COTABATO CITY – The month-long fasting of Muslim faithful here and across the globe will officially start on Friday, April 24, after several moon sighting teams failed to see the crescent moon tonight, Muslim religious leaders said.

“By virtue of the authority vested in me, I hereby declare that we shall start the fasting month of Ramadhan on Friday, April 24,” Abuhuraira Udasan, the grand mufti of the Bangsamoro said Wednesday night.

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The Darul Ifta, the highest religious authority in the Philippines, held moon sighting in various parts of the Bangsamoro region to determine the official beginning of Ramadan, the holiest month among Muslims marked with fasting, prayers and helping the poor.

The Grand Mufti is the titular head of the Muslim community in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and head of Darul Ifta, an Islamic House of Opinion.

“The moon was not seen tonight,” Udasan said, adding that Ramadan would be more difficult now that the country and the world are fighting a COVID-19 pandemic.

Ramadan is month-long fasting based on the Islamic calendar and is a time for somber reflection, meditation and charity works among the Muslim faithful.

Ustadz Abuhalil, an Islamic preacher based here, said Islamic scholars believed this year’s fasting would entail more sacrifices as it came while the country and the world was reeling from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Ramadan comes in the ninth – and most sacred – month of the Islamic calendar. Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam and obligatory for Muslims all over the world.

Udasan said the Darul Ifta had canceled all Islamic religious gatherings, including the temporary suspension of the congregational “Taraweeh” prayers in mosques during this most important among all Muslim festivals.

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