Fasting during Ramadan is one of the most important expressions of faith by followers of Islam. From sunrise to sunset, Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, and other specified human activities. Many Muslims collectively spend time during the nights and days of Ramadan performing acts of worship and, above all, reciting the Quran and repeating remembrances of God, Allah.

One of the most challenging issues in relation to Ramadan is determining its beginning and end based on the crescent moon. Since the beginning of the month is bound to sighting the moon in the lunar calendar, the exact declaration of the new month is difficult. Therefore, for many years, announcing the sighting of the crescent moon has been a challenging task. Many Muslim scholars and jurists believe that the beginning and end of Ramadan can only be determined by spotting the moon with the naked eye and that using modern tools to calculate the appearance of the crescent is not religiously valid.

However, especially in recent decades, others have emphasized the calculability of the lunar month. As a result, Muslims and Muslim-majority states are divided over the start of the month. Although it is the same as any month of the lunar calendar, the beginning and end of Ramadan is important as it determines the start and end of the month of fasting.

Declaring the sighting of the crescent moon is not the sole issue regarding Ramadan that is disputed among Muslims. Based on the sect and school of thought to which they belong, Muslim jurists also differ on various aspects of fasting during Ramadan.  These include the exact time of the beginning and end of fasting, what invalidates fasting, and the fitrah payment, a charity given to the poor at the end of Ramadan.

Among the disputed points is the challenging issue of the end of Ramadan. The day and usually its following days are among the most important feasts in most Islamic countries and Muslims living in non-Islamic countries. In recent decades and with the bureaucratization of urban life in the world, the performance of the rituals of the feast of Ramadan mostly depend on the official calendars that are enforced by the states.

In recent decades and with the bureaucratization of urban life in the world, the performance of the rituals of the feast of Ramadan mostly depend on the official calendars that are enforced by the states.

The lives of Muslims today, like those of worshippers of other religions, are shaped by a network of physical/biological, sacred/religious, and secular/political times and calendars. Muslims living in Islamic and non-Islamic countries and working in modern institutions have difficulty matching the biological time of fasting with their working hours during Ramadan. While Muslims tried to regulate their work with fasting in premodern societies, now many Muslims are forced to adapt their fasting to modern work. This unconformity has caused some Muslims to complain about this issue as their efficiency in the labor market decreases during Ramadan: they cannot compete and reach their full potential at work. On the other hand, the need to work affects their ability to worship as they would like.

Muslim states and the announcement of the sighting of the crescent moon

Apart from having to match the biological time of fasting with the demands of the labor market, the intersection of religious time and secular/political time has also caused problems. Almost all Muslim-majority countries designate certain days to the holiday of Eid al-Fitr. This closure for administrative and economic reasons has a long history and is determined by the states long ago. It is a challenging task due to the difficulties of determining the exact time of the end of Ramadan. This is made more complicated by the fact that in some Islamic countries Muslims belong to different sects which may not declare the same day as Eid al-Fitr.

Due to this fact, we see that sometimes countries that are located, for the most part, on the same meridian (line of longitude), for instance Iran and Saudi Arabia, or different parts of a country (for example, Iraqi Kurdistan and the Arab regions of Iraq) declare different first and last days of Ramadan. There was also the interesting case of Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, who always announced the Feast of Ramadan on a different day that that announced by Saudi Arabian authorities.

In addition to governments, there are rivalries and disputes among religious elites and religious interest groups that lead to unanimity on the declaration of Eid on an exact day. Although most of the differences in declaring the Feast of Ramadan result from different jurisprudential views, the role of the rivalries and disputes between clerics cannot be ignored.

In Iran, the first and last days of Ramadan are declared by the Supreme Leader. The Iranian state propagates that the declaration is binding for all citizens regardless of any school of thought within the Shiism they follow.

Iranian Shiite religious scholars are an example. In Iran, the first and last days of Ramadan are declared by the Supreme Leader. The Iranian state propagates that the declaration is binding for all citizens regardless of any school of thought within the Shiism they follow. However, followers of other Shiite clerics, who consistently challenge the religious legitimacy of the Iranian state, provide their understanding of the start and end of Ramadan based on reports of the moon’s appearance received by their witnesses. Their followers do not attend the state-run feast prayers and prefer to join those held by their beloved clerics. These differences in announcing the end of Ramadan and of congregational prayers contest the state’s religious authority and legitimacy.

Transforming a local issue into a state one

Until very recently, the majority of Muslims lived in rural areas. The “local” determined many religious issues and believers solved their religious problems by referring to the “nearest” sources of authority and reference embodied in the local imam, saint, or other “men of Allah.” They generally did not know what others thought and did, even in nearby neighborhoods. Gradually and by becoming part of modern nation states, believers became connected to centers of political power. They had to adapt themselves to the state calendar. On the other hand, technological developments, such as the telephone, radio, television, and recently the internet, contributed to being notified of state decisions regarding the lunar calendar.

Muslim communities in countries where Islam is not the majority religion deal with the issue of the exact dates of Ramadan in a variety of ways. Some trust calendars prepared by international Muslim organizations, others seek the opinion of their local religious institutions, and others yet refer to the announcements of their country of origin.

In conclusion, spotting the new moon is something that any Muslim can do. However, moving away from traditions of moon sighting, which are still prevalent among Muslims in rural areas, has caused a significant dependence on state-run media. Nowadays, most Muslims do not know how and when the new moon can be sighted. Living in air- and light-polluted urban areas makes it generally impossible for millions of Muslims to spot the moon.

On the other hand, Muslims are deeply involved in state calendars and cannot easily swim against the current. Muslim states have other expediencies and interests in religious matters as well; they consider international necessities, regional realities, and their denominational structures.

A good example is Iraq. Sunnis generally obey Saudi Arabia in announcing the Feast of Ramadan, Arab Shiites generally follow their high-ranking Iraqi clerics, and a minority listens to the Iranian Supreme Leader. The Iraqi government declares the holiday to include the days heralded by the followers of both denominations.

In a nutshell, for the first time in history, Muslims have found themselves in a node of modernization, transnational sectarian networks, and state policies. They are obliged to obey state calendars, whether they live in a Muslim country or not. At the same time, they can expand their individuality by seeking information about the beginning and end of Ramadan from non-state sources via modern technologies. This has added to the rising crisis of authority among traditional Islamic actors in the contemporary world.

As a result, the fact that one cannot known with certainty when Muslims who live kilometers away from one another will celebrate the Feast of Ramadan and being obliged to live according to predetermined state calendars have led to unprecedented confusion and disputes among Muslims and Muslim-majority states. This phenomenon is another example of the Muslim world’s rising, new social, cultural, and symbolic mobility and crisis.

Religion in politics is obvious in Africa but also a sensitive topic because of the confrontations it incurs between critics and supporters of secularism. In a country like Nigeria, it might lead to tensions between Muslims and Christians, considering the fact that religious affiliation and ethnicity were excluded in the country’s national census in 1991 (and since 2006) to avoid ethnic conflicts and religious rivalries.

Regardless of the sensitivity, religion still plays an important role in leadership issues, and religious leaders still influence directly or indirectly the decisions of their followers during political practices, ethnic and social dialogues. Religion institution has also been the refuge of whenever people in the region lost confidence in their political leaders.

Contrary to the opinions of some Islamic scholars who frown at secularism, and the stands of secularists who see secularism as a value to exclude or categorize some sections of the society, the political developments in Mali between 2018 and 2020, and the events in Senegal following the 2021 protests offered a glimpse of what religious leaders can achieve in moving a nation forward and avoiding plunging it into unending chaos or “civil” war.

When the news of protests in Mali broke out in 2020, the focus quickly shifted after some days from the critical issues that led to the protests, such as the government incompetence, endemic corruption, and a declining economy, to the activism of the former president of Mali’s High Islamic Council (HCI), Imam Mahmoud Dicko, who was one of the leaders of the protest.

The Malian case showed that Islamic religious leaders in the country are diverse in their intellectual tradition, but also collaborative in political and other important issues.

On the one hand, the Malian case showed that Islamic religious leaders in the country are diverse in their intellectual tradition, but also collaborative in political and other important issues.

Iman Dicko, a “Salafi” figure who studied in Saudi Arabia and Mauritania, has been at the forefront of demanding social change and the basic needs of Malians since 2013 when he supported the presidential ambition of the ousted president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. During this period, he collaborated and worked with other religious leaders from different sects of the society, including Sufis and liberals.

Also, the current president of the High Islamic Council (HCI), Sheikh Chérif Ousmane Madani Haidara, a Sufi leader with strong followership in Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and the Malian diaspora, criticized the rebellion activities of the Mouvement National de l’Azawad and considered members of the group as “apostates”.

The 2020 events in Mali showed the role of an Imam in a troubled nation. While foreign allies of Mali, neighboring countries, and critics, including Salafi figures, accused Imam Dicko of instigating instability and stirring violence by heading the protest movement, the Imam has served as a mediator between the Malian government, terrorist groups in the northern part of the country and the oppositions.

Forcing the idea of non-participation of a religious leader in politics in a country like Mali and looking at religious activities through the limited established lens of fighting terrorism, anti-extremism, and radicalization could be more problematic than the solutions it tends to present.

Mali’s population based on a 2019 estimate was over 19.66 million of which 94.8% are Muslims, while the remaining 5.2% are Christians (2.4%), Animists (2%), and none/unspecified (0.8%). This also explains the reason behind the strong supports Imam Dicko and other Malian Imams enjoy many occasions, among which were Dicko’s campaign that forced the Malian government to weaken legislation that promotes gender equality, and his successful opposition toward the introduction of sex education in schools.

On the other hand, the participation of the Malian Imams in politics cannot be used as a yardstick for many other countries in the region due to their diverse population. There is still a lack of interest in democratic politics from Islamic leaders in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa despite the region’s history of harmony and integration between priests or religious leaders and kings, who also occupied religious positions in some of the ancient kingdoms and societies.

Another issue is the reserved positions of some Islamic leaders in the region toward secular democracy, repercussions of western invasions on their societies, and the fear of losing their dominance. The most noticeable feature in Mali and Senegal is the active interaction of religious leaders with government officials through their positions of independence from authorities which gave them the freedom of engagement in the most effective ways.

The distinctive case of Senegal aligns with the equivocal relationship between the religious institutions and the government. Senegal is considered a secular state influenced by France and about 96% of the population are Muslims, and records of peaceful transfer of power. These, according to Rachid Id Yassine, differentiate Senegal from other countries with predominantly Christian populations where the participation of religious leaders in secularism and democracy is usually linked to Christians.

Senegal’s secularism has been described as a model between the French and American models: political leaders have used religion in governing their people, anti-religion groups have also tried to tone down the influence of religion for their gains, while religious leaders have also used their power in their sector or regions of dominance without threatening the country’s peaceful coexistence. Hence, religious and democratic institutions have benefited one another rather than seeking to undermine each other.

The Senegalese marabouts have guided the country in turbulent times: many of them played a neutral role in the 2012 presidential election. Although some of them also took sides by either supporting the then President Aboulaye Wade or the opposition candidate and current president Macky Sall because of the financial interest or recuperation of their waning influence as a result of participation only in spiritual and religious matters.