Muslims began fasting for the start of the Ramazan holy month Friday in Indonesia and Thailand, where the sombre occasion was marred by two bomb blasts that killed one person and injured seven, officials said. The Muhammadiyah group, Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organisation, told its 30 million followers that Ramadan starts Friday.
The government, however, declared the official start as Saturday when most of the remaining 190 million Indonesians will begin the dawn-to-dusk fast. Muslims in Buddhist-dominated Thailand also began Ramadan on Friday, while India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Bangladesh will start Saturday or Sunday. The Muslim holy month devoted to dawn-to-dusk fasting, prayers and good deeds culminates with the three-day holiday of Eidul-Fitr.
Muslims believe God revealed the first verses of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan, which starts with the sighting of the new moon. The Muslim lunar calendar moves back through the seasons, so Ramadan starts 11 days earlier each year under the Western calendar. The holy month started ominously in southern Thailand, the region where most Thai Muslims live and where an insurgency has claimed thousands of lives. The car bombing started fires at shops and residences and sent black smoke wafting from a row of four-story buildings in a commercial area of Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat province.
Seven people were injured, including four who were briefly trapped on the roof of a burning building, said police Colonel Maitree Chimcherd. He said Muslim insurgents hid the homemade bomb in a pickup truck parked in front of a computer store. On Thursday night, a roadside bomb killed a villager and wounded his companion while they were hunting for squirrels in the woods in Yala province, said police Colonel Wichai Jaengsakul.