Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid on Thursday announced that Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on Saturday as there was no sight of moon anywhere across the country today.
According to Shahi Imam, there was no crescent moon sightings on Saturday and the Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on June 16, a news agency reported.
The Eid ul-Fitr is celebrated after the sighting of the crescent moon which officially ends the month of Ramzan.
12 months of Islamic calendar carry either 29 or 30 days. Ramzan also has either 29 or 30 days and Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated on the first day of Shawwal, the 10th month of Islamic calendar.
Ramzan is a holy month for the world’s nearly 1.5 billion Muslims, many of whom practise the ritual of dawn-to-dusk fasting and prayers.
The Ramzan fast, in which even water is prohibited, falls on especially long summer days this year for Muslims in the Northern Hemisphere.
Fasting is intended to bring the faithful closer to God and remind them of those less fortunate.
Tradition holds that it was during Ramadan that the Prophet Mohammed started receiving revelations of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
Ramzan is one of the five “pillars” of Islam.
The others are the profession of faith (“there is no God but God and Mohammed is his messenger”), the obligation to pray five times a day, charity, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
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