and relied on their reports without requiring either of them to use the formal wording of testimony. If these were reports, then he accepted a single person’s report concerning Ramadan; if they were testimonies, then he did not require the witness to use the formal wording of testimony. If there was neither a sighting nor testimony, he completed thirty days of Sha‘bān.

When clouds obscured his view of the crescent on the thirtieth night, he completed Sha‘bān (1) as thirty days and then began fasting. He neither fasted on the day following such an obscured sighting nor commanded others to do so. Rather, he commanded that thirty days of Sha‘bān be completed when the crescent was obscured, and this was also his practice. Such were his practice and his command. This does not contradict his statement, “If it is obscured from you, calculate its count” (2), for calculation here means determining the count, and what is intended is completing it, as he said: “Complete the count” (3). Completing it means completing (4) the count of the month whose crescent was obscured, as he said in the authentic hadith reported by al-Bukhārī (5): “Complete the count of Sha‘bān.” He also said: “Do not begin fasting until you see it, and do not end the fast until you see it. If it is obscured from you, complete the count” (6). Thus, the month he commanded (7) to be completed