Moon Shadow

Khalid had just returned from the local mosque. He was a regular there for the nightly Isha prayer but he stayed behind that evening to find out if Ramadan would be starting the next day or not. Most of the reports he had heard pointed to the latter. Prior to coming to the mosque that evening, he had checked the internationally respected moon-sighting website and the nationally recognized Hilal Committee listserve. Neither expected the holy month to begin on the morrow.
   However when prayer was over, a heated debate erupted about how the local masjid needed to cater to all methodologies including the one that said Muslims could now use a calendar to calculate the start of the lunar month. One gentleman in a suit recited one of the sayings of the Propher Muhammad about how in his day technology was very rudimentary and all they could do was count on their ten fingers, that later on societies would emerge with far more sophisticated technology-meaning that we had his blessing.
 Khalid was pondered for a second. He liked the thought of Islam being nuanced. Surely, nothing was unequivocal. Nothing was black and white and totally and utterly haram.
Not the social issues.  Marriage choices, abortion,hijab and clothing, interest, homosexuality?
 Hadn't there always been room for divergent views? Didn't it speak to the idea of the variety of different personalities. Aside from all the fiqh issues- For one group, the physical act of searching for a shiny sliver in a starry sky might over-ride all with its breath-taking, nostalgic poetry. For another- probably all engineers- the finite stability of knowing when the month would begin for the next thousand years would bring comfort. Finally, there were others who were just tied to Saudi Arabia and felt the need to follow its ebb and flow-even continents away.

Khalid's thoughts were interruped when the imam of the masjid who made an announcement that on further analysis, Ramadan would indeed begin the next day and that people should go home and inform their families.

Khalid walked into the living room and told his wife that he would be fasting on the morrow.

Khalid's wife looked up briefly from the Bollywood magazine she was reading. Her lips formed a line that was thinner than the elusive crescent the moon-sighters had been trying to spot on Hickory Hill.

"You will do no such thing. I already made your lunch." she responded and turned back to her magazine.

Khalid's three children were watching the familiar scene and the youngest daughter, Noora changed her facebook status immediately.  She was originally going to post "Ramadan Mubarak everybody".

Instead she wrote:

 Islamophobes think Muslim women are oppressed. In fact, for most Hyderabadi families, it's the opposite. There are moon-sighting expeditions with telescopes and then there are calculation calendars and the highly respected Hilal Committee. Then there's Aunty Shahnaz waving her finger at her husband saying:

"Stop talking the nonsense, who vill eat the shami kabab roll I already prepare for you ??