Ramadan fast is probably the longest and the strictest of the ritual fasts, which the adherents of many faiths observe during auspicious days. Hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world abstain from eating and drinking from early dawn to dusk. They also shun sex with their spouses during the fasting hours.
While the scriptures prescribe fasting from dawn to dusk, the fasting hours are actually determined by geography and vary from one country to another. The geography of a place, naturally, also determines how hard fasting would be for the faithful: people in the relatively cooler areas find Ramadan days less daunting in summers.
Some places pose a dilemma. In Tromsø, a city located in Norway’s northernmost region, about 350 km north of the Arctic Circle, the phenomenon of “midnight sun” occurs between late May and the end of July. The sun doesn’t set. So the miniscule Muslim community of the city corresponds their fast to the closest Islamic country, or with Mecca, according to a fatwa.