The moon has spoken.
Tonight, roughly 2 billion Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr — the festival of breaking the fast — marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Saudi Arabian moon spotters officially confirmed the date after the Shawwal crescent was not sighted on the evening of March 18, completing a full 30 days of fasting . And so, from Tirana to Istanbul, from Riyadh to Bologna, families are gathering, children are receiving gifts, and the warm smell of sweets fills homes that spent a month in quiet devotion.
I'm not Muslim. But I don't need to share someone's faith to share their joy — or their prayers.
What Eid al-Fitr Means
Let me break this down for those unfamiliar — and I'll keep the science and theology simple, as I always try to do at FreeAstroScience. Eid al-Fitr literally translates to "festival of breaking the fast" . During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset, dedicating themselves to prayer, reflection, and worship. When the waxing crescent moon — the Shawwal moon — is finally spotted in the sky, Ramadan ends and Eid begins.
Think of it as the universe's own starting pistol.
Not a clock, not a calendar committee — a sliver of reflected sunlight on the lunar surface, visible to the naked eye, determines when hundreds of millions of people sit down to eat together again. As an astronomer, I find this breathtaking. The Islamic Hijri calendar follows a lunar cycle, which means Eid shifts about 11 days earlier each year compared to the Gregorian calendar we commonly use . Time isn't just what we decide it is — it's also what the cosmos shows us. The moon doesn't care about our schedules. It simply appears, or it doesn't.
And we wait. Patience is the whole point.
In Islam, Eid al-Fitr symbolises that by being patient and steadfast, we can earn great rewards . After a month of physical and spiritual discipline, the celebration is a reward — a day characterised by communal prayer, spending time with loved ones, wearing one's best clothes, and sharing food and gifts. Children receive money and presents, known as "Eidi". Muslims greet each other with "Eid Mubarak" — meaning "blessed festival".
It's a day that says: you endured, and now you celebrate. Together.
A Wheelchair, a Constitution, and a Prayer
I write this from Tirana, Albania — the country where I was born in 1986, before my family moved to Italy so I could receive medical treatment for dystonia, the movement disorder I've lived with my entire life. I know something about patience. I know something about waiting for the light to appear.
And I know something about peace.
Section 6 of the FreeAstroScience Constitution states it plainly: "FreeAstroScience unreservedly rejects war as a source of suffering for peoples and promotes dialogue and peace among peoples and between states" . We didn't write those words lightly. We wrote them because we believe — with every fibre of our being — that science, culture, and education are the antidotes to violence.
Today, as Eid prayers rise from mosques across the globe, I join them.
Not from a minaret, but from my wheelchair. Not with a specific religious tradition, but with a universal human one — the tradition of hoping, stubbornly and relentlessly, that tomorrow will be kinder than today. Our Constitution also says we respect all religions but maintain no religious identity, promoting ethical values and human rights while strongly condemning all fanaticism and intolerance . That's the spirit in which I write these words.
The Moon Doesn't Pick Sides
Here's what I love about the crescent moon determining Eid. The moon doesn't belong to any nation. It doesn't recognise borders. It doesn't distinguish between the powerful and the powerless. When it appears over Gaza, it's the same moon that appears over Washington. When it rises above Kyiv, it's the same pale arc visible from Moscow.
The same physics governs its light everywhere.
I've spent years studying celestial mechanics — the gravitational dance between Earth, Moon, and Sun that produces the crescent we see. To simplify: the crescent becomes visible when the Moon moves just far enough from the Sun's glare after a new moon phase, reflecting a thin sliver of sunlight back toward Earth. It's geometry. It's optics. It's gravity.
And it's the same for everyone.
That's the thing about science — it doesn't discriminate. The laws of physics apply equally to every human being on this planet, regardless of religion, nationality, or ability. FreeAstroScience was built on this conviction — that knowledge is a universal right, that no one is inherently incapable of understanding the world around them .
Wars End. The Moon Keeps Rising.
I won't pretend that a blog post can stop a war. I'm not that naive. But I do believe that every voice raised for peace adds weight to the right side of history. Every community that gathers in celebration rather than destruction proves that humans are capable of something better.
Eid al-Fitr was first established by Prophet Muhammad in Madinah in 624 CE, during the second year after the Hijra . That's nearly 1,400 years of people looking up at the sky, spotting a crescent, and choosing joy. Fourteen centuries of families breaking bread. Of children laughing. Of neighbours embracing.
Wars have come and gone in those centuries. Empires have risen and crumbled.
The moon kept rising.
It will keep rising after our wars end, too. And they will end. They always do. What remains is what people built in the quiet moments between — the meals shared, the prayers whispered, the hands held across tables heavy with food and love.
To Everyone Celebrating — and Everyone Hurting
From FreeAstroScience — from our global community of tens of thousands of science lovers, students, teachers, dreamers, and stubborn optimists — I say with all my heart:
Eid Mubarak.
May your tables be full. May your families be close. May the crescent moon remind you, as it reminds me every time I look through a telescope, that we're all sharing the same small, fragile, extraordinary world.
And to those suffering right now — in conflict zones, in hospitals, in refugee camps, in silence — know that you're not forgotten. Our Constitution isn't just words on a page. It's a promise. We reject war. We choose dialogue. We choose peace .
I've spent my life in a wheelchair, navigating a body that doesn't always cooperate, surviving surgeries that left scars both visible and invisible. If there's one thing dystonia has taught me, it's this: the human spirit is far more resilient than the human body. We bend. We break. We heal. We keep going.
Never give up.
The moon always comes back. So does hope.
Gerd Dani is the Founder and President of FreeAstroScience, an astronomy graduate from the University of Bologna with a Master's in Physics from the University of Milan. He writes from Tirana, Albania, and believes that science and kindness can change the world — one crescent moon at a time.
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