Eyes on Peshawar as Popalzai to sight moon today; Azad tomorrow

The meeting of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee will be held on Tuesday (tomorrow) while the unofficial Ruet-e-Hilal Committee will meet today (Monday) in Peshawar’s Masjid Qasim Khan to sight the crescent for the holy month of Ramadan, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

New chairman of Ruet-e-Hilal Committee Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad will chair the meeting of the government’s Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. On the other hand, Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai will preside over the unofficial moon sighting Committee in Peshawar.

Both committees will meet separately in Peshawar.

The affairs of the moon sighting have been supervised by Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri.

The TV channel sources claimed the government has prepared a strategy for collecting and declaring the testimony of the moon sighting.

As per the strategy, the central moon-sighting committee took Peshawar’s Mufti Popalzai in confidence and it has been agreed his unofficial moon sighting committee will convey first reports of moon sighting to the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee.

Sources said that Mufti Popalzai will be authorized to convene a moon-sighting committee in his ‘traditional’ way.

But no one including Mufti Popalzai will announce the starting of the holy month of Ramzan except the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee.

Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) Chairman and PM’s special aide on religious harmony and Middle East Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi already said that this year the government would give a gift of one-Eid and the unanimous start of the holy month of Ramazan.

Ashrafi said he had talked to Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry, Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri and other scholars for possible scientific assistance but the decision will be made on the basis of Sharia laws.