Vreleksá Forum Index Vreleksá
The Alurhsa Word for Constructed: Creativity in both scripts and languages
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Ramadan in an Arctic Summer

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Vreleksá Forum Index -> Random Chat
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
eldin raigmore
Admin


Joined: 03 May 2007
Posts: 1621
Location: SouthEast Michigan

PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:10 pm    Post subject: Ramadan in an Arctic Summer Reply with quote

This year Ramadan is in the Northern Temperate Zone's Summer.

Because Ramadan is a lunar month in a calendar year of twelve lunar months, it moves slowly through the seasons of the solar year. Twelve years ago it was in winter.

During Ramadan an observant Muslim fasts -- not even water -- from sunup to sundown. In the Tropics the seasons aren't Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall; and in them and also in the Temperate Zones close to the Tropics, the difference between the long days and short nights of Summer and the short days and long nights of Winter is not so great.

But the further from the Tropics, and the closer to the Poles, one gets in the Temperate Zones, the bigger the difference in length-of-day vs length-of-night between Summer and Winter.

So in the northern part of the Northern Temperate Zone, or the southern part of the Southern Temperate Zone, Ramadan in Summer is a bit of a hardship, because the daytime, when one must fast, is long, and the nighttime, when one may drink and eat, is short.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know there are Muslims living north of 50 degrees North latitude; are any of them here on the board?
Do any Muslims live north of 60 degrees North latitude?
The Arctic Circle is at 66-and-a-half degrees North latitude; do any Muslims live north of that? (For instance, Point Barrow Alaska is at 71 degrees North latitude).

I'm pretty sure no Muslims live south of 66-and-a-half degrees South latitude; am I right about that?
Do any Muslims live south of 60 degrees south latitude?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do observant Muslims handle Ramadan in the summertime if they live in "the land of the midnight sun"? Since most people can't survive much longer than about three weeks without food, nor more than about three days without water, what do they do about food when the sun doesn't go down for three or more weeks during Ramadan, or about water when the sun doesn't go down for three or more days during Ramadan?
I would figure the sensible thing to do would be for the northerners to move a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle, or the southerners to move a few degrees north of the Antarctic Circle, for the duration of Ramadan or of the midnight sun, whichever is shorter.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A similar question comes up if Ramadan is during a long night; if the sun doesn't rise for three or more days, or even for three or more weeks. Here the question is, not how to keep from dying of thirst or hunger, but, how to fast for Ramadan at all?
_________________
"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kiri



Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Posts: 471
Location: Latvia/Italy

PostPosted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry, I'm not a muslim, so I can't answer to your given question.
I just wanted to complement Eldin. You amaze me, man. Smile Cool
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Aeetlrcreejl



Joined: 08 Jun 2007
Posts: 839
Location: Over yonder

PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I, being a Muslim, asked this question at a mosque. The answer: use the times in the farthest north/south latitude that has no midnight sun.
_________________
Iwocwá ĵọṭãsák.
/iwotSwa_H d`Z`Ot`~asa_Hk/
[iocwa_H d`Z`Ot`_h~a_Hk]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
eldin raigmore
Admin


Joined: 03 May 2007
Posts: 1621
Location: SouthEast Michigan

PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, both of you.

Kiri wrote:
Sorry, I'm not a muslim, so I can't answer to your given question.
I just wanted to complement Eldin. You amaze me, man. Smile Cool
Aww, shucks! Embarassed

Aeetlrcreejl wrote:
I, being a Muslim, asked this question at a mosque. The answer: use the times in the farthest north/south latitude that has no midnight sun.
That's one of the answers I got. I also got: "use your home town's schedule"; "use Mecca's schedule"; "use Mecca's schedule shifted to your current timezone"; "use an arbitrary 6AM to 6PM"; "whatever your local imam or other Muslim-community-religious-leader thinks".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But I got to thinking of other possible problems.
There's a neat short-story I read about a bunch of Orthodox Jews living in an O'Neill colony at either the L4 or the L5 Lagrangian libration point in the Moon's orbit about the Earth; they couldn't agree on when Passover started.
David Drake has a "Hammer's Slammers" novel (Counting the Cost) in which the Slammers are backup for the main heroes, the United Defense Batteries (because Drake wanted to write about artillery). The planet they're employed on is a lot like Byzantium of the Middle Ages, specifically the Nike riots between the Blues and the Greens during Justinian's imperium when Theodora was his empress. (See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7RNWI&q=Byzantium+Nike+Blues+Greens+Justinian+Theodora&aq=f&oq=&aqi=.) In Drake's story it's the Reds and the Blacks; they disagree over the dating of Easter. The planet's dictator (?) and his wife are one a Black and the other a Red. (There are also two young legitimate heirs "in whose name" the dictator is, so he claims, the Regent; their existence is the root of the trouble, so the main Slammer character eventually kills them, not for any offense of their own, but just because their survival provokes disorder.)

So, I started wondering, about religious events of any sort that are traditionally scheduled according either to: Earth's seasons; or the waxing or waning of Earth's moon; or Earth's tides; or the rising or setting of Earth's sun.
The world's religions have already handled the problems caused by the facts that the Northern and Southern seasons are opposite; by the fact that the Tropics don't really have the same four seasons as the Temperate Zones anyway; by the fact that northof the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle daylight and nighttime can last six months; and by the fact that sunrise and noon and sunset are not globally simultaneous, but rather happen at different times in different time-zones.

But what about a colony on the Moon? How do they even tell when the Moon is full? or new? How do they, or people in Lagrangian orbits sixty degrees ahead of or behind the Moon, tell when sunrise or sunset is? If people ever live on Mars or Venus, how about them?

I would think that, closish to Earth, they might choose the solution "whatever Jerusalem is doing at the moment" or "whatever Rome is doing at the moment" or "whatever Mecca is doing at the moment" or some such etc.

But even the distance from Earth to the Moon -- indeed, even the shorter distance from the Earth to a global positioning satellite in geosynchronous orbit -- is enough that speed-of-light delays in radio signals are important; in fact between Earth and Moon they're quite noticeable, even annoying, for people trying to use a radio to talk to one another.

So, if a community including some people in one of these religions, are all born and live their whole lives a light-month or further from Earth, will they still be able to do this?
What about a light-year or further? (That's only a quarter of the way to Alpha Centauri, the closest other star(s).)

I'd think once you were a light-year away or further, timing your events by what's happening on Earth would become impractical. That might be true already at a light-month, or even at a light-day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For purposes of comparison;
one light-second is about 300,000 kilometers.
one Astronmical Unit (distance from Earth to Sun) is about 150,000,000 kilometers, about 500 light-seconds.
The Kuiper belt runs from about 30 AUs to about 55 AUs from the Sun.
The Scattered Disk runs to about 100 AUs from the Sun.
30 AUs is about 15,000 light-seconds; 55 AUs is about 27,500 light-seconds; 100 AUs is about 50,000 light-seconds.
A light-day is 86,400 light-seconds, around 173 AUs.
The inner Oort cloud is, depending on whose estimate is right, between 2,000 and 20,000 AUs.
A light-month is around 30 light-days, or about 5,184 AUs; let's call it 5,000. So, an object a light-month away might be in the inner boundary of the inner Oort cloud; or it might be a bit further into it; depending on whether that inner boundary is more like 2,000 AUs from the Sun or closer to 5,000 AUs from the Sun (both estimates have been proposed).
The outer Oort cloud runs from about 20,000 AUs from the Sun to about 50,000 AUs, or about 100,000 AUs, or about 200,000 AUs, from the Sun, depending on who you ask. Since 200,000 AUs is about 80% of the distance to Alpha Centauri, I doubt that's the correct figure; Alpha Centauri A is more massive than the Sun (1.1 Solar masses), and along with B and C they should get more of the space between them and the Sun than the Sun gets.
A light-year is about 63,072 AUs; let's round it to 63,000.
So, a light-year away might be outside of the outer Oort cloud, and thus outside the Solar system altogether; or it might be about 1.5 or 2 times further from the Sun than from the "edge" of the Solar System.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, speaking of how many Muslims live within the Arctic or Antarctic circles:

Wikipedia has lists of, IIANM, permanent settlements north of 60 degrees north latitude with permanent populations of 50,000 inhabitants or more; and, of permanent settlements south of 45 degrees south latitude with permanent populations of 1,000 inhabitants or more. IIRC these two lists are roughly equal length.
So a lot more people live a lot closer to the North Pole than to the South Pole.
Any idea how come?

I'm willing to guess there might be no or few Muslims -- or at least, no or few mosques -- south of 60 degrees south.

But it seems likely there should be some north of 60 degrees north.
Does anyone know?
The only fatwa I was able to find online was addressed to Muslims living between 50 and 60 degrees North. There's apparently one for people actually in the Arctic, but either it's not on-line or I just didn't find it yet.
Have any Muslims been born and raised Muslim north of the Arctic Circle?
_________________
"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kyonides



Joined: 28 Aug 2008
Posts: 301

PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

eldin raigmore wrote:
But what about a colony on the Moon? How do they even tell when the Moon is full? or new? How do they, or people in Lagrangian orbits sixty degrees ahead of or behind the Moon, tell when sunrise or sunset is? If people ever live on Mars or Venus, how about them?

[sort of joke]
That's easy, they get good (satelite) internet connection to get info about what's the current moon phase on Earth. It doesn't matter if they get that info from the Northern or Southern Hemisphere.

Thank God they don't live in Jupiter or Saturn with multiple moons orbiting all day long!
[/sort of joke]
_________________
Seos nivo adgene Kizne tikelke

The Internet might be either your best friend or your worst enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Aeetlrcreejl



Joined: 08 Jun 2007
Posts: 839
Location: Over yonder

PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm from Asia, definitely. Bangladesh, to be specific.
_________________
Iwocwá ĵọṭãsák.
/iwotSwa_H d`Z`Ot`~asa_Hk/
[iocwa_H d`Z`Ot`_h~a_Hk]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Vreleksá Forum Index -> Random Chat
All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
Theme ACID © 2003 par HEDONISM Web Hosting Directory


Start Your Own Video Sharing Site

Free Web Hosting | Free Forum Hosting | FlashWebHost.com | Image Hosting | Photo Gallery | FreeMarriage.com

Powered by PhpBBweb.com, setup your forum now!
For Support, visit Forums.BizHat.com