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ndonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, said the government should leave the task of deciding the first day of Ramadhan and Idul Fitri to Muslims and not meddle in the affair.

“The government should only decide national holidays for all,” Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Din also said there should be no problems if Muslims decided to start fasting on different days.

He said any such differences had occurred for years and would not cause a split in the country’s Muslim community.

“We don’t need to exaggerate this. Fasting should be conducted based on personal faith,” he said.

Muhammadiyah has decided that the Ramadhan fasting month will begin on July 20, which is likely to be different from what the largest Muslim organization in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama, will determine, which is set for July 21.

The government will convene a meeting to decide the start of Ramadhan on July 18, during which all Muslim organizations in the country are set to propose when Muslims can start to fast.

For the first time in its history, Muhammadiyah will not send a representative to the meeting, arguing that its absence would ease tensions.

Muhammadiyah has also set the date for the Idul Fitri holiday on Aug. 19.

Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Nasaruddin Umar called on Muhammadiyah to rethink its decision to sit out the Ramadhan meeting.

“We call on Muhammadiyah to join the meeting,” Nasaruddin told reporters in Malang, East Java.

Nasaruddin said that the meeting would be crucial to settle differences among Muslim organizations and also that it would come up with a uniform date for when Muslims could start fasting.

Earlier, an expert suggested that the country needed a special body that had the authority to determine the first day of the Ramadhan and Syawal months according to the Islamic calendar so that differences on the first day of
fasting and the day of celebration for Idul Fitri would not keep on reoccurring,

Imam Yahya, the dean of the School of Sharia from the State Islamic Science Institute (IAIN) at Walisongo in Semarang, Central Java, said that other majority Muslim countries, such as in the Middle East, already had such authoritative bodies.