Birth of the Dhul'Hujjah moon is going to take place on the morning of 12th of February at precisely 07:42 and 03 seconds GMT (10:42am Mecca time). This would make the age of the moon at the time of sunset in Mecca of only 7 hours and 36 minutes - an almost impossible age for a sighting. However Sun set time for Mecca on 23rd of February is at 6:18 and moonset time 6:27. The recently adopted Saudi formula of "sunset before moon set" would result in their declaration of start of the Dhul'Hujjah month on 13th February even without the sighting of the moon. This classic example shows that despite their change of formulae from "birth of the moon" to slightly better "sunset before moonset", errors and chaos will still result until the actual sighting of the moon is adopted, Or at least the visibility age of the moon is inducted in to the Um-ul-Qura calander.

The above projection clearly indicates that no sighting is going to be possible on the 12th of February anywhere in the world. The moon on the following days would be a large one and the projection below shows how the sihghting would spread through out the world, from Indonesia to Morocco. This provides yet another oppertunity for a global Eid day if ever there was such a thing. Since the true 10th of Dhul'Hujjah is all set to be on the 23rd of February, Eid-ul-Adha should almost certainly be on Saturday, 23rd of February. Of course, this united Eid would depend, as usual, on when the Hujj is called. I am afraid Hujj seems to be all set to be called on 21st of February, a day too early. This is likely to cause division amongst Muslims all over the world on holding their Eid-Ul-Adha. Those who follow the Saudi system would obviously go for the 22nd and those who adopt Hadith command over moon issues will almost certainly go for the 23rd. HOWEVER, the incentive of a Hujj-E-Akbar (on Friday) may prevent the Saudis from another premature start to Dhul'Hujjah month, and we might end up with a united Eid ... I hope so.