A final decision is made when a conference call by the Islamic Shura Council is made to decide if the moon has been sighted or not. This includes its own four representatives, two Muslim astronomers and a few representatives from the North American Fiqh Council. Scholars from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, the U.S. and Canada unanimously agreed that the position taken by Shura council on moonsighting is the best one under guidelines of the Quran and Sunnah for the North American context. Yet, it is not uncommon to find different Muslim countries beginning and ending of Islamic months on varying days. Shaukat explains that this is because of the method they use to determine the month's beginning and end.
Some countries go by actual physical sighting of the moon.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, UK, the United States, Canada and the West Indies uses this method. Some countries calculate different things about the position of the moon. Saudi Arabia, for example, calculates when is the new moon is born and then follow these calculations when deciding when an Islamic month begins and ends. Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei determine Islamic events and dates by the calculation of the position of the moon at sunset in their country. If the moon is two degrees above the horizon and three degrees away from the sun then they consider that the new month has begun.