Millions of Indonesian Muslims to start fasting

Sep 12, 2007, 16:13 GMT

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

The Ministry of Religious Affairs announced that Thursday would be the start of the fasting month of Ramadan after a meeting with leaders of Islamic organizations in the country, including the two largest ones, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.

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

Religious Minister Maftuh Basyuni said that all monitoring teams deployed at five places across the country reported that none of them saw hilal (the moon), which marks the start of the month in the Islamic lunar calendar, reported The Jakarta Post.

'All observations lead to the same conclusion. So I announced that the first day of Ramadan in the 1428th Hijriah (Islamic year) will fall on Thursday (September 13),' Basyuni was quoted as saying after chairing the meeting Tuesday, which was also attended by ambassadors from Muslim countries.

According to Ahmad Ghozali Masruri from the Nahdlatul Ulama, his 40-million strong organization has agreed on September 13 as the start of Ramadan after the group's monitoring team failed to see the moon on Tuesday evening.

A similar remark also came from Goodwill Zubir, the secretary of Muhammadiyah, saying that he was happy with the meeting and that all sides finally were united in determining the start of the fasting month.        A majority of Arab countries will also start the fasting month of Ramadan on Thursday.

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.

Nearly 88 per cent of Indonesia's 225 million people adhere to Islam, making it the world's most populous Muslim nation.