Taroudant, Morocco - Following the controversy created earlier this month by Youssef Eid, Secretary General of the Fatwa at Al-Azhar Mosque in Egypt, over the legitimacy of the Moroccan celebration of Eid Al Adha, Abbas Schumann, head of Al-Azhar Mosque, suspended the cleric from practicing any work related to the Fatwa.
According to the Egyptian website Elfagr, Al-Azhar University, under the direct supervision of the Egyptian government, suspended yesterday Sheikh Youssef Eid, the author of the controversial Fatwa, from his post as secretary of the Fatwa division within Al-Azhar.
The same source added that Dr. Schumann stressed that Al-Azhar respected all Muslim scholars and all scientific institutions and their decisions that do not collide with the fundamentals of Islam and the well-known rules of ijtihad (the independent reasoning or original interpretation of issues not precisely covered by the Quran or hadith).
The Egyptian scholar said that Morocco’s celebration of the first day of Eid al-Adha on October 5 “is religiously not permissible because it violates Muslim customs and break the consensus,” stressing that Moroccans should celebrate Eid Aladha on the same day as Saudi Arabia, which relies on astronomical calculation to determine the first day of the month of Doul Hija.
Since the Islamic months are dated according to the Islamic lunar calendar, the dates of religious celebrations may vary depending on the time a country observes the moon.
Islamic countries resort to two main methods to set the date for celebration: either through astronomical calculations or the direct observational method.
Morocco is one of the Islamic countries that rely on the observation of the crescent, in conformity with the teachings of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.