Ramadan countdown

Why the date is a setting rather than an answer

Ramadan begins when the new crescent is sighted, and that is announced by authorities locally. No calculation can settle it in advance, which is why this tool asks you for the date instead of telling you one. Until your announcement is made, it fills the box with a figure from the tabular Islamic calendar so the countdown has something to work from.

Treat that figure as a placeholder. Calculated calendars routinely land a day either side of the announced date, and neighbouring countries often begin on different days.

Why calculated calendars disagree

There is more than one. The tabular calendar used here is fixed arithmetic, a thirty-year cycle of alternating month lengths. The Umm al-Qura calendar used in Saudi Arabia is built on astronomical criteria for the moon’s position. A third variant shifts the tabular scheme by a day. On a given date these three can give three consecutive Hijri dates, and all of them are approximations of something decided by observation.

Counting in days

The month starts at Maghrib on the evening before the first fast, and Maghrib is a different moment in Jakarta and in Manchester. A countdown ticking down to the second would look precise and mean very little. Whole days are what the date actually supports.

Where the month goes

A lunar year runs about 354 days, eleven short of a solar one, so Ramadan arrives earlier each Gregorian year and travels backwards through the seasons. A cycle takes roughly thirty-three years, which is why anyone who has fasted a long time has done it in both the longest and the shortest days of the year.