II.

Start of Ramadan

In the pre-Islamic Arabic calendar, the month of Ramadan fell during the heat of summer. The word Ramadan means “scorcher” in Arabic. The early Arabic calendar, like the current Islamic calendar, was lunar. Because a lunar month has only 29 or 30 days, a year of 12 lunar months falls short of the 365 days in a solar calendar. In the pre-Islamic calendar, the lunar months kept their place in the seasons by the insertion of an extra month every two or three years. The Islamic calendar abolished this practice and fixed the Islamic year at 12 months totaling 354 days. As a result Ramadan occurs about 11 days earlier each year, and it rotates through the seasons in a cycle totaling about 33 years. In the year 2000 Ramadan began on November 27.

The appearance of the new crescent moon signals the beginning of Ramadan. The end of Ramadan is signaled by the sighting of the new moon of the next month, Shawwal. The new moon must be seen and reported by at least two trustworthy witnesses. Because of this requirement, neither the beginning nor the end of Ramadan can be determined in advance. Depending on the visibility of the moon, Ramadan can begin on a different date in different parts of the world.