Eid Al Fitr 2025: 11 countries to celebrate on Sunday, 15 on Monday

Dubai: While many Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, will celebrate Eid Al Fitr on Sunday, several other countries — among them Oman, Jordan, Syria, and Indonesia — have announced that the holiday will begin on Monday.

The variation, common in the Islamic calendar, is the result of differences in moon sightings that determine the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting and spiritual reflection observed by Muslims worldwide.

In Oman, the Moon-Sighting Committee declared that the crescent moon signalling the start of Shawwal, the month that follows Ramadan, was not visible on Saturday evening.

The country will thus complete 30 days of fasting, with Eid officially beginning on March 31.

Similar announcements were made in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya where religious authorities confirmed that Sunday would be the final day of Ramadan.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, along with Pakistan, Malaysia, Brunei, India, Bangladesh, and Australia, also declared Monday as the first day of Eid.

In many of these nations, Saturday marked only the 28th or 29th day of Ramadan, making a Sunday celebration astronomically improbable.

In Iraq, while both the Sunni Endowment Office and the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the country’s highest Shiite authority, declared Eid to fall on Monday, the Kurdistan Regional Government announced Sunday as the first day of celebration, citing its own crescent sightings.

In contrast, countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, and Lebanon confirmed the crescent moon’s sighting on Saturday and will observe Eid on Sunday.

The Saudi Royal Court and the UAE Presidential Court issued formal statements after their respective moon-sighting committees convened and verified the start of Shawwal.

In Lebanon, Sunni authorities confirmed Sunday as Eid, while the Shiite Higher Islamic Council postponed its decision until Sunday evening, suggesting Eid could fall on Monday or Tuesday for Shiite communities, depending on visibility.

At the time of writing this article, a total of 11 countries had announced that they would celebrate Eid on Sunday, while 15 others declared Monday as the first day of Eid. A number of other countries were still awaiting local crescent sightings or had yet to issue official statements.