2333 - 'Ubaydullah ibn Mu'adh narrated to us, my father narrated to me, al-Ash'ath narrated to us
from al-Hasan, concerning a man who was in one of the cities and fasted on Monday, and two men testified that they had seen the crescent on the night of Sunday. He said: Neither that man nor the people of his city are required to make up that day, unless they come to know that the people of one of the cities of the Muslims fasted on Sunday, in which case they make it up. (1)

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And His saying: "So Ramadan was sighted" — al-Sindi said: on the pattern of the active participle, meaning: its crescent became evident; or the passive, meaning: its crescent was seen. Thus in al-Sihah.

And His saying: "Thus the Prophet, peace be upon him, commanded us" — he said: It is possible that what is meant is that he commanded us not to accept the testimony of a single witness regarding breaking the fast, or that he commanded us to rely on the sighting of the people of our own land and not to rely on the sighting of others. The words of the scholars incline toward the second meaning, and Allah Almighty knows best.

Al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi said in "Tarih al-Tathrib" 4/116: If the crescent is sighted in one town, fasting is obligatory upon the people of all towns — this is the school of Malik, Abu Hanifah, Ahmad, and al-Layth ibn Sa'd. Ibn al-Mundhir related it from most of the jurists, and some Shafi'is held it, for they said: If the towns are close together, their ruling is the ruling of a single town; but if they are far apart, there are two positions. The more correct of them according to Shaykh Abu Hamid, Shaykh Abu Ishaq, al-Ghazali, and al-Shashi, and the majority, is that fasting is not obligatory upon the people of the other town.
The second position is that it is obligatory, which was adopted by Qadi Abu al-Tayyib and al-Ruyani, who said it is the apparent position of the school, and all our companions chose it, and al-Baghawi related it from al-Shafi'i himself.

We say: Al-Hafiz Abu al-Fayd Ahmad al-Siddiqi al-Ghumari composed a treatise which he named "Tawjih al-Anzar li-Tawhid al-Muslimin fi al-Sawm wa al-Iftar," in which he held that no consideration is given to the difference of rising points, and that all Muslims in various regions are obliged to fast with those for whom the sighting of the crescent is established among the people of any region whatsoever. He adduced for that conclusive evidences, proofs, and arguments, and made clear that there is no evidence in the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas at all, nor any mention in it of the difference of rising points, nor of each land having its own sighting — rather, all of that is fabrication against the hadith and loading it with what it cannot bear.

(1) Its chain is sound. It is mawquf (stopped at a Companion or Successor). Mu'adh: he is Mu'adh ibn Mu'adh al-'Anbari al-Tamimi, and al-Ash'ath: he is Ibn 'Abd al-Malik al-Humrani, and al-Hasan: he is al-Basri. =