RAMADAN IN THE POLAR REGIONS OF THE WORLD
Ramadan, being one of the pillars of Islam comes with immense benefits. It is a month of spiritual reflection. And except for genuine reasons, missing any part of it would not be accepted by Almighty Allah as it has been made compulsory on every believing muslim as stated in the Quran. Allah says in Quran 2 vs 183 thus:
“O you who believe!, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil)”.
Muslims begin their fast after eating a recommended sahur in the early hours of dawn (just before sunrise) and break at sunset. Allah says in Quran 2:187 thus;
“…… and eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct to you from the black thread, then complete the fast till nightfall….”. It was narrated by Adi ibn Hatim, may Allah be pleased with him, that when the above verse was revealed “he took two strands of hair, one black and the other white, and kept them under his pillow and went on looking at them throughout the night but could not make anything out of it. So, the next morning he went to Allah’s Messenger, peace be upon him and told him the whole story. He explained, that verse means the darkness of night and the whiteness of dawn”. (Reported by al-Bukhari)
The narrations above explain the fasting hours that have been recommended for muslims to follow. It is worthy of note that the Hijrah calendar followed by the muslim is based on the lunar calendar. This calendar is such that it lags behind the Gregorian calendar by 11 days every year. Due to this lag, Ramadan falls in different times yearly and falls in about the same time every thirty three(33) years.
The amount of daylight a place experiences depends on its latitude and on how the earth orbits the sun. The orientation of the earth’s axis to the sun changes throughout the year as the earth revolves round the sun. Sometimes, the axis of the earth points towards the sun and at other times it points away from it. As this orientation changes throughout the year, so also does the distribution of sunlight on earth’s surface at any given latitude. With this in mind and also the frequent change in timing of Ramadan, places around the world experience different daylight hours. Countries such as Saudi Arabia may not have a change in their daylight hours because they are close to the equator and the orientation of the earth to the sun does not affect them much, while those that live close to the poles (far away from the equator) experience the reverse. These daylight hours are crucial to the observation of fasts during Ramadan and the observation of salats. Because the sun rises and sets at different times in different regions of the world, fasting hours also differ.
Even though most muslims all over the world fast between an average of 15 to 16 hours out of the 24 hours in a day leaving them with about 8 hours to be merry, there are some regions of the world faced with the dilemma of how long to fast because they experience longer daylight hours. Usually people are unable to do away with eating and drinking for that long and the number of hours to eat is usually very short. These areas are the places close to geographic pole. Countries in this area include, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Alaska, Iceland and so on. For example, in Iceland this month, the sun sets at midnight and rises two hours later.
Usually, fasting hours are longer in the summer than in the winter. Until recently, Ramadan has not been fallen within summer. The last time Ramadan fell in the summer months was about three decades ago and near the mid 1980s and in this period there was barely a muslim community North of the pole. This year, Ramadan has fallen very deep within summer thereby making the daylight even longer and the polar regions with a rising muslim population.
According to wiki Islam, As you go North or South of the pole, the day or night might extend for up to several months each. At the Northpole itself, daylight and darkness lasts more than six(6) months each. What this means is that the sun will be in the sky for most hours of the days throughout the daylight period and during the darkness period, converse is the case.
The phenomenon whereby the sun never sets is regarded as “The Midnight Sun”. This natural phenomenon occurs in summer months in the north of the Arctic Ocean and south of the Antarctic circle. The opposite is known as “Polar Night”. Here, the sun remains below the horizon during winter. This means that in this period there is persistent darkness and very little daylight.
There are several ways in which people that live in these regions deal with their dilemma. They have a fatwa (clerical decree) and scholars have differed on the ways. They include: Using the timing of the closest city that has a distinguishable daylight from nighttime hours, the European council for Fatwa and Research also issues guidelines on the fasting hours, they also use the time zone of Saudi Arabia and they can use their local time zones for those that are able to deal with fasting for that long.
In conclusion, Up until now there has been no single widely accepted way of going about it. Muslims in this region use whichever they have faith in to be the more appropriate.
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