How to adopt fasting hours in the extremely long summers
Question:
Assalaam alaykum brother,
First of all I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to ask questions. I have read your article 'Fasting During the Long Summer Days in Some Western Countries'. I found the article very interesting and I agree with many points raised in it. I'm more inclined to what you call 'Less Dominant View'.
My question is:
I live in the Netherlands, in this coming Ramadhan we will fasting form around 03:00 in the morning to 22:00 in the evening. That is about19 hours of fasting. Is it allowed to shorten this period? If it is allowed when should I stop fasting?
Thanks for your time and effort.
May Allah reward you in Dunya and Akhera.
Answer:
Yes, in my view, when the time in between fajr and maghrib is abnormally long (long is generally considered to be 18 hours or above), we can shorten the fast based on ijtihad. Once you agree that this is an ijtihadi issue, then within reasonable principles any view on how to practice it will be acceptable. Ideally, if there was a community of Muslims who would follow this ijtihad then we would simply follow the way that they would practice it, however this does not seem to be the case for now.
So I let you know what some of the options are and end by sharing with you what I do in Scotland. You can then choose what you feel most comfortable with:
Option 1: Adopt the time table of the closest Muslim city, e.g. Tangier in Morocco if you are in the UK. You can see its time table from here.
Option 2: See the timetable of Mecca, see the difference between dawn and maghrib during the month of Ramadhan (it is around 15 hours this year). Simply add 15 hours to your local fajr time and that will be your iftar time.
Option 3: Similar to the above but this time make your iftar time as the base, deduct 15 hours to find your suhur time.
Option 4: Simply go with what is conventionally (not astronomically) expected the beginning of dawn and beginning of sunset to be. Again based on Mecca time table, this can be deducted to be 4:00 AM for dawn and 7:00 PM for Maghrib.
What I do:
In the month of June Suhur (fajr) in my place is around 1:30 AM and Maghrib is around 10:30 PM. I have my suhur by 1:30, then do iftar at the same time as Mecca, which at this time varies slightly around 7:00 PM.
The advantage of this method in my thinking is that I will have the suhur in accordance to my local time and with the rest of the Muslims in my place, and will break my fast at a time that is common sense Layl (evening). Note verse 2:187 while referring to the actual son dawn time as the start of the fasting, for the end of fasting mentions 'night' (layl). As I consider the language of the Qur'an to be the language of common conversation (Urf) rather that the scientific language (Ilm), to me 'night' in this verse means what is known as night time by the common sense, that is around 7:00 PM.
I hope this helps and if you have any further questions please do let me know.
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Related topics:
- Fasting During the Long Summer Days in Some Western Countries
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June 2015
Farhad Shafti
Assalaam alaykum brother,
First of all I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to ask questions. I have read your article 'Fasting During the Long Summer Days in Some Western Countries'. I found the article very interesting and I agree with many points raised in it. I'm more inclined to what you call 'Less Dominant View'.
My question is:
I live in the Netherlands, in this coming Ramadhan we will fasting form around 03:00 in the morning to 22:00 in the evening. That is about19 hours of fasting. Is it allowed to shorten this period? If it is allowed when should I stop fasting?
Thanks for your time and effort.
May Allah reward you in Dunya and Akhera.
Answer:
Yes, in my view, when the time in between fajr and maghrib is abnormally long (long is generally considered to be 18 hours or above), we can shorten the fast based on ijtihad. Once you agree that this is an ijtihadi issue, then within reasonable principles any view on how to practice it will be acceptable. Ideally, if there was a community of Muslims who would follow this ijtihad then we would simply follow the way that they would practice it, however this does not seem to be the case for now.
So I let you know what some of the options are and end by sharing with you what I do in Scotland. You can then choose what you feel most comfortable with:
Option 1: Adopt the time table of the closest Muslim city, e.g. Tangier in Morocco if you are in the UK. You can see its time table from here.
Option 2: See the timetable of Mecca, see the difference between dawn and maghrib during the month of Ramadhan (it is around 15 hours this year). Simply add 15 hours to your local fajr time and that will be your iftar time.
Option 3: Similar to the above but this time make your iftar time as the base, deduct 15 hours to find your suhur time.
Option 4: Simply go with what is conventionally (not astronomically) expected the beginning of dawn and beginning of sunset to be. Again based on Mecca time table, this can be deducted to be 4:00 AM for dawn and 7:00 PM for Maghrib.
What I do:
In the month of June Suhur (fajr) in my place is around 1:30 AM and Maghrib is around 10:30 PM. I have my suhur by 1:30, then do iftar at the same time as Mecca, which at this time varies slightly around 7:00 PM.
The advantage of this method in my thinking is that I will have the suhur in accordance to my local time and with the rest of the Muslims in my place, and will break my fast at a time that is common sense Layl (evening). Note verse 2:187 while referring to the actual son dawn time as the start of the fasting, for the end of fasting mentions 'night' (layl). As I consider the language of the Qur'an to be the language of common conversation (Urf) rather that the scientific language (Ilm), to me 'night' in this verse means what is known as night time by the common sense, that is around 7:00 PM.
I hope this helps and if you have any further questions please do let me know.
-------
Related topics:
- Fasting During the Long Summer Days in Some Western Countries
--------
June 2015
Farhad Shafti
