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places of crescent are different. Similarly, people’s sights are notof the same level. Also, there may be in the horizon what mightobstruct the sighting of the crescent in the second night. Ifsighting of the crescent in the second night was necessary for thevalidity of the testimony, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be uponhim) would have clarified it.Tirmidhi said: “The Muslim scholars are unanimous onaccepting the testimony of the two trusted witnesses to prove thecrescent sighting. Ibn Taymiyah said in Fataawa (Vol.25, P.186after mentioning the varied capacity of people to sight thecrescent and its reasons: “ If two trusted witnesses testify for thecrescent-sighting, their testimony would be taken forconsideration in the Islamic Shari’ah according to the unanimousview of the Muslim scholars, although the general public did notsight it. He perhaps meant here by ‘the unanimous view’ when itis a cloudy season, because the different view of Imam AbuHaneefah that the commencement of the month would not beproved in a clear season unless the crescent is sighted by anumber of people, is well known. All this is when there is noofficial ruling for that because with such a ruling, there is noscope for any difference and it is necessary to implement theruling based on the testimony and this is the consensus view ofMulsim scholars, as Abu Zakariya Yahya Al-Nawawi hasmentioned it in Sharh Al-Muhadhdhab (Vol.6 P.313) aftermentioning the reasons of the varied capacities of the people forthe crescent-sighting.He says: “That is why if two witnesses or one witnesstestified for sighting the crescent and the concerned authorityissued a ruling in this regard, it would not be reversed byconsensus and the fasting would be compulsory and if it had beenimpossible, the ruling would not have been implemented and itsreversal would have been compulsory.100