Ramadan timings: Which countries have the longest Ramzan fast in 2022?

Iceland, England, France, Portugal, and Poland will have long Ramadan fasts of over 16 hours per day in 2022, while New Zealand, South Africa, Paraguay and Uruguay will have the shortest fasting periods of 11-12 hours per day.

Ramadan or Ramzan is underway. During this holy month, devout Muslims around the world abstain from food and drinks from sunrise to sunset. The fast is broken at sundown with an evening meal called iftar. Those who are fasting begin their day with a pre-sunrise meal called suhoor.

In the course of the day, the devout are encouraged to spend time praying, reading the Quran, and generally introspecting. No meals or drinks are allowed during this time. Obviously, this is taxing as you carry on with your day as usual… except with no breakfast, lunch or teatime snacks to nourish you.

Ramadan fast is observed every day for the entire month. Typically, Ramadan fasts last for 29-30 days.

The holy month of Ramadan or Ramzan began on April 2, 2022, and will end, tentatively, on May 2, 2022. The end date varies from region to region, depending on the local time of the moonrise.

Based on the lunar calendar, the month of Ramadan moves forward by about a fortnight each year so there is no fixed month in or date on which Ramadan begins.

For countries that are closer to or on the equator, this doesn’t make much of a difference to the daylight hours that are central to the fasting routine. However, as you move away from the centre of the earth, the timings of sunrise and sunset vary drastically from season to season. This also affects how long the devout must fast.

Typically, Iceland has the longest Ramadan fast. The land of the midnight sun has the longest days and shortest nights, especially during summers. For the small Muslim community in Iceland, this can prove to be a hard test of faith.

This year, Muslims living in Iceland will fast for as long as 17 hours. By all estimates, this is one of the shorter Ramadan fasts there. In 2018 when the holy month of Ramadan fell between May and June, days in Iceland were as long as 22 hours.

Beating Iceland by a full hour is Finland. In 2021, the country held the record for the longest Ramadan fasting duration, of 23 hours and 5 minutes. Other neighbouring countries such as Norway and Sweden also have similar gruelling Ramadan fast timings.

According to a 2018 BBC report on how people in Iceland go about the fast, several devout Muslims fast through the 22 hours. They wake up in the middle of the night, eat, pray, sleep for a few more hours and then go about their day.

However, according to Islamic scholars, this isn’t compulsory.

You could, of course, follow the local times but you need not. Scholars have suggested that Muslims living in countries with long daylight hours can follow the sunrise and sunset timings of the nearest Muslim-majority country or, quite simply, follow Saudi Arabia’s clock.

As is often the case, Iceland has the longest daytime hours – 16 hours and 50 minutes – and therefore has the longest Ramadan (or Ramzan) fast in 2022.

Muslims in countries such as England, France, Portugal, and Poland will also have long Ramadan fasts in 2022, as major cities in these countries will see 16 hours of sunlight this year.

With daylight timing being as short as 11 to 12 hours, New Zealand, South Africa, Paraguay, and Uruguay are among the countries with the shortest Ramadan fast in 2022.