Christopher Howse, Daily Telegraph, Aug.6, www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherhowse/7931106/Ramadan-in-an-Orkney-summer.html
Muslims in Orkney will be setting their alarm clocks with some care from next Wednesday. For it is the beginning of Ramadan (if the new moon is sighted). For the 30 days of Ramadan, no food or drink may be consumed during the hours of daylight. In Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, sunrise is at 5.19 and sunset at 9.11pm.
There were eight Muslims in the Orkney Islands at the time of the 2001 census, and it is not clear how many of them will be there next week. By the end of Ramadan, the sunrise and sunset times will be something like 6.27 and 7.53, but even so it would make a long day’s fast.
“Eat and drink,” the Koran seems to say, “until the white thread is distinct to you from the black thread at dawn.” But when Ramadan falls in the summer, some people who live in high latitudes, with very long hours of daylight, adjust their hours of fasting to those in Mecca.