When should Eid be Celebrated

Ques: Celebrating Ramadhan & Eidain (the two Eids) by moon-sighting is really becoming a concerning issue in the USA . Presently, we are facing problem relating to when the Eid ul Adha is to be celebrated. There are two main thoughts: (1) we have to follow Islamic dating through moon sighting in our own area (2) Eid-ul-Adha is because of the ending of Hajj, we must therefore follow the date on which Eid-ul-Adha occurs in Saudi Arabia.
Furthermore, the two main organizations ISNA & ICNA made a declaration in conformity to the second thought. Should I follow the first group or the second?
Ans: In any country or region Eid has to be celebrated by the Islamic moon dating of that specified country/region. Therefore, you have to follow moon date of your own area, NOT that of Saudi Arabia.

Taken from Jamiah Binori (Karachi, Pakistan) website Monday, 22 December 2003. The English of the text of the fatwa had been edited by A.F. Ebrahim.

Notes by Ahmed Fazel Ebrahim: In most probability, the above fatwa has been translated from an Arabic or Urdu fatwa. In such a case, I do not know if the translator had literally translated the term “moon dating” from the Urdu or Arabic text of the original fatwa.

There are two forms of moon dating: (1) traditional dating via sighting (2) Suggested dating via astronomical calculations for regional locations. Since the general Hanafi Ulema of the India-Pakistan region conform to Islamic dating via moon sighting, “moon dating” in the above fatwa will refer to Islamic dating via sighting of the crescent on the 29^th of the Islamic month and, in the absence of sighting, considering that Islamic month to have 30 days.