A flood of emails poured into our inboxes today regarding the love/hate question “When is ‘Eid?” Well, to add our input on the moonfighting issue, here is a wonderful resource to see the Next New Moon. CrescentWatch.org was initiated by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf to encourage Muslim communities to engage in the blessed Sunnah act of moonsighting. On the Next New Moon page, you will see 3 graphs for October 11, 12 and 13. Here is a summary of the graphs presented:

• Thursday, Oct. 11 = impossible to sight new moon (’Eid on Friday? Umm…)
• Friday, Oct. 12 = ‘maybe’ able to sight the new moon
• Saturday, Oct. 13 = definitely able to sight the new moon, if not sighted on Friday.

To read more about sighting the new moon, take a look at Shaykh Hamza’s moon article: Caesarean Moon Births part 1 [PDF] and Caesarean Moon Births part 2 [PDF] from Sidi Mas’ud Khan’s site. That article has been released by Zaytuna Institute as a full book publication, found here:

With ‘Eid il Fitr, approaching we would like to remind everyone (actually a reminder for ourselves) that fasting 6 days in Shawwal is highly recommended. Another reminder is that it is usually ‘easier’ to continue the additional fasting immediately or soon after ‘Eid. To read more about the 6 days of fasting, click here: Reward of fasting six days in Shawwal (Shafi’i fiqh) and here: Fasting Six Days of Shawwal after Ramadan: ‘Like Fasting the Entire Year’ (Hanafi fiqh)

Lastly, its time for the first ever official ‘Eid Crunch from all of us:

Please keep the IslamCrunch staff in your prayers during these last hours of Ramadan.