Sunspot timings at Ramadan: The best and worst places to observe Muslim festival
In Australia Muslims will have to fast for less than 12 hours because Ramadan falls in the middle of winter, but in Iceland and Finland the fasting day can last for more than 21 hours
Muslim pilgrims wait outside Mecca's Grand Mosque
Starting tomorrow millions of Muslims around the world will fast from first light to sunset for Ramadan.
The month long festival is an opportunity for many Muslims to reconnect with their faith and re-charge their spirituality. Fasting is a key part of that, a feat of endurance and self control that draws them closer to God.
But not all of them face the same challenge.
Every country - and even every city - in the world has its own unique Ramadan timetable based on what time the sun rises and sets.
They are called
‘sunspot’ timings and they are keenly discussed in the days leading up to Ramadan.
They also vary from year to year as the start and finish dates for Ramadan change depending on the lunar calendar.
In Australia, the month long festival will take place in the middle of winter. That means Muslims living there have a relatively easy task.
In Sydney the fast will last for just 11 hours and 24 minutes - from sunrise at 5.29am to sunset at 16.53pm - shorter than anywhere else on the planet.
By comparison Muslims living in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, where the summer sun hardly sets, face the daunting prospect of fasting for 21 hours and 57 minutes each day, from 2.03am until midnight.
British Muslims fall somewhere in between those two extremes. T
hose living in London will be required to fast for 18 hours and 45 minutes, from 2.39am to 9.24pm.
In countries where the days last longest, such as Iceland and Finland, fasting can be an truly exhausting.
Shah Jalal Miah Masud lives
in the Finnish town of Rovaniemi on the edge of the Arctic circle, 500 miles north of the capital Helsinki.
The summer is effectively one unended day.
“It doesn’t get dark,” he says. “It always looks like the same, the sun is always on the horizon.”
He admits abstaining from food and drink for such long periods leaves him tired and hungry,
but nonetheless he says it is a pleasure for him to observe Ramadan during the long days.
Not everyone is able to fast for that long, so some scholars recommend a different approach. In some countries,
if the fasting day lasts longer than 18 hours Muslims can use the times in Mecca.
The holy city in Saudi Arabia is close to the equator and therefore less susceptible to seasonal fluctuations in the length of day. This year the fasting day is a more manageable 15 hours and 47 minutes.
Nafisa Yeasmin, a researcher at the University of Lapland, is one of those who chose to follow the Mecca timetable with her husband and two children. However, it is not an easy decision.
“It was very difficult to fast for 20 hours because in Bangladesh we are used to 12 hours daytime and 12 hours night-time,” she says.
“Then I thought, not any more. I have to follow Mecca’s timetable. But I’m a little bit worried whether Allah will accept it or not.
How long the fasting day lasts around the world
Tokyo: from 2:36am to 7:00pm. 16 hours and 24 minutes.
Mecca: from 4.10am to 7.57pm. 15 hours and 47 minutes.
Moscow: from 3:51am to 9:45pm. 17 hours and 54 minutes.
London: from 2.39am to 9.24pm. 18 hours and 45 minutes.
New York: from 3:44am to 8:31pm. 16 hours and 47 minutes.
Durban: from 5:24am to 5:05pm. 11 hours and 41 minutes.
Rio: from 5:12am to 5:17pm. 12 hours and 5 minutes.
Sunspot timings at Ramadan: The best and worst places to observe Muslim festival - Mirror Online
Politics and Society | Iceland Monitor | Thu 18 Jun 2015 | 13.38 GMT | Modified at 17.04
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Iceland’s Muslims face longest fast
Photo: Eggert Jóhannesson
Muslims in Iceland have the longest Ramadan fast of any Muslims in the world, with 21 hours between sunrise and sunset in Iceland in mid-June.
Ramadan is holy month of Islam and observance of fasting during this time is one of the five pillars of the religion.
Around a quarter of the world’s population is estimated to be Muslim.
Muslims refrain from consuming food and drink between sunrise and sunset, but the implications of this can vary wildly depending on where you are in the world.
21 hours of daylight in Reykjavik in June
While there are
just nine hours of fasting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at this time of year there are around
21 hours between official sunrise and sunset times in Reykjavik. The timing of Ramadan changes from year to year, and in 2015 the holy month begins today – just a few days before the height of midsummer in the northern hemisphere.
According to the
Quartz website, “
Sheikh Usama Hasan, a senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based Islamic think tank, has issued a fatwa, saying that Muslims in Europe can follow the ‘morning till evening’ principle and fast according to timings of the nearest ‘moderate land’”.
In practice, this means that Muslims in Europe can base their fasting times on Mecca, the holiest city in the religion of Islam, i.e. twelve hours of fasting.
Rules are rules?
However, according to Imam Khalid Latif, Executive Director at the Islamic Centre at New York University and chaplain with the New York Police Department, “the
fatwa cannot be applicable everywhere. The fast should be from dawn till dusk, which here in New York is 3:30 am to 8:30pm,” he told Quartz.
“To have a broad-based assumption that longer fasting days should be shortened is problematic,” Imam Khalid says. “In our community, from 3:30am to 8:30pm, we will be fasting the long days, and we will encourage people to do so.”
Iceland’s Muslims face longest fast - Iceland Monitor
