The history ofIslam in the Arctic starts relatively late in the chronology ofIslamic history, theArctic Circle being at a great distance from traditional Muslim bastions of power and settlement. The "climatic conditions, remoteness and heavy industrial character" of northern cities have resulted in a unique cultural shift for Muslims living in the region,[2] including a tendency towardspluralism wherein sects likeSunni andShia Muslims do not segregate themselves.[2] In areas where themidnight sun orpolar night renders thefive daily prayers impossible to tie to dusk and dawn, congregants typically either use the same timing as a more southern region, theholy city ofMecca or their homelands.[3]
The Egyptian professor M. G. El-Fandy has opined that the Quranicayah inSurah al-Kahf that referencesDhu al-Qarnayn's reaching of the land where the sun resided after setting was likely a miraculous reference to the Arctic Circle.[4]
Dr. Marwa Maziad has been the first and pioneering Arab-American voice on Arctic studies. She served among the first cohort of Arctic Studies Fellows at theUniversity of Washington. Starting in 2014, she authored several columns in Arabic for Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, discussing the emerging relevance of the Arctic for Arab states.[5] Dr. Maziad later authored a groundbreaking article for the World Policy Institute, highlighting previously unexamined historical and geopolitical connections between theArab world and the Arctic, tracing them back to the 1973 October War and the oil embargo. Dr. Maziad showed that this world event was a moment of indigenous mobilization in the arctic. She argued that such connections reflect the importance ofenergy income management inrentier states.[6] Her most recent article for The National News further explores the growing strategic ties between the Gulf region and the Arctic, particularly in the areas of polar shipping and energy geopolitics.[7] Dr. Marwa Maziad is the Founder and Founding Director of theGulf-Arctic Initiative™, established in 2014.
Ziad Reslan ofHarvard Kennedy School looked at therefugee crisis overlaps with a need for increasedmigrant workers in the far north.[8]
In 2018, a delegation from the United Arab Emirates accompanied Adnan Amin, the Director-General of theInternational Renewable Energy Agency based in Abu-Dhabi, to the fifthArctic Circle Assembly inReykjavík,Iceland.[8]
It is a religious obligation for Muslims to fast during the month ofRamadan and the requirement is to begin fasting each day when a white thread can be distinguished from a black thread at dawn; fasting ends when the sun sets completely.[9][10] The arctic regions experience a phenomenon known asmidnight sun around thesummer solstice.[11] During this time period there is little or no darkness in any twenty-four hour period. On the other hand, around thewinter solsticein the same regions there is little or no daylight. Therefore, the traditional method of identifying the fasting period by means of the sunlight intensity cannot be used.
TheIslamic calendar islunar, and the Islamic year is around 10 or 11 days shorter than thecommon solar year. Thus Ramadan falls earlier in each solar year than it did in the previous year, and moves steadily forwards through each year until it returns to approximately the original solar year dateevery 33–34 years.[12] During the years in which Ramadan falls at the time of the midnight sun, or when it falls in periods of no daylight, Muslims living in the arctic regions must have some means of determining the proper fasting period.[13]
Muslims in the Arctic are generally advised by religious authorities to adopt one of three solutions. Firstly, if there are major practical or health obstacles to their fasting during the prescribed month, they may replace the fasting days of Ramadan with substitute days at another time of the year. Secondly, they may follow the timings of the nearest Muslim community which does not face the midnight sun problem. This was the approach taken by most of the Muslims ofIqaluit in Canada, who decided to follow the timings forOttawa, while those inInuvik decided to followEdmonton.[14] Thirdly, they may follow the timings of the holy city ofMecca, as the Muslim community ofTromsø in Norway elected to do in 2013.[13] Nevertheless, despite the difficulty of fasting during very long summer days, many Muslims in the far north choose to adhere to local time and fast during the period of extended daylight for as long as the sun sets for at least some time each day.[15][16]
The presence of Islam in the northern and Arctic regions spans back over a thousand years. During the travels ofIbn Fadlan toVolga Bulgaria, he described how prayer times functioned "during the white nights" when in conversation with a localmuezzin:[17][18]
Day was breaking. I asked the muezzin:
'To which prayer have you called us?''The dawn prayer,' he said.'And the evening prayer?''We say it with the sunset prayer.'
'And during the night?' 'The night is as you see. They have been even shorter than now, for already they are beginning to lengthen.'
Later medieval Muslim writers would also comment on the short nights at Volga Bulgaria during the summer. However, while the environmental issues surrounding the performance of religious obligations in northern climes were probably known in the wider Islamic world, the topic was generally ignored by Muslim scholars and writers.[18]
The Siberian-basedKhanate of Sibir was the northernmost Islamic state in history, with its territories including parts of the shore of theArctic Ocean.[19]
The issue of how prayers should be conducted in northern environments picked up steam during the 18th century when the Russian Muslim reformer Abu Nasr Qursawi contended that theisha prayer should always be performed while the specific timing of the prayer during the summer be determined viaijtihad. This ran counter to what most ulema in Russia taught, stating that the prayer shouldn't be conducted during the summer months due to the solar conditions not being able to be met.[18]
In 922 AD, the explorerIbn Fadlan referenced that new converts to Islam inTatarstan had to deal with irregularities of the sunrise and sunset, which was confirmed four hundred years later byIbn Battuta as he traveled the region, and noted the locals believed theNorthern Lights were battles between the righteous and irreligiousdjinn spirits.[2][21]
A study from 2019 described Muslim communities in Arctic Russia as "rapidly growing" in the last two decades. An early attempt to build a mosque in a major city (Yakutsk, about 450 kilometers (280 mi) south of theArctic Circle) failed upon the outbreak of theFirst World War and the followingOctober Revolution. In 1996, however, it became the site of the world's largest mosque in the far north, capable of holding 3000 worshipers.[2]
Siberianulema since the 19th century were hesitant to recognise distant authority.[2] After the 1991collapse of the Soviet Union, three central Muslim directorates competed for control of the Islamic population in Siberia, the far East and the far North; one of these three was absorbed into another, leaving the CDUMR and the Council of Muftis—the latter seen as closely tied to the Russian government.[2] In 1998, the first mosque was built for the industrial city ofNorilsk, and by 2007 the Muslims in the city were estimated at 20% of the population, coming fromDagestan,Central Asia andAzerbaijan.[22]
Nearly every Arctic city in Russia has a Muslim presence as of 2019, and the 59mosques andmusallas spread across the Arctic exist in every region except for theNenets Autonomous Okrug andChukotka.[2] A periodical journal namedIslam in Yakutia is printed inNeryungri.[2] In 2014, it was noted that a large number of ethnic Russians inTyumen, which boasts 30 northern mosques, seemed to be converting toIslam.[23]
Challenges to the Muslim presence are of different kinds. The Arctic city ofVorkuta had a strongskinhead andwhite nationalist scene in the 1990s and 2000s, and a Russian nationalist group protested against the mosque there.[2] TheYamal Peninsula has ameat processing business run by Nyda-Resurs ofhalalreindeer meat, which struggles against more traditional meats likemutton.[2] In addition, the two Muslim organizations compete with each other over control of new Muslim communities; their competition is ideological (with the Council of Muftis more vocally supporting rights of Russian Muslims), political (since the council is closely connected to Moscow, and sometimes denounced as a state-backed organization that seeks to extend Moscow's control over Russia's Muslims), and ethnic (since North Caucasians dominate the council, whileTatars andBashkirs traditionally control the CDUMR).[2]
Percentage of Muslims in Russian Arctic regions:[24]
| Region | Percentage of Muslims |
|---|---|
 Arkhangelsk Oblast | 0.0% |
 Chukotka | Unknown |
 Karelia | 0.2% |
 Komi Republic | 1.0% |
 Krasnoyarsk Krai | 1.5% |
 Murmansk Oblast | 1.0% |
 Nenets A.O. | Unknown |
 Yakutia | 1.4% |
 Yamalo-Nenets A.O. | 17.4% |
TheIslamic Community Center of Anchorage Alaska[25] was the first purpose-built mosque in the US state, with construction beginning in 2010 to replace themusalla in astrip mall that had previously served the 3000 Muslim residents.[26][27][28] Due to the differences in daylight hours between winter and summer, and due to there being no darkness in the summer at night, the ICCAA has adopted Mecca time as its prayer schedule,[29] which has led to some disagreement within the community. Some Muslims opt to pray local time, and estimate the prayer times in the summer when they cannot use the sun.
A parishioner interviewed byVICE News explained he had chosen Alaska because while applying to immigrate to the United States as a doctor, it was easier if settlement plans were in an under-staffed community in need of doctors.[30] The Anchorage Muslim Community is very diverse.[31] In addition to US -born Muslims, there are adherents who have immigrated from over 50 countries worldwide.
The 35 Muslims ofFairbanks, Alaska, converted the old North Post Chapel into a prayer hall.[32]
In 1905, Ali Abouchadi entered theYukon Gold Rush alongside his uncle and a friend, the trio having emigrated from Lebanon to partake in the fortune-finding in the Canadian north, although they never made it further north thanLac La Biche, Alberta,--but this caused a "gradual immigration of Lebanese Muslims to Lac La Biche".[33] Twenty years later, Ali alone travelled northward to theArctic Ocean as a merchant, stopping inAklavik, but ultimately returning to Alberta.[33]
After theFirst World War, the Lebanese MuslimPeter Baker started a successful business transiting supplies north fromEdmonton to theMackenzie River to outfit theoil prospectors in the area alongside John Morie.[34] His close relations with theindigenous tribes in the Arctic (he had learned to speakDogrib andSlavey) irritated his competitors.[34] When the indigenous tribes were largely given the right to vote in 1960, one of their first elections catapulted Baker to the status ofMember of Legislative Assembly for the riding ofMackenzie North in 1964, and it is suggested that he was the one to proposeYellowknife as the capital of the territory.[34]
The first mass immigration of Muslims into theNorthwest Territories followed the1970s boom in Arctic petroleum exploration.[35] By 1995, there were five Muslim families living inInuvik.[35] The first Western mosque in the Arctic was theMidnight Sun Mosque built in 2010 for the city's 100 Muslims; it was assembled further south inManitoba by theZubaidah Tallab Foundation (ZTF) and shipped to the Arctic to reduce costs.[35][36][37] Amier Suliman remarked that "this [the mosque] is the first minaret to be erected in the Arctic ...some will say it's a new frontier for Islam."[1] Once in Inuvik, it was attached to a 10-metre (33 ft)minaret which had been locally built.[38] It replaced the aging trailer that had previously served as aMusallah, and was only big enough for twenty people.[35] Following the completion of the mosque, theMuslim Welfare Centre in Toronto provided the funds to purchase an adjacent property to set up the "Arctic Food Bank". It distributes groceries to the town's population, and is now Inuvik's largest charity.[39] The territorial capital of Yellowknife has approximately 300 Muslims.[36] In 2019, the property was demolished to provide the space for building a new, larger mosque that will contain a library and anIslamic school.[40][41]
TheIqaluitMasjid was built, again by the ZTF, in 2015 to serve 80 Muslims in the city of 7000 inNunavut.[42][36] In 2018, it opened a franchise of the same "Arctic Food Bank" established earlier in Inuvik.[39]
In 2018, a truckingwarehouse inWhitehorse, Yukon, was converted into a mosque chiefly bycabinetmaker Fathallah Farajat, from the southern city ofHamilton, Ontario.[43] The opening of the mosque, which was constructed with a financial contribution from the ZTF,[44] marked the first time that there was a Muslim prayer hall in every Canadian province and territory.[43] Hussein Guisti, who had overseen the ZTF's construction of the two earlier northern mosques, dubbed the silver-clad mosque "theStar Trek mosque", in reference to Canadian Muslims' efforts to bring Islam to the frontiers.[43]
At the outset of the 20th century, Finland was the only country in Northern Europe to have a native Muslim population, with approximately a thousandFinnish Tatars.[citation needed] TheVepsians in Finland were among the northernmost peoples with whom Muslim merchants had contacts in the early centuries of Islam, asAzeri merchants traded swords in exchange for animal pelts.[45] In 2018, a study of Finland's Muslims living inside the Arctic Circle found Palestinian, Iraqi, Persian, Turkish, Bengali, Somali, Pakistani and Afghan immigrants, virtually all of whom practisedSunni Islam.[46]
Norway's largest Arctic mosque is inTromsø, built in 2006 by aconvert to Islam and financed by a donation from an anonymous Saudi businessman.[3][47] There are two mosques further north inAlta andHammerfest.[3]
As of 2013, the only known Muslim living in Greenland is a Lebanese citizen who operates a restaurant inNuuk.[48]
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