Palestinians in Ramadanat Fued Over Moon

In the increasingly tense atmosphere of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, even so religious an act as determining when the Muslim fast of Ramadan begins can spark a multi-sided political squabble, Palestinians learned Tuesday.

For millions of Muslims, Ramadan is a time of self-sacrifice and religious reflection. For a month, observers refrain from eating, drinking, smoking or having sexual relations during daylight hours as they commemorate God’s giving of the Koran to the prophet Mohammed.

Monday night the Palestinian self-governing authority announced that Sheik Ikramah Sabri, the mufti of Jerusalem, had seen the crescent of the new moon from Al Aqsa mosque and that Ramadan would begin Tuesday morning. Sabri is the chief interpreter of Islamic law for Palestinians.

Religious leaders in Saudi Arabia also spied the crescent and decreed that Ramadan would begin Tuesday morning.

“For the first time, the whole of Palestine fasts together,” Sabri said Tuesday, noting that Arabs living in Israel also had accepted the Saudi verdict that Ramadan had begun. Traditionally, Arabs who live inside Israel follow Jordan’s ruling on the start of Ramadan.

As for the occupied territories, Sabri said: “Always before, the West Bank fasted with Jordan and (the) Gaza (Strip) with Egypt. But today, all the Palestinians in Palestine are observing Ramadan at the same time.” Well, not quite.

The Saudi and Jerusalem sightings were disputed on state-run Jordan Radio on Monday night by Jordan’s chief religious justice, who said that he had not seen the crescent and that there was no “proof” that Ramadan would begin Tuesday. Jordanians, therefore, held off on beginning their fast for at least another day.

Many Palestinians in the West Bank chose to follow the Jordanian guidance. As a result, even within Palestinian families Tuesday, some members were observing Ramadan and others were not.

The differences among the religious leaders reflect the complex religious and political rivalries that peacemaking has only exacerbated among the Saudis, the Palestinians and Jordan’s King Hussein, Palestinian analysts said Tuesday. Hussein and the Palestinians only recently--and, many believe, temporarily--patched up a dispute over who should protect the Muslim holy sites in East Jerusalem.

At the moment, Hussein is responsible for the sites. But Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat insists that the Palestinian Authority should assume responsibility for them as a prelude to asserting a Palestinian claim of political sovereignty over mostly Arab East Jerusalem. The Saudis too dislike the king’s control over the holy sites.

And to further complicate the situation Tuesday, Israel also took issue with the Palestinian Authority’s declaration that Ramadan had begun. The Israelis were not trying to dispute the fine points of Muslim religious law. They were worried by the fact that religious leaders of the Palestinian Authority gathered at Al Aqsa, in Jerusalem, to announce the start of the fast. Such an act, huffed one Israeli newspaper, clearly was an attempt to assert Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem.