Some Muslim diplomats return home for Ramadan

Longer daylight hours make fasting tougher in Korea

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Fasting from sunrise to sunset for 30 days on during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar is in itself already a challenge. But observing Ramadan is even tougher in a country like Korea, where the daylight hours are longer and the public is not familiar with the Muslim culture.

In early June, some Muslim diplomats left Korea for their month-long trip back home, where they will continue to work while observing Ramadan, which began on June 18. They will come back to Seoul once the fasting month ends in July.

Korea’s longer daylight hours and non-Muslim-friendly sociocultural setting due to its relatively short history of Muslim migration and smaller Muslim population are the key factors behind the short-term, small-scale migration among diplomats during Ramadan every year.

During Ramadan, Muslims in Korea have to fast over an hour longer than their counterparts in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

On June 22, daylight in Seoul lasted 14 hours and 46 minutes compared to only 13 hours and 26 minutes in Mecca.

The 1-hour-and-20-minute difference is negligible compared with that in the countries located near the Arctic Circle, where daylight in June lasts nearly 20 hours. In Finland, for example, daylight on June 21, the summer solstice, was nearly 20 hours.

Nevertheless, the longer daylight hours in Korea are still a challenge for practicing Muslims because they have to forgo food and drink, even water, during those hours.

The homogeneous Korean society is another hurdle for practicing Muslims during Ramadan. According to experts, the Muslim population in the country is less than 0.5 percent or only 200,000 of the entire population. Foreigners and naturalized foreign-born people make up only 3.5 percent or 1.8 million of the Korean population.

The Muslim population figures are based on the number of people from Islamic countries who entered the country and who submitted their entry cards, which had information about their nationalities, to the Ministry of Justice officials when they arrived at the airport.

Some experts, however, question the accuracy of the figures. Eum Ik-ran, a research professor at Dankook University Gulf Cooperation Council Institute in Yongin City, Gyeonggi Province, said the entry cards provide only the card holders’ country of origin, not their religions.

“The problem with the data based on those cards is that they automatically assume people from Arab countries are Muslims. For example, they regard all Egyptians as Muslims. This is wrong because Christians account for nearly a tenth of Egypt’s population,”she said.

For this reason, Eum believes the actual Muslim population here is much less than 200,000. In addition to the longer daylight and thus, fasting hours, Koreans’ unfamiliarity with the Muslim culture makes it harder for Muslims to observe the fasting month.

However, Eum hopes the observation of Ramadan in Korea will help people understand this part of the Islamic way of life, as well as the Muslim cuisine and traditions.

During the fasting month, Muslims are allowed to eat two meals a day. The first, Ramadan dinner, or “iftar,” comes immediately after sunset. Muslims invite their friends and coworkers, in addition to their relatives, to the dinner to share their food and culture. Muslims begin iftar with eating dates and then proceed to prayer and meals. The second meal, a lighter one called “suhoor,” comes later at night before going to bed.

For Muslims, there exist two types of foods — those that they can eat, or “halal,” and those that they cannot according to Islamic law, or “haram.” Halal foods include milk, honey, fish and meat that was slaughtered according to Islamic law. The halal rules also apply to food processing, including the storage and transport of food.

Halal foods

For meat to remain halal, it should be chilled or frozen in cold storage separate from non-halal meat and minced or ground in machines different from that used for non-halal meat, according to staff colonel engineer Saeed Alnaqbi, the defense attache at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Embassy in Seoul.

“For Muslims, eating animals is a privilege, not a right, because animals, too, are living things that were created by Allah,” said the UAE official, who is currently in his home country for Ramadan.

According to Alnaqbi, slaughtering animals must make sure that the animals suffer the least pain. Meat that was obtained through strangling, beating or goring of animals is banned for consumption in Islam.

“Believers must respect the animals’ lives by using all means possible to use the least painful method of taking their lives.”

Eum says both Ramadan and halal reflect a strong Islamic influence on Muslims’ way of life because both have clear dos and don’ts for practicing Muslims according to Islamic law, to which Alnaqbi concurs.

“Practicing Muslims maintain a halal lifestyle at all times. There is no direct connection between Ramadan and halal, but for sure, they are both practiced by Muslims worldwide,” Alnaqbi said.