Millions of Indonesian Muslims to start fasting

Sep 23, 2006, 5:24 GMT

Jakarta - Millions of Muslims in Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country - will begin fasting together Sunday for the holy month of Ramadan, local media reported.

In most years, Muslims in Indonesia start fasting on different days according to their own lunar observations.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Indonesia's two largest Islamic organizations, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, decreed Friday that the fasting month of Ramadan would start Sunday.

'All monitoring teams deployed at 28 places across Indonesia reported that none of them saw hilal (the moon) on Friday evening, so we decided that the start of Ramadan falls on Sunday,' Muzakir, a ministry official, was quoted by Kompas daily as saying.

Muzakir said that the decision was reached in a meeting led by Minister of Religious Affairs Maftuh Basyuni and representatives from NU and Muhammadiyah, as well as other Islamic organizations and ambassadors from Muslim countries.

Muslims in Indonesia have frequently begun Ramadan and celebrated Eid-el Fitr on different days due to differences in methods used in determining the dates. Nearly 88 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people profess Islam.

Muslims in most Arab countries began observing Ramadan Saturday.

During the holy month, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, in accordance with one of the five pillars of their religion. The daily fast is broken by prayers and festive meals.

Ramadan is the ninth month in the lunar calendar, when the Islamic holy book, the Koran, was first revealed to the Prophet Mohammed.