Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF

“The Jeddah Astronomy Society’s mistake in sighting of the new moon in Saudi Arabia has angered the many Muslim nations who followed suit and pronounced Tuesday as Eid al-Fitr wrongly.
The society had said that people actually saw the planet Saturn and not the crescent moon that marks the beginning of the Islamic month of Shawwal. Hatem Auda, director of the National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research, had said that astronomical calculations by scientists of the institute noted that the first day of the Eid was Wednesday, August 31, making Tuesday, August 30 the last day of Ramadan for the Hijri year of 1432. Various news agencies such as Al-Arabiya and Aljazeera have also reported that the planet Saturn has been mistaken for the Hilal (crescent moon), and this means that what was announced as the first day of Eid al-Fitr was supposed to be a day of fasting, rather than celebrations…………Thus, those Muslim nations who have followed the Saudi suit as usual and celebrated the last Tuesday as Eid al-Fitr are now angry with the Saudis as Eid al-Fitr is the biggest eve for the worldwide Muslim community………..” Fars News Agency

All this talk of the moon, Saturn, Jovian planets, Terrestrial planets, and the Age of Aquarius is meaningless to most people. I think the Iranians are being silly here, nearly childish. They are politicizing the end of Ramadan and beginning of Eid al-Fitr. I don’t know if the Saudis made a mistake or not, but I can tell an Iranian attempt to score political points. The mullahs ought to lighten up.
Cheers
mhg


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