Crossroads

 

With 836,330 square miles, Greenland is the world’s largest island. Only about 57,000 people live there, so it’s also the least densely populated country. Only one of those people is Muslim. Wassam Azaqeer moved from Lebanon to Nuuk, Greenland’s capitol, in the early 2000’s. He opened a Lebanese restaurant here serving about 200 people a day. In spite of the harsh weather – the average temperature in Beirut is 70F; in Nuuk it can dip to minus 58F – Wassam says he doesn’t regret coming here. He doesn’t even mind practicing his religion alone, except during Ramadan. Muslims around the world observe the month of Ramadan by fasting between sunrise and sunset. The Muslim calendar is lunar, so its dates shift compared with the Gregorian calendar. When Ramadan falls during the summer, Wassam finds himself fasting up to 23 hours a day. Luckily for Wassam, next year it happens in February, when the days are eight hours long.