see it, then break your fast.”
Once the sighting is confirmed, that day is treated as the Muslims’ festival, so fasting on it becomes forbidden; to fast then would be to depart from the practice of the Muslim community. Al-Dāraqutnī (2/224) reports from Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Your Fast-Breaking Day is the day the people break their fast, and your Sacrifice Day is the day the people offer their sacrifice.”
Shaykh al-Islām remarked, “The word hilāl (crescent) refers to what people can actually see and use in their dealings. Therefore, the Fast-Breaking Festival is the day the people break their fast, and the Festival of Sacrifice is the day the people slaughter.”
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The well-known position in the schools of the two Imāms, Abū Ḥanīfah and Aḥmad, is that if the crescent is sighted in any land, fasting becomes obligatory for everyone, even when their horizons differ.
Imām al-Shāfiʿī, however, held that the variation of horizons must be taken into account.
Shaykh al-Islām said, “The horizons definitely differ, as all those knowledgeable in the field agree. Where they coincide, fasting is obligatory; where they do not, it is not.” This is also one opinion within the Hanbalī school, and many careful scholars have adopted it.
Astronomers estimate the distance that marks a separate horizon at about 2,226 kilometres.
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Shaykh al-Islām further stated, “It is impermissible to rely on astronomical calculations. Whoever bases himself on them not only contradicts the Sacred Law and innovates in the religion, but is also mistaken in reason and mathematics, for astronomers themselves say that visibility cannot be fixed by calculation: it varies with elevation, depression, and other factors.”