so much stuff about these calculations — yesterday, mansoor posted a link to what sheikh 7amza yusuf had to say about the fiqh council decision. today, sas sent me a link to dr. zulfiqar ali shah’s 60+ (!) page paper supporting the calculation theory. in sas’s words, and i quote:
“ok basically i saw the video and was very upset since he broght nothing from the quran and sunnah and went against what i thought were clear texts… its AMAZING how much proof they brought like fiqhi and responses and clarifications – its out of this world… the arguments are so amazing dude – this is islamic scholarship (contempoary) at its finest man..”
when i came to post this, i saw OK’s comments on the previous posts, where he points to some links that critique the paper. mind you, i didn’t read any of those links really… but regardless, at the end of the day, as the introduction to “3asr al-a2imah” used to say:
“علي الأصول اتفقوا و كانت حكمه… و في الفروع إختلفوا و كانت رحمه”
which means, “with regards to the usool, the fundamentals or principles, they (the 4 imams) agreed, and this was a wisdom… and with regards to the branches, they differed, and this was a source of mercy…”
ramadan kareem to all! i am so glad that the moon was actually seen in some places, otherwise i was going to have a hard time deciding whether to fast on saturday with the masjid or on sunday… this, of course, didn’t stop some people from deciding to fast sunday anyway 
by the way, mansoor pointed me to this video on the isna page where dr. muzammil siddiqi talks about the reason for the fiqh council’s decision. good watch.
our masjid here announced the dates for ramadan and 3eid being this saturday (9/23) and monday (10/23) respectively. this is based on the fiqh council of north america’s decision to use calculation to determine the dates for ramadan and 3eid.
something about this struck me as odd, determining the dates of both ramadan and 3eid this far in advance. i used to think that basing the moonsighting off of calculations was a good thing, until i found out that calculations could be wrong. i found this out when i read sheikh isam’s excellent answer to this question on islamicnetwork (link courtesy of OK, jazahAllah khair).
in my personal and non-scholarly opinion, i would figure that since the world is so small today and news can travel from one part of the world to another within seconds, that if any trustworthy people say they saw the moon, then we should all fast, and if no one sees it, then we should wait. but of course there is difference of opinion on all of this, and its from the mercy of Allah on us, and of course as always, Allah knows best.
insha’Allah we’re starting our fasting tomorrow (10/15). more updates later…