because of the suspicion that commonly arises among people with regard to the crescent of breaking the fast, a suspicion that does not arise with the crescent that inaugurates the fast. The position of Abū Bakr Ibn al-Mundhir is the same as that of Abū Thawr—indeed, I believe it is also the stance of the Ḍāhirīs. Abū Bakr Ibn al-Mundhir supported his view by citing the unanimous agreement that both breaking the fast and refraining from food become obligatory on the strength of a single statement; therefore, the same rule must apply to the beginning and end of the month, for each crescent demarcates the time of eating from the time of fasting.
If we then say that a confirmed report establishes the sighting for those who did not themselves witness it, the question arises: does that ruling extend from one region to another? In other words, when the inhabitants of a town have not seen the crescent, are they obliged to act on the sighting of another town, or does every locality follow its own sighting? On this point the scholars differ.
As for Mālik, Ibn al-Qāsim and the Egyptian Mālikīs relate from him that, once it is established in one town that another town has sighted the crescent, the former must make up the day they failed to fast while others did; the same opinion is held by al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad. The Medinan transmitters, however, report from Mālik that the sighting does not bind anyone outside the town in which it occurred—unless the ruler compels the people to follow it. This was likewise the view of Ibn al-Mājishūn and al-Mughīrah among Mālik’s followers. All of them agree that such consideration is unnecessary for far-flung lands such as al-Andalus and the Ḥijāz.
The root of the disagreement lies in the tension between transmitted evidence and rational analysis.
Rationally, when the horizons of different lands do not vary greatly, one should subsume one under the other, for they are effectively a single horizon. If, however, the variation is substantial, one land need not follow another.
As for the transmitted evidence, Muslim relates on the authority of Kurayb that Umm al-Faḍl bint al-Ḥārith sent him to Muʿāwiyah in Syria. He said: “I reached Syria, carried out her errand, and Ramadan began while I was there. I saw the crescent on Friday night. Later I returned to Madinah at the end of the month, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās questioned me. When the crescent was mentioned he asked, ‘When did you see the new moon?’ I replied, ‘We saw it on Friday night.’ He said, ‘You saw it yourself?’ I answered, ‘Yes, and the people saw it too; they fasted, and Muʿāwiyah fasted.’ Ibn ʿAbbās responded, ‘We, however, saw it on Saturday night, and we shall continue fasting until we complete thirty days or see it ourselves.’ I asked, ‘Will you not accept Muʿāwiyah’s sighting?’ He said, ‘No. That is how the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—commanded us.’”
The outward sense of this report indicates that each land has its own sighting, whether near or far. Rational analysis, by contrast, calls for distinguishing between distant lands, especially those separated by great differences in latitude or longitude. Once a report reaches the level of tawātur—widely attested, incontestable transmission—no further testimony is required. These, then, are the issues that relate to the timing of the obligation to fast.