Eat, drink, and be not so merry!

In Iqaluit, Nunavut, labourers are working long hours to finish the region’s first mosque before winter. And they’re doing so without eating or drinking anything, even water, for almost 22 hours each day.

Like Muslims around the world, the mosque’s construction crew is observing the holy month of Ramadan — which moves based on the lunar calendar and this year falls during summer — by fasting from sunrise to sunset. Summertime means longer days without food for Muslims across the Northern Hemisphere.

It is particularly challenging for the thousands who live near the Arctic Circle, where the sun barely sets.

In Iqaluit, one of Canada’s northernmost cities, dusk begins around 11:00 p.m. By about 2:00 a.m., the sun is up again, giving Muslims less than three hours a day to eat and drink. (The land of the midnight sun does not offer much time for repast.)

(In Inuvik, Northwest Territories, home to the northernmost mosque in the Western Hemisphere, there is currently daylight 24 hours a day ......, and all of the Muslims up there who haven't moved further south have starved to death since the beginning of Ramadan! -Ed.)


 http://news.nationalpost.com/news/religion/ramadan-in-the-arctic?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29