[tz] Timezones Morocco 2013 incorrect

[Tim Thornton]

Whether Ramadan is based on observation or astronomical prediction seems to vary according to the branch of Islam, so I guess that it may be uniform across the country or vary from sect to sect, depending on the make up of Muslims in the country.
However from some work I did on predicting prayer times etc, when based on observation it is generally within a day of calculations. So I suggest that where Ramadan is based on observations the practical approach that gives the right answer most often is to set up a rule based on calculation, and then modify it for observation each year if necessary - though because of the time needed to receive the info and incorporate it into a release, the adjustment will really only be for historical purposes.
Tim

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-----Original Message-----
From: tz-bounces at iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces at iana.org] On Behalf Of Paul Eggert
Sent: 02 March 2013 02:21
To: Erik Homoet
Cc: Sascha von Gualtieri; tz at iana.org
Subject: Re: [tz] Timezones Morocco 2013 incorrect

On 02/28/13 02:46, Erik Homoet wrote:

> Morocco is also on Wintertime during the month of Ramadan.

Thank you for the heads-up.  Can you please point us at a local, reliable source for this news?  Presumably timeanddate.com got it from somewhere.  An English-language source would be preferred, but Arabic is OK.

The Wikipedia article "Daylight saving time in Morocco"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_Morocco>
says "starting in 2012, clocks shall be advanced 60 minutes at
02:00 on the last Sunday of April of each year, and return to UTC at 03:00 on the last Sunday of September of the same year, with the exception of the holy month of Ramadan, during which DST will not be observed."  But the sources it cites don't actually seem to say this.

Which raises the question: how is Ramadan determined in Morocco?
Is it a government decree long in advance, or is it decided based on visual sightings of the crescent moon?  If the latter, it's going to be hard for us to predict the daylight-saving transitions.