Ministry of Science prepares five years lunar calendar, when will be Eid this year?

The Scientific committee formed by the Ministry for Science and Technology has announced that they have prepared the lunar calendar for the next five years. The committee was formed by the Sci-Tech minister Fawad Ch, to finalize a lunar calendar by the 15th of Ramadan, containing exact dates of the important events in Pakistan, to end the moon-sighting controversy.

Fawad Ch has also invited the Council of Islamic Ideological (CII) to give their recommendations and asked them to help in publishing the calendar in Ramadan. He contacted the officials of CII and informed them about the preparation of the lunar calendar. The minister has also said that according to the lunar calendar prepared by the committee, Eid-ul-Fitr is expected to fall on June 5, as reported by Dawn.

The minister also made a Tweet in which he invited both Mufti Muhammad Muneeb-ur-Rehman and Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai to see ‘how moon cycle works’ and experience how easy science has made moon-sighting and to calculate the starting of Ramadan.

The lunar calendar will be presented before the cabinet after approval from the Islamic council. The minister said, “Before issuing the lunar calendar, religious scholars will be consulted and taken into confidence. After taking opinion from the IIC, the calendar will be sent to the federal cabinet for approval.”

Earlier this month at the beginning of Ramadan, Fawad proposed that science and technology should be used to sight moon in the country, and said that spending 3-4 million on moon-sighting is not wise. He added that by creating a lunar calendar for 10 years, the controversies that arise every year during religious events will be averted.

The minister later formed a five member committee and tasked them to finalize a calendar which will contain all the dates of Islamic events in Pakistan including Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Azha and Muharram. The Ruet-e-Hilal committee on the other hand strongly opposed the minister’s statement and said that Fawad should not interfere in matters he doesn’t understand.