Opinion Lunar worries

If India is talking about the moon,so is Pakistan. A debate over the sighting of the Eid moon — Shawwal as it is called — began on Sunday essentially over who sighted the ‘correct’ moon? Pakistan has a body called the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee for this purpose. Daily Times reported the altercation on September 21: “Ruet-e-Hilal Committee Chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman has lashed out against the NWFP government which organised Eid prayers on Sunday,for ‘committing a sin’ by going against the writ of the state and “dividing the Ummah’. NWFP minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour was quick to retort: ‘Eid celebrations on Sunday were based on a unanimous decision by a local moon-sighting committee endorsed by the provincial administration’ and called for the reorganisation of the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. Another minister remarked: ‘some people had made moon sighting a matter of prestige.’ He called for the mechanism to be linked to the Saudi system to avoid controversy.” Dawn,on September 21 reported the Mufti as saying: “moon sighting was the responsibility of religious leaders and not the ANP leadership. Eid is not a festival but a religious ritual which should be observed in accordance with Shariat,not on some people’s will.” Replying to compliance with Saudi Arabia,he said: “Saudi Arabia has a different system of government where no one challenges official decisions,even regarding moon sighting… Those who are not celebrating Eid on Sunday are politicking.” Another report in The News added a twist to the debate: “Mufti Munib has said a secular political party (ANP) was not authorised to issue decrees on Islam and Kufr.” The September 21 editorial in Daily Times assessed the quarrel and also had a word of advice to the clerics: “There is a political odour to this. Despite NWFP’s decision to unite the Pashtuns under one Eid separate from the rest of Pakistan,it ended up dividing the community. The people of FATA,not a part of NWFP,claimed sightings and celebrated on Sunday,but Malakand Division,the tribal area comprising one-fourth of NWFP,maintained its tradition of going with the committee under Mufti Munib. Muslims are more literalist today than in the past. Their reluctance to rely on science has split them globally and,in Pakistan’s case,at the national level. Muslim scientists say they can give a mathematically perfect date of the appearance of the Shawwal moon many years in advance. But no one listens to them. Saudi Arabia might have accepted the scientific view on the quiet,resulting in the strange phenomenon of Pakistan fasting on the day when the entire Arab world and the Muslims of Europe and America were celebrating Eid. As time passes,the first-day crescent may not be visible at all because of pollution… We may actually be left quarrelling with each other over something that we can longer see,and not because it is not there.”

Back to front

Pakistan has a new foot soldier to thaw Indo-Pak ties,it appears. Daily Times quoted foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on September 21: “Pakistan might appoint former foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan to handle the informal dialogue known as back-channel diplomacy.” Dawn added: “It could be useful and Pakistan is open to that… the two countries also need to create an environment of trust. That can only be done if the front and the back channels move in tandem.”

Agent provocateur

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Dr A.Q. Khan knows how to hog the limelight. Cyril Almeida deconstructed his modus operandi in Dawn on September 25: “Love him or hate him,the problem with Khan is he is a loose cannon and seems bent on trying to settle scores with Musharraf personally or the nuclear establishment generally through the media.” Ejaz Haider wrote on September 25 in Daily Times: “Dr A.Q. Khan keeps popping up like an embarrassing high school sex tape… In the nuclear club no state is a virgin. And if everyone has slept with someone else,there is no need to single out Pakistan.”