The Ruet-e-Hilal Committee (Urdu: مرکزی رویتِ ہلال کمیٹی) is the official body in Pakistan responsible for announcing the sighting of the new moon, which determines the Islamic calendar.

[1] Established in 1974 through a resolution passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan, the committee's operations still lack formalised rules and regulations to this day.

Ibn-e-Taymiyya, another 13th-century scholar, writing in his Risala fi’l-Hilal (Tract on the Crescent), “...categorically rejects the use of astronomical calculation in determining the lunar month.” Yaqut ibn Abdullah al-Hamawi, a 12th-century Arab biographer and geographer of Greek origin, gives the government complete authority in making such decisions.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a Karachi-based party which was campaigning at the time for the removal of Ayub Khan’s decade-long authoritarian rule, vehemently opposed the official decision.

The government’s jitters gave rise to the urban legend that it had changed its announcement only to avoid having Eid on a Friday — the coincidence was seen as ‘a bad omen’ for the rulers.

In order to resolve these conflicts, the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto decided to give legislative cover to the official Moon sighting mechanism.

[5] Every year at the beginning and at the end of the month of Ramzan, the decisions of new moon sighting by Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee is criticized in Pakistan.

Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai of Qasim Ali Khan Mosque separately announces the new moon of Ramazan and Shawal every year in Peshawar.