.

Hide it.

Right? Fast on your own or break your

fast on like that.

The least we can do is to tell

the communities respect your your masjid,

and follow at least outwardly the position of

your masjid. But then we said, But we

can really do better. Can we spare our

community of even the conversation of how come

the masjid down the block is doing it

differently?

Can we spare

our households the conversation of did it actually

start here or not? I'm really fasting from

the 1st day, this is really the 27th

night. Can we spare the so that we

can focus on the ibadah of this month

and be even closer in our application of

the Prophet's word sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, your

fast and the day you all fast. So

we said, You know what? Listen,

Everywhere in the Muslim world,

because technology would not allow communication instantly like

today, or even today because we're subdivided into

nation states, they have their own sort of

umbrella, top down that says for our country

it's happening this way. So we said, can

we at least do for our valley?

And so instead of saying

follow your masjid, what if we got all

of the masajid

to do it at the same time?

And there's scholarly sort of precedent in the

local moon, so I think valid view. We

already said this, the Shafi'i position, traceable to

the cousin of the prophet salallahu alaihi wa

sallam. This was the understanding of

ibn Abbas Already valid, right? But what was

the idea? The idea is can we get

them all at least here,

and who knows? Maybe Allah will bless and

the circle will get wider and wider and

wider. Maybe all of the Muslims in the

United States, not on the same block anymore.

And this has, by the way, become a

national conversation,

not inspired solely through us. I want to

make that disclaimer. But there is conversation about

this taking place soon, make du'a,

right. But at the very least know that

Allah has favored

us with having this. And when we made

this agreement

We were fully cognizant, we were fully aware

that it may not align with everyone all

the time. It's a different approach, so it's

gonna have different outcomes. It's gonna have one

day off sometimes, right?

For some, by the way not everyone started

on Monday. There were countries who started on

Tuesday. Yes?

But this was the 1st year that it

didn't align with the sort of universal global

sighting and so it made some people uneasy.

I hope you're not uneasy anymore. I hope

this is clear. We have now, alhamdulillah, some

harmony across masajid which means across our homes

that go to different masajid and

across other factors and fronts as well because

how else do you approach the school board?

How else do you get official holidays? How

else do you get sort of days off

and otherwise for the Muslims without bringing them

all together? How do we

sort of book joint Eid events? How do

we mobilize our resources so we can see

and feel our numbers and our unity?

That was the second point regarding the approach.

They are all valid approaches, the local and

the global and the calculations,

which means the scholars who differed

did not differ on these all being valid.

They differ on which one in their interpretation

was stronger, which means it is

unacceptable

for anyone

to hold a suspicion

or a criticism against someone else's religious commitment

when they're following any of these views. We

were just trying to level up to something

even better insha Allahu ta'ala. Is this part

clear? Great.

Lastly,

I just want to say that

Allah azza wa Jal is certainly capable of

giving you the reward for Laylatul Qadr, no

matter what night,

it's actually on in your head, right? Don't

let that detract from any of your drive,

your momentum, your inspiration.

Number 2, the ummah has always

been subjected to sort of this

in their in their days of greatest strength

and unity, they were not having all Ramadan

and Eid on the same day. So it

doesn't necessitate this unity.

Alright?

And the last thing is,

if I haven't answered any major questions for

anyone, please approach me. I'm at your service.

You will not offend me. And, you know,

like one of the brothers said to me

last year in in our in our group,

Umrah, that, you know, I've always appreciated sort

of your talks and, you know,

but I never thought you were approachable. And

he's known me for, like, 5 years. I

was just like, what in the world? Like,

how?

Like, I'm glad we traveled now and you

saw that, but, like, is my beard too

big? Do I need a gold tooth? Like,

what do I need to do to break

the ice?

So please approach me, I'm at your service,

there's nothing you're going to say inshallah, ta'ala

that will offend me, and I wanna make

sure you maximize your Ramadan experience for you

and your family. We try to do that

as a valley

to harmonize,

and alhamdulillah, the majority became pretty much the

entirety, and it's even growing beyond the valley

now. And I wanna make sure if you

That's your right upon us.

That's your right upon us.