The Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee announced on Wednesday that the Ramazan moon had been sighted. The holy month of Ramadan would begin in Pakistan on Thursday, March 23.
The news came out after representatives from both the central and zonal Ruet-e-Hilal committees met in Peshawar to look for the crescent of the Islamic month.
Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad was in charge of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal meeting in Peshawar’s Auqaf Hall. This was also where the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) zonal moon-sighting committee met.
At the same time, there were also meetings of zonal committees in Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, and Quetta.
The meeting in Peshawar was also attended by representatives from the departments of astronomy, meteorology, science, and technology.
Maulana Azad, who made the announcement, said that the committee had received numerous reports of moon sightings from all over the country. This including from the districts of Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, and Swabi.
In India and Bangladesh, where the first day of Ramadan falls on Friday, no one has seen the moon yet.
The ‘birth’ of the Ramazan moon will occur on the evening of March 21 at 11:13 p.m., according to Professor Dr. Shahid Qureshi, a well-known astronomical scientist. The former chairman of the Department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science at the University of Karachi. Who had previously told Express News that the moon would be sighted on the evening of March 22, when the sunset in Karachi would be at 6:43 p.m.
In the meantime, the crescent moon will be visible for 47 minutes before it disappears below the horizon at 7:30 p.m., he added.
Keep in mind that the moon is only 382,000 kilometers from Earth at sunset. The age of the crescent will be 19 hours and 30 minutes, the crescent will be 10 degrees above the horizon, and about 0.9% of the moon will be illuminated.
Based on this information, Dr. Qureshi says the crescent will be visible in the evening of March 22 from the southern regions of the country, including Karachi and Gwadar, through binoculars but will be difficult to see with the naked eye.
He also said that the Eid moon would be impossible to see on the evening of the 29th of Ramazan if the first fast were to be observed on March 23. However, if the first fast were to be observed on March 24, the Eid moon would be very visible on the evening of the 29th of Ramazan.