and sunrise. The plural of ghudwah is ghudī, just as midyah becomes midī. Al-Miṣbāḥ remarks, “That is its original sense, but common usage expanded until it came to mean setting out or departing at any time.”

• to their prayer-ground, with ḍammah on the mīm: the place where the prayer is held; it functions as an adverb of place.

The Madinan historian al-Samḥūdī says: “The Prophet ﷺ performed the ʿĪd prayer in a number of desert locations, then settled on the muṣallā that is known today, which lies one thousand cubits from Bāb al-Salām.”

Points derived from the ḥadith
1 – The determining factor for establishing the fast, breaking it, performing the pilgrimage, and similar matters is the sighting of the crescent. Legal rulings are not affirmed by astronomical calculation but solely by visual sighting.

2 – Shaykh al-Islām said: “There is no doubt—established by authentic sunnah and the unanimous agreement of the Companions—that it is impermissible to rely on the computation of the stars. Whoever depends on it is, in the Sharīʿah, misguided and an innovator in the religion; he is also mistaken in reason and in the science of calculation. Astronomers themselves know that sighting cannot be fixed by any mathematical rule, for it varies with location, altitude, and other factors. A more detailed discussion will come, God willing, in the chapter on fasting.”

3 – The hadith affirms that the testimony of Bedouins is accepted even in religious matters.

4 – It indicates that a witness is not to be put under hardship or have his faults exposed when giving testimony, unless there is suspicion or doubt; in that case the judge must investigate.

5 – Legal rulings only become binding once they reach the people concerned. Before knowledge of the ruling or report arrives, a person is excused for what he has done or omitted.

6 – One must break the fast as soon as reliable news confirms that the day being fasted is ʿĪd, for fasting on the day of ʿĪd is prohibited and invalid.