criticism of opinion of consideration of commonness of horizon in proving commencement of lunar month

according to islamic hadiths, one way of provingcommencement of lunar month is testimonial evidence(bayyina). it should be discussed in this connection that if somerighteous-trustworthy evidence saw the moon in one region, towhat spatial extent would their testimony be acceptable? is itthe whole earth or some part of it? mantuq of hadiths on fastingare restricted by no spatial condition of authority of testimonialevidence of observing moon; that is why they are lexicallyabsolute-although they have no absoluteness of the position inthis connection due to sphericity of the earth and it cannot beaccepted that lunar month could commence simultaneously inthe whole world. that is why one should look for some criteriaamong hadiths for division of regions in proving the new moon.shi‘a jurists mostly hold that one can take testimony of thetestimonial evidence if the horizon is the same or it is close towhere the moon is observed; otherwise, observation of eyewitness would not be sufficient. their chief reason for theirclaim is diversion (insiraf) of hadiths. the truth, however, isthat such diversion is not realized and therefore that claim is notacceptable, because of lack of traditional support as well as notpresenting any precise criteria for closeness and farness in theirverdicts. that is why one should look for another criterion forsuch division.