COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Islamic theologians declared Sunday dawn as the start of the Ramadhan after failing to see the new moon Friday night.
The sighting of the new moon to determine the culmination of the month of Shaban, and the beginning of Ramadhan in the lunar-based Hijrah calendar, is a centuries-old rite preceding the start of what is for Muslims a "sacred season," where they focus on good deeds and reparations for wrongdoings.
Muslims fast from dawn to dusk during the Ramadhan, which lasts for 28-30 days, both as a religious obligation and to inculcate among them the value of self-restraint to achieve spiritual perfection.
Imam Jaafar Ali, spokesman of Central Mindanao’s Islamic Darul Iftah, also known as "House of Opinions," said preachers assigned in different observation posts failed to see the new moon on Friday night.
Ali, a cleric trained in the Middle East and North Africa, said the fasting month will, thus, start on June 29 since Saturday is still the 30th day of Shaban.
Imam Mohammad Cana, vice chairman of the national moon sighting committee of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, had also confirmed that clerics in different parts of the country failed to see the “hilal” (crescent moon) until midnight of Friday.
Muslim local executives have urged their constituents to offer their sacrifices and include in their Ramadhan obligatory prayers supplications for the attainment of lasting peace in Southern Mindanao.
Religious activities
Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said the regional peace and order council is looking forward to a peaceful, solemn observance of the Ramadhan by Moro folks in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in Central Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
Hataman said he had ordered the ARMM’s Department of Trade and Industry to monitor the prices of consumer goods in stores in the five provinces to prevent unscrupulous traders from taking advantage of the Ramadhan to unduly raise the prices of merchandise, such as bread, rice, fruit juices, and other food items, which Muslim families buy in bulk during the fasting month.
He said members of the regional cabinet, which is comprised of more than 40 secretaries of different line agencies and chiefs of support offices devolved to ARMM by the national government, will initiate programs meant to foster religious solidarity among Muslims and Christians in the autonomous region in the next four weeks.
The league of mayors in Maguindanao, the office of Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and members of the multi-sectoral provincial peace and order council (PPOC) have agreed to embark on various activities during the Ramadhan, such as ecumenical prayer gatherings involving representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to sustain the goodwill between the MILF and government.
“We are grateful to the local officials in Maguindanao for focusing attention on the need to keep the momentum of the peace we now have in the province as a result of the government-MILF ceasefire. These activities will be led by our Muslim officers and enlisted soldiers actively helping the 6th ID foster closeness among Muslims and non-Muslims in the province,” said Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of 6th ID.
There has not been any single military-MILF encounter in Maguindanao and surrounding provinces under 6th ID's jurisdiction since late 2009.
`All about peace’
Mangudadatu, presiding chairman of the Maguindanao PPOC, said Muslims in 36 towns in the province should, during the Ramadhan, indulge in activities that can help correct wrong impressions that Moro people are "warmongers" and are extremely difficult to deal with.
“Everything in Islam is all about peace, peace-building in homes, peace-building to achieve harmony with neighbors regardless of tribes and religions, harmony with the environment, and most importantly, harmony and with Allah,” Mangudadatu pointed out in his emailed official Ramadhan message.
The governor said Islam means peace in the Arabic language, a root word of sallam, the traditional greeting Muslims utter first before talking to a person, or groups of people anywhere, regardless of religious and racial identities.
Ghazali Jaafar, MILF’s vice chairman for political affairs, said their field commanders in Maguindanao are ready to help the ARMM police, the 6th ID, and the provincial government maintain peace and order during the Ramadhan via the joint government-MILF ceasefire committee.
The peacekeeping missions of the joint ceasefire committee, comprised of representatives from the MILF, from the Armed Forces, and from the Philippine National Police, are being observed by the multinational Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team, which has been helping oversee since late 2003 the enforcement of the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities in flashpoint areas in Mindanao.
The Ramadhan season will end with another ritualistic sighting of the new moon, after 28 to 29 days of fasting, to determine the start of the Islamic month of Shawal.
Fasting during the month of Ramadhan is one of the so-called “five pillars of the Islamic faith,” which include absolute subservience to Allah, praying five times a day facing the west, giving of “zakat” (alms) to the poor, and pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Area at least once in a lifetime.