Month: November 2017

Scottish Hilal Forum agreed that the Shara’i new month is ascertained if the following conditions are satisfied:

1. The conjunction must have actually occurred.
2. The moonset follows sunset.
3. The visibility falls either in Category A or B or C for either Makkah, or any city in the UK or any city in North, North West, West, South and South West African countries. Imam Abu Hanifah (RA) held the opinion of ittihad-ul-mataley’ – إتّحادالمطالع (unity of horizon) – i.e. global sighting is valid.
4. The city that is chosen in the regions/ counties mentioned above in the point iii for the start of Hijri month must be same for the end of Hijri month.

Now we can safely determine the 20^th of November 2017, Monday as the 1st of Rabi’ ul Awwal ه1439 insha Allah. According to Her Majesty’s Nautical Almanac Office (HMNAO), the visibility falls in the following categories on 19^th of November 2017: (please refer to the attached sheets for details):

City	Visibility	Lag time (minutes)
Makkah	A	56
Rabat	A	63
Cape Town – South Africa	B	51
Dakar – Senegal	A	63
Accra – Ghana	A	60
Freetown – Sierra Leone	A	62
London	B	66
Glasgow	C	67

Note: Although the moon is born on 18^th November but its visibility for all the above cities and any other cities in Europe, Africa and Middle East falls in category F; hence 19^th November cannot be the 1^st of Rabi’ ul Awwal 1439ه.