A pioneering educational initiative is bringing together science and Islamic tradition through the teaching of moonsighting, a practice central to the Islamic calendar, to Muslim community leaders across the United Kingdom.

The Moonsighters Academy, the first course of its kind in the UK, is educating 38 Muslim participants drawn from communities nationwide, The BBC reported.

The project is supported by the University of Leeds, alongside the University of Cambridge and the moonsighting organisation the New Crescent Society.

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It aims to equip Muslims with the astronomical knowledge and practical skills needed to sight the crescent moon locally.

For centuries, moonsighting has been used to determine the Islamic calendar and mark significant religious occasions such as Ramadan and Eid.

However, the practice is not widely undertaken in the UK, where many mosques rely on lunar sightings reported in other countries, including Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Imad Ahmed, the academy’s project coordinator and director of the New Crescent Society, said the course seeks to reconnect Muslims in Britain with a tradition that has long been part of Islamic life. He explained that its goal is to “bring the moon back home and into our own eyesight”.

The Islamic calendar follows lunar cycles, with each month beginning upon the sighting of the first crescent moon.

Because moonsighting depends on specific astronomical and weather conditions, UK mosques have historically looked abroad for confirmation.

Ahmed noted that this approach emerged due to challenges faced by early Muslim communities in Britain.

“When Muslims first came to the UK, they faced a problem that many people face in British astronomy – the cloudy weather,” he said. “They settled on a solution to follow the moon of a different country.”

Moon Wars?

Over time, this reliance has contributed to disagreements between mosques, sometimes referred to as “moon wars”, with different communities following different countries and observing Ramadan or Eid on separate days. Ahmed described the emotional impact this has had.

“Growing up, something I and all Muslims faced in the UK is every single Ramadan or Eid, we didn’t seem to know when we should be celebrating, and this has caused a lot of hurt in the community,” he said.

The nine-month course, which began in December, combines Islamic tradition with modern astronomy. Participants receive training using the University of Leeds’ rooftop observatory and its 35-centimetre telescopes. Ahmed stressed the broader vision behind the initiative.

“What we’re trying to do here is train people in astronomy, not just because it’s a contemporary problem, but because Muslims have a really strong history in astronomy,” he said.

“Moonsighting is a national sport and we all need to work together. I want to go from moon fighting to moonsighting and moon uniting.”

The academy’s participants include imams, teachers, artists and business owners. Among them is Aliyah Khan, a science teacher, who described her motivation for joining the course.

“Where I grew up, we have two major mosques and neither of them agree on the same date for Ramadan or Eid,” she said. “It’s quite isolating and splits the community.”

She added: “We can see the moon from Britain, we don’t need to have someone in another country looking at it for us. It’s a way of bridging scientific knowledge and Islamic practise.”