KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
With Ramazan underway, Muslims living in the Arctic Circle are experiencing some of the most challenging conditions for Ramazan as they experience 24 hours of sunlight.
Areas including Lapland, Finland and Sweden experience little or no sundown during the summer months.
Fasting starts at 1:35 in the morning and ends at 12:48 in the evening. So [fasting] lasts for 23 hours, 5 minutes.
Muslims in nearby countries with similar sunlight conditions have reportedly found other ways of adapting. Some other Muslims who live in Lapland, most of them follow the Middle East timetable, as they follow the nearest Islamic country, Turkey.
In Denmark Muslims fast for 21 hours while in Iceland, Sweden and Norway fasting lasts for at-least 20 hours.
In Netherlands and Belgium, the fasting lasts for 18 hours and 30 minutes followed by 17 hours of fasting in Spain and 16 hours and 30 minutes in Germany. England is observing one of the longest fasts in 33 years varying from 16-19 hours as per the location. US, France and Italy have 16 hours of fasting.
In Middle East: UAE fasts for 15 hours, Egypt is observing fast for 16 hours and Palestine for 15 hours. The country of Yemen is fasting for 14 hours and 50 minutes while Muslims in Qatar are observing fast for 14 hours and 40 minutes. Fasting lasts for 14 hours in Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Sudan. Saudi Arabia too has 15 hours of fasting.
In Asia: Pakistan observes 15-16 hours of fasting while Muslims in Bangladesh fast for 15 hours. The fasting hours in India vary between 14-16 hours.
Meanwhile Argentina and Australia observe the shortest fasts this year. Fasting lasts for 9 hours and 30 minutes in Argentina while there is 10 hours of fasting for Australian Muslims. Brazil fasts for 11 hours.
