Source: The Times-Picayune
On February 23, 2002, The Times-Picayune reported that "more than 1,000 New Orleans-area Muslims turned out to pray Friday morning to mark the Eid ul-Adha, one of Islam's two great public feasts. But the crowd was smaller than usual this year, because Muslims across the United States are divided over whether the feast fell Friday or today, an uncertainty born in the difficulty of sighting a thin crescent moon suspended in a sunset... The split highlights the work of a small corps of American Muslim scientists who hope to bring a measure of scientific assurance to the ancient human task of moon-sighting that sets the dates for Islamic feasts. But their work is not accepted even by all American Muslims... But as the split celebrations this weekend show, American Muslims are not agreed whether to set their calendars to a local, scientifically confirmed sighting promulgated by ISNA, or to one elsewhere in the world that may be astronomically dubious."