Millions of Muslims began fasting Friday at the start of the holy month
of Ramadan in Indonesia and Thailand, where the somber occasion was marred by
two bomb blasts that killed one person and injured seven, officials said.
The Muhammadiyah group,
Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, told its 30 million followers
that Ramadan starts Friday. The government, however, declared the official
start as Saturday when most of the remaining 190 million Indonesians will begin
the annual dawn-to-dusk fasting for a month.
Muslims in the Buddhist dominated
Thailand also began Ramadan on Friday, while India, Pakistan, Malaysia and
Bangladesh will start Saturday or Sunday.
Ramadan is celebrated by Muslims
around the world. It is a period devoted to dawn-to-dusk fasting, prayers and
good deeds. The holy month culminates with the three-day holiday of Eid
al-Fitr.
Muslims believe God revealed the
first verses of their holy book, the Quran, to the Prophet Muhammad during
Ramadan, the start of which is determined by the sighting of the new moon. The
Muslim lunar calendar moves back through the seasons, so Ramadan starts 11 days
earlier each year under the Western calendar.
The holy month, however, got off
to an ominous start in southern Thailand, where most of Thai Muslims live amid
an ongoing insurgency for autonomy. A car-bomb detonated in the morning, sending
a huge plume of black smoke from a row of four-story buildings in a commercial
area of Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat province.
Several shops and residences
caught fire, said police Col. Maitree Chimcherd. He said seven people were
injured, including four who were briefly trapped on the roof of a burning
building.
Maitree blamed a group of Muslim
insurgents for the homemade bomb hidden in a pickup truck parked in front of a
computer store.
On Thursday night, a roadside
bomb killed a villager and wounded his companion while they were hunting for
squirrels in the woods in Yala province, said police Col. Wichai Jaengsakul.
Still, residents of Narathiwat,
Yala and Pattani provinces flocked to local markets Friday to shop for fresh
and dried fruit including date palm to be consumed at dusk after the first day
of fasting ends.
Usually, countries have differing
dates for the start of Ramadan because of the different ways of calculating
when the new moon crescent is sighted. Sometimes there are differences between
various Muslim groups even within the same country.
Muhammadiyah, which uses
calendar-based astronomical calculations, believed that the crescent should
have appeared after sunset on Thursday. But the government argued it could not
be seen by eyes or telescopes, hence Ramadan has to start Saturday.
Pakistan’s government has
promised there will not be any power blackouts during the key hours when people
are preparing for their fast or during the evening when they pray and break
their fasts.
“If there is electricity or no
electricity, people do fast, and they fast with patience,” said Shah Mohammed,
who sells nuts in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. “Allah gives you
patience.”
In Bangladesh too, Ramadan is
likely to start Saturday. However, a national moon sighting committee headed by
state minister for religious affairs will sit Friday evening to make an
official declaration.
The committee has asked the
weather office and also members of the public to report to it any sighting of
the moon. The weather office has already forecast that the new moon is likely
to be sighted Friday evening.
In India, where about 13 percent
of the 1.2 billion people are Muslim, most major Islamic organizations and
mosques form committees of religious scholars who determine the start of
Ramadan based on the actual sighting of the new moon.
According to Amanullah, the
spokesman of New Delhi’s Jama Masjid mosque, one of the country’s leading Sunni
Muslim places of worship, Ramadan is most likely to start Saturday.
The moon sighting committee will
meet late Friday evening to view the moon and officially announce the start of
the holy month of fasting, Amanullah, who uses just one name, said.
AP
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