the Prophet ﷺ forbade fasting; hence, fasting it is disliked. If, however, on that night clouds, dust, smoke, or anything similar block the horizon from which the crescent rises, then fasting becomes obligatory as a precaution based on probable judgment.

Our scholars state that this was the view of ʿUmar, his son ʿAbd Allāh, ʿĀʾishah and Asmāʾ—daughters of Abū Bakr—as well as Anas, Abū Hurayrah, Muʿāwiyah, and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ. Among the Followers it was held by Maymūn ibn Mihrān, Ṭāwūs, and Mujāhid.

They adduced as evidence the report transmitted by Abū Dāwūd (2320) from Ibn ʿUmar in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “The month is twenty-nine days. Do not begin fasting until you have sighted the crescent, and do not end the fast until you have sighted it; but if it is obscured, then reckon for it (faqdurū lah).” The expression “faqdurū lah” means “constrict the count,” as in Allah’s words, “and whose provision is restricted (qudira ʿalayhi rizquhu)” (al-Ṭalāq 65:7), meaning restricted.

Al-Insāf states: “This is the established position of the school; its adherents upheld it, authored dedicated works on it, refuted the arguments of the opponents, and said that Aḥmad’s explicit statements support it. It is one of the opinions peculiar to the Ḥanbalī madhhab.”

The three imams and the majority of scholars, however, maintain that a day on which nothing prevents sighting the crescent is not called a ‘day of doubt.’ Rather, the day of doubt is the thirtieth of Shaʿbān when clouds, fog, haze, smoke, or the like prevent sighting; this is the day of doubt whose fasting is forbidden in the ḥadith of ʿAmmār and others.

Al-Tirmidhī said, “This is the practice of the people of knowledge from the Companions and the Followers,” and the same was affirmed by Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak, and Isḥāq.

Al-Mughnī notes that the prohibition of fasting that day—and that such a fast is not valid if it later transpires to have been Ramadan—is one narration from Imām Aḥmad and the view of most scholars, including Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and their followers.

Shaykh al-Islām said: “If an obstruction prevents sighting the crescent on the night of the thirtieth, then that day is …”