This past Monday night found me, and many others, repeatedly checking the websites of various moon-sighting organizations and local mosques and other community groups, trying to figure out which day I would celebrate Eid al-Fitr.  Some of the moon-sighting websites were still uncertain or had declared Wednesday to be Eid, so when I saw on Moonsighting.com that the moon had indeed been seen in Chile, I got excited!  It’s Eid!

Until I read the rest of the sentence:

“Crescent Moon for Shawwal has been seen by two persons and a sister on Monday, August 29 at the tip of South America with naked eye.”

Ahem.  Two persons and a sister?  Was this some kind of female animal?  A Martian?  Or, in fact, a human sister whose gender apparently makes her not quite eligible for the category of “person”?

I know of at least two people who contacted the site to complain, and the information has since changed to “Crescent Moon for Shawwal has been seen by three persons (two male and one female) on Monday, August 29 at the tip of South America with naked eye.”  Glad to hear that sisters are persons after all.

I hope you all had a wonderful Eid.