Unforeseen challenge for Europe’s new Muslims

Today marks the start of the Muslim festival of Ramadan.

This will be the longest Ramadan for the past 33 years, extending even longer the time when Muslims are forbidden to eat or drink during daylight hours. As followers of the faith have spread to the furthest reaches of Europe, this has some unforeseen consequences for those who have chosen to reside beyond the Arctic Circle.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar but because this is shorter than the solar calendar it moves back by 11 days every year. This means that every few years or so Ramadan will fall over the summer months.

This is all very well if you live in Mecca, where the daylight hours are pretty much constant throughout the year and it is fairly easy to handle the extra discipline to get up a little earlier for breakfast and eat dinner in the evening slightly later, out with the daylight hours as the rules require.

But spare a thought though for the 2000 or so hardy Muslims living in the far reaches of Finnmark in the very north of Norway. There in the summer the sun sinks below the horizon for barely a couple of hours every 24, leaving famished followers a tiny window to stock up on food and drink for the long day ahead.

They will be looking forward to the holiday of Eid ul-Fitr marking the end of Ramadan with more celebration than most.

Communicating the word of Allah to the furthest reaches of the world would seem to be hungrier work for some more than others.

This post post first appeared on the Cowbrough Communications blog on June 6