Putri Prameshwari | August 11, 2010
A Muslim official looking for the waxing crescent moon, which signals the start of Ramadan, at sunset at Ambat Beach on Madura Island in East Java on Tuesday. (Antara Photo/Saiful Bahri Pamekasan) A Muslim official looking for the waxing crescent moon, which signals the start of Ramadan, at sunset at Ambat Beach on Madura Island in East Java on Tuesday. (Antara Photo/Saiful Bahri Pamekasan)
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Indonesia. Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, according to the government and key Islamic organizations, although fasting started earlier for some.
Speaking after a meeting with representatives from the country’s major Muslim groups, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali on Tuesday said sightings of the waxing crescent moon had confirmed Ramadan would start today.
“After considering the sightings from Muslim organizations and officials, we can state that 1 Ramadan 1431H falls on Wednesday, August 11, 2010,” he said. “With this, I wish all Muslims a solemn fasting month.”
But for some groups of Muslims around the country, the government’s announcement came a little late.
Followers of Tarikat Almufridun, a Muslim order in Langkat near Medan, began fasting on Tuesday after they held their first nightly prayer for Ramadan on Monday, according to television news channel Metro TV.
Some 1,000 members of another group, Tarekat Naqsabandiyah in Padang, reportedly started even earlier, beginning their fasting on Monday.
Makmur Syafri, the group’s leader, told TV station RCTI that it had determined the start of Ramadan using its own method, called hisab munjid .
“According to our calculations, Ramadan started on Sunday night,” he said, “so we started fasting on Monday.”
The 300 members of An Nadzir, a small Muslim community that lives on the banks of Lake Mawang in Gowa district, near Makassar in South Sulawesi, also reportedly started fasting on Monday after holding prayers on Sunday night.
Lukman Bakri, the group’s leader, told mediaindonesia.com that it had also determined the start of the holy month from its own observations.
“We watched the movement of the moon during high tide and, based on what we saw, we’re confident that Ramadan started on Monday,” he said.
Rohadi Abdul Fatah, director of Islam and Shariah law at the Religious Affairs Ministry, said astronomical calculations had pointed to the fasting month beginning today.
The start of Ramadan is usually determined by the sighting of the waxing crescent moon, with observations being compiled from nine locations across the country in addition to reports from 29 other regions.
The exact starting date, however, is sometimes the subject of dispute between the country’s two biggest Muslim groups, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, which between them have as many as 70 million members, because of the different methods employed, from astronomical calculations to actual sightings.
Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, is a time for introspection for the world’s more than 1.5 billion Muslims.
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