Muslims Must Agree to Determine Islamic Calendar

By Barrie | September 4th, 2007 | No Comments

Vice President Jusuf Kalla expressed hope here on Tuesday that Moslems would agree on a single criterion to determine an Islamic calendar, specially the date of the Idul Fitri post-fasting celebrations.

“We have to study and agree on one criteria, which would cause us to unite. So long as there are still three criteria, even in a century we will never be united,” he said when opening an international symposium on efforts to unify an international Islamic calendar as the Antara News report explains

He said so far there had often been differences with regard to the day of the Idul Fitri in Indonesia. The differences on Idul Fitri day came to prominence once a year while differences on other holidays were not remarkable, although they existed.

“Differences on the day of Muharam often occurred but were not very remarkable. It was not the case with the Idul Fitri. Differences over the day immediately came to surface,” he said.

He said the issue was actually an international problem and therefore it could not be discussed in only one or two meetings.

He said there were two questions with regard to determining the special day, namely whether it would be determined upon `hilal` (sighting of the moon) or `rukyat` (calculation), or a combination of the two, and its coverage meaning whether it was based upon a state territory or the Moslem population.

He said Indonesia had so far used the state territory to limit the sighting. He said as soon as the moon was sighted in eastern Merauku, for instance, it would immediately be declared effective nationally although Merauke is around an eight-hour flight from here.

“So what happened if it was a Pakistani who first sighted the moon, who are living in a distance about a seven-hour flight from here,” he said.

In view of that he said the most important thing was how to set the criteria.

The symposium was initiated by Muhammadiyah. The general chairman of the second biggest Islamic organization in the country, Din Syamsudin, said the event was held in response to Vice President Jusuf Kalla`s wish for unity in determining the Islamic calendar especially the Idul Fitri.