Muslims celebrate Ramadan under Iceland’s midnight sun

Sophia Wu
Sophia Wu
Jul 20, 2017 · 10 min read
Malek Moubara, 83, sits at the table reading the Quran before iftar begins. He believes in keeping Islam alive within his community. (Jonathan Franklin/Georgetown University)
Muslim women bow down during a prayer ritual that last 45 minutes. (Sophia Wu/Georgetown University) Two of the children draw pictures while this prayer goes on. (Jonathan Franklin/Georgetown University)

An opportunity to move to Iceland

Rabia Khosa always dreamed of studying abroad for her postdoctoral degree in physics. Never venturing beyond her native borders of Pakistan, Khosa looked for opportunities to study in various schools around the world — including in countries like China, Germany and Turkey. After waiting anxiously to hear back from the numerous schools she applied to one school sent their response along with an offer for a scholarship.

It was the University of Iceland.

Having no prior knowledge of the Nordic Island, Khosa searched for Iceland on a map. Without any further research, Khosa jumped on the opportunity to attend the University of Iceland with the excitement of studying in a foreign land. By the end of the summer, she packed her bags and bought a one-way ticket to Reykjavik, the nation’s capital.

Three years later, Khosa is still enjoying her quiet life in Reykjavik studying for her degree, but she did not expect how different life would be from her home in Pakistan.

A devout Muslim, Khosa currently lives in one of the smallest Muslim communities in the world.

“Before moving here, I didn’t know if there [would] be any Muslims,” she says. When Khosa first began her studies, her department’s supervisor referred her to a Pakistani family, who introduced her to a mosque in Reykjavik.

Traditionally, Muslim women pray at home, but Khosa enjoys coming to the mosque for the close-knit community that welcomes her.

With almost 24 hours of daylight during the summer, fasting for Ramadan in Iceland can be quite challenging. However, Muslims living in this country have adapted to the off hours of Iceland and found this test to strengthen their faith in Islam.

With roughly one thousand Muslims living in Iceland, a majority of Muslims in Iceland are immigrants just like Khosa. Although the country is not typically considered an immigrant nation, it is a place characterized by new beginnings.

In the ninth century, the Vikings sought to leave Norway to settle down in Iceland, a mostly untouched green island known for the sun never setting in the summer and never rising in the winter.

The Vikings brought with them paganism and other parts of their culture as they reconstructed their new lives. The story of Muslims adapting to life in Iceland mirrors the nation’s own tradition.

Why observing Ramadan is unique in Iceland

Muslim culture in Iceland is still relatively new. Despite the high tolerance for religion in this country, only a few resources exist for Muslims in Iceland.

Reykjavik is home to two mosques; the Muslim Association of Iceland, and the Islamic Cultural Center of Iceland (ICCI). The former is the only mosque officially recognized by the Icelandic government, while the latter is not. Khosa attends ICCI.

During the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, Khosa arrives at ICCI each evening to break the fast. According to the Islamic lunar calendar, Ramadan takes place in the summer this year, but the holiday typically rotates between summers and winters every fifteen or twenty years. Simplified, the goal of Ramadan is to refrain from desire, especially hunger, as an expression of spirituality and gratitude.

Muslims who observe Ramadan in Iceland have a particularly unique experience because Iceland faces twenty-two hours of sunlight in the summers. It is the longest period of time for any Muslim in the world to go without food or drink.

“When I came here, everybody told me that Ramadan would be twenty-two hours. I was really scared of how it difficult it will be. How can it be easy with the sun shining all of the time here?” Khosa says.

A true devotion

Yaman Brikhan, a member of ICCI, is the owner of Syrian restaurant Ali Baba in downtown Reykjavik. Inside his restaurant, the fresh smell of lamb roasting on giant skewers permeates the atmosphere. A colorful array of peppers are diced and lined up on the kitchen counter. It is easy to wonder how someone working in the food industry can stand fasting for so long.

For some Muslims in Iceland who do not want to fast for the full twenty-two hours, they tend to follow the sun schedules of their home countries because the hours are shorter. However, Brikhan chooses not to.

He explains, “I follow the sunlight here. That is the right way to do it. It is not about following another country.”

Brikhan has celebrated the majority of Ramadan’s in Reykjavik for the past seventeen years that he has been living here.

“It’s very hard to fast if I didn’t have this job. It’s just because it’s long hours. We used to fast up for seventeen hours in hot countries, but it’s cold here,” he says. Other than the days that he was sick, Brikhan has never missed a day of fasting.

New beginnings in a foreign land

Malek Moubara, one of the oldest members of ICCI, has dedicated himself to Islam for many years. As one of the first Arabs to immigrate to Iceland, he has spent the majority of his life in Reykjavik bringing the Muslim community together.

Moubara sits with quiet grace and authority at the round oak table in the men’s area. He reads a worn hardcopy of the Quran, while the younger men around him scroll through prayers on their mobile phones. He has watched many generations grow up since moving to Reykjavik.

“When I first came here to Iceland, there were no Muslims here. There were two people from the Middle East — one from Egypt, one from Morocco. We were three Muslims,” Moubara, who is Syrian, says. “I was born Muslim. I stay Muslim the whole time.”

In the 1960s, Moubara was in the Syrian army, desperately looking for a way out during the height of conflict between Syria and Palestine. He eventually left Syria to attend university in Germany, where he fell in love with a beautiful young Icelandic woman.

Shortly after, he moved with her to Reykjavik and he established the nation’s first mosque. “We were not many people, maybe ten or fifteen people from Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey,” says Moubara. “We opened every day [for thirteen years.]”

Moubara’s mosque closed in 1997 when the Muslim Association of Iceland was established with support from the Icelandic government. However, its more conservative members broke off into a separate, more informal group, which is now known as ICCI. It currently has over three hundred members.

A place of community

Founded in 2008, ICCI is no ordinary mosque. Not the grand architectural structure typically associated with mosques, ICCI is beige-colored office space with bristly carpets, black leather couches, and fluorescent lights. It is located on the second floor of a warehouse building in an industrial area in Reykjavik.

There is almost no one around, aside from an occasional bulldozer or an Icelandic worker on a cigarette break. At first glance, no one would expect that it is a place of worship.

Nevertheless, ICCI maintains its holy nature. Inside, people are expected to remove their shoes before entering. They must also take turns in the bathroom to wash their hands and feet, a pre-meal purity ritual. Women must cover their hair. The men congregate and pray in the main area, while the women and children gather in separate room.

However, people are dressed casually. There is a bulletin board with a handwritten chore distribution chart and an Iqra (Islamic studies) class schedule pinned. It’s difficult to not feel homey and comfortable.

How Ramadan is actually celebrated in Reykjavik

Iftar (evening meal) begins at 11 p.m. and suhur (pre-dawn meal) begins at 2 a.m. In between, people pray and recite the Quran together. Each night, the floor of the mosque is laid out with empty cardboard Coca-Cola cups, boxes of dates, and milk cartons.

The men take turns kneading bread and setting out platters of lamb on the foldout table. Many of them work in restaurants, just like Brikhan. From Pakistani to Moroccan, they cook a diverse variety of dishes from their home countries. They often include Icelandic dishes as well, in honor of their adopted culture.

A tangy aroma fills the room as others arrive carrying homemade meals in plastic containers. Spicy flavors are balanced with grainy breads and creamy yogurt. Mango juice is another mosque favorite.

Everyone trickles in around 10 p.m., spreading out across the floor and on the couches, finding their usual spots to catch up with one another.

A young girl curls up on the couch drawing a picture with crayons. A father walks in with his toddler, who rushes into the arms of one of the elderly men. Since the community is so small, mostly everyone has known each other for years.

Finding similarities among cultures

Ahmad Seddeeq, the resident imam, begins iftar with a forty-five minute prayer. Dressed in a long black bisht (traditional men’s cloak), he silently glides to the front of the room, commanding the room’s attention at once. Thirty or forty men kneel down behind him. He chants prayers into a microphone, which links to loudspeakers in the women’s area.

Seddeeq was offered his position at ICCI six years ago. He wears a serious, thoughtful expression on his face, which may be expected of someone who spends so much of his day in deep thought and prayer.

His experience in Reykjavik has taught him the importance of communication, especially because he leads a multicultural congregation.

“Before moving to Iceland, I didn’t think much about how to live and coexist with Muslims from different countries,” Seddeeq, who is Egyptian, says. “Iceland is different from other countries in Europe because Icelanders are so welcoming.”

Iceland’s accepting nature inspires him to attend religious forums where people of different faiths meet. “It’s important to build bridges between Muslims and the people from different cultures and faiths so we can strengthen understanding and communication,” he adds.

ICCI’s membership consists of immigrants from twenty different nationalities across the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia. Many of them have lived in Reykjavik for ten or twenty years. Their Iceland-born children are cultural hybrids–living products of two worlds colliding.

Here, people want to learn from one another. They pile into long lines behind the fancy coffee machine at 1 a.m., right before a second lengthy prayer. They share tired laughs as they expertly navigate the Icelandic language-only menu for a cappuccino. Instead of experiencing disharmony, the people of the mosque possess a sense of solidarity and togetherness.

How Iceland has reshaped Muslim identity

Since she started attending ICCI, Khosa has been teaching herself Arabic.

“Even though there are some Arab women, they can’t speak English. Most of the time we just go by body language. Few have good English,” says Khosa, whose native tongue is Urdu. “This is a very good opportunity to learn about the culture also. Although we have the same religion, we come from different cultures.”

After Khosa finishes her studies, she plans to return to Pakistan. At twenty-nine years old, she hopes to start a family one day. But for Khosa, the Muslim community in Reykjavik is too small for her to meet someone. Her dream is to raise children in a more traditionally Muslim environment.

For the time being, she appreciates how much living in Iceland has opened her mind about her own Muslim heritage.

“[Icelanders] are more open, because the government has no pressure on us. If you are religious, it’s okay. If you are not religious, it’s not a problem. It seems to me in other all-Muslim countries, the people are religious because of the government. The government says to them, ‘do this and don’t do this.’ So after coming here, I met with different Muslims from different countries. If they are Muslim, it is because of their choice,” Khosa says.

Iceland has embraced Muslims with open arms. Many of them arrived by chance and circumstances, yet they chose to stay for the growth, unity, and compassion inspired by a community so close, within a culture so far away and different from their own.

From three Muslims taking their first steps on Iceland’s snowy landscape to one thousand Muslims establishing their homes across the nation, Iceland’s Muslim community has come far in creating a sense of belonging.

What happens after sunrise

At the end of the evening, Imam Seddeeq leads the final prayer. People’s eyes are shut tight, engrossed in pure devotion. A young boy has fallen asleep on the couch hours ago. Khosa helps the women wrap up the extra food, while everyone else say their goodbyes for the night.

As the rosy glow emerges from atop the warehouse buildings, people shuffle on their thick coats and scarves, preparing to embrace the bitter cold they’ve grown so familiar with. It has been a long evening, but the people seem renewed and peaceful.

“Before I came here, Islam was given to me as an inheritance. In Pakistan, we were all Muslim so we never talk about this stuff. I had no value of the importance of Islam in my life. When I moved to Iceland, it was a good chance for me to either continue this practice or leave it,” Khosa says. “Living in Iceland makes me more Muslim. After coming here and learning the value of Ramadan, now I feel upset about it ending.”

In one beige-colored room, people find faith.

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