The holy month of Ramadan will start on Thursday, authorities in Gulf countries except Oman have announced, based on the expected sighting of the crescent moon.
Officials in the Palestinian territories and in Egypt also announced that Ramadan would begin on Thursday.
Meanwhile, authorities in Oman, Jordan, Algeria and Morocco said they will wait until Wednesday to decide whether Ramadan would start on Thursday or Friday.
According to the official Saudi Press Agency, the supreme court of Saudi Arabia has announced that the Islamic calendar month of Shaban, which comes before Ramadan, will end on Wednesday evening, and as a result, the Muslim holy month will commence on the subsequent day.
Ramadan is determined by the Islamic lunar calendar, which begins at the first sight of the moon.
Muslims believe that Ramadan is the month in which the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago.
