Why are we always a day late?

Some people ask- and they ask this every year- why we Indians celebrate Eid or mark Arafah/Ramazan a day after the Arabs and the West and pretty much the entire world. This question arises because we are used to seeing the world with Japan to the extreme right and the USA to the extreme west of the atlas. But what we need to understand is that this perspective of the globe, and the International Date Line that runs between Alaska and Russia, are both arbitrary. The world is round; so technically, any longitude on the globe can be taken as the International Date Line. When it is 1st Jan in Japan, it is still 31st Dec in Alaska, and it remains so for almost 24 hours. This, despite the fact that they share the same night.




The International Date Line of Islam, however, is not arbitrary. It begins at the place where the moon is first sighted. And that place is towards Western Pakistan/Iran. So naturally, the date also begins there. The 1st of Ramazan, for example, begins at Islam's International Date Line and proceeds westwards in accordance with the anticlockwise rotation of the earth traversing the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Atlantic, the Americas, the Far East, China and finally the Indian subcontinent. Immediately thereafter, the same night, it is already 2nd Ramazan in Iran, while the 1st of Ramazan in India has just begun.

This is exactly the reason why we see Hujjaj on Mt. Arafat on live TV, but fast the 'next day'. Well, it's not the next day. It's the same day, but that day comes to us almost 20 hours late because of the aforementioned reason.

So next time onward, let us not vex ourselves over why we are celebrating everything a day late, why we have to lag behind the Middle East and why can't we just fast at the same time as our fellow brethren; just think about how Alaskans must be feeling about celebrating the New Year when everyone else is already done and over with! 😉

Comments

  1. Hi12 April 2021 at 11:16

    Still, it's complicated, I feel something not correct

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr. Parvez Mandviwala12 April 2021 at 16:56

      The lunar orbit vis-a-vis the earth is indeed complicated. I have only tried to simplify the concept and argued that Indians are not actually doing it a day late; it's technically still the same day.

      Delete

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