There seem to be rumors every year that Saudi Arabi has made a mistake in sighting the moon. Normally it is related to Ramadhan and Eid al-Fitr, but some people go to the extreme of saying that even the sighting of the crescent of Dhul-Hijjah is wrongly declared by the Saudi Government thus causing three million people's Hajj to be invalid.

It's not strange to see such comments from people who narrate anything and everything they here. Yet the sad reality is that many of the people that carry on and propagate these rumors are people that know of the Hadeeth of our beloved Prophet, sallallaahu `alaihi wa sallam, in which he said, "It's enough for a man to be considered a liar that he reports all that he hears."

The logic behind being considered a liar based on narrating all you hear is pretty simple. If somebody tells you something, whether it is truth or not, you take it upon yourslef to propagate that news. Let's say the guy that told you that news did the same thing you are about to do: Somebody told him a rumor and he decided that he will tell others. What if the person that started the rumor was joking, or misunderstood something regarding the sighting of the moon or worse of all, what if this person was lying?

HUH!? Lying about such a thing? Why would somebody do that?

I have been seeing a lot of propaganda these days about the Saudi government and its "ultra-conservative" ways and how people go overboard in the month of Ramadhan to be super-religious... Basically, that it's a fake way of life for thirty days.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent, it's just that people don't really like Saudi Arabia. It's against the law to fornicate, to get drunk or get high...
And worse of all for all those losers: The punishments (which are according to the Qur'aan and Sunnah) are pretty tough...

So then we shouldn't be surprised when people go ahead and make up rumors like:
"Saudi Arabia deliberately started Ramadhan early..."
"Saudi Arabia runs on a predetermined calendar..."
"They made an announcement int he Haram that th emoon was sighted incorrectly... My uncle was there I swear!"
"There's too much dust, those Saudis don't know how to sight the moon, the don't even have the new Gigatronicated Celestial Inspector Gadget Telescope!"

For now, I'd just like to say, that the moon was sighted, correctly and accurately. They have very qualified people who have decades of experience in sighting the moon and any rumors that scholars here might have declared the sighting to be inaccruate are just plain rumors.

I'll get into the details of sighting the moon in a later post insha Allaah...