Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Jan 21/00) - While most of Inuvik was feasting over the Christmas holidays, a select group was fasting.

For Inuvik's 50-strong Muslim community, the month of Ramadan is the holiest in the Islamic calender and is marked by fasting -- abstaining from food or drink -- between sunrise and sunset.

"Ramadan is the fourth of five pillars on which Islam is based," explained Ebaid Imam, the community's spiritual leader. "The first is to believe in God and his messenger, Muhammad; the second is to pray five times a day; the third is to give to charity ... and the fifth is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your life if you can."

In Inuvik, praying means visiting the Balsam Trailer Park, where the community has converted a mobile home into a small but serviceable mosque. While the walls remain bare, rugs cover the floor on which the men kneel, facing east toward Saudi Arabia and Mecca.

The size of the mosque means only the Muslim men visit it on a regular basis. Imam explained that the religion's holy book, the Koran, says that while men and women are equal, they must pray separately.

However, when the fast ended Jan. 8, the entire Muslim community gathered the following day to close Ramadan and break the fast with a variety of sweets, including Belgian chocolates and home-made cookies.

Being in Inuvik also means the community must make some adjustments. Fasting during an Inuvik winter "day" is hardly comparable to one in the Middle East and Africa, from where the community originates. Instead, Imam said they kept vigil according to the Edmonton calendar, beginning at 6:30 a.m. and finishing at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Imam added some community members are less strict in general when it comes to following Islamic laws such as those requiring abstinence from pork, alcohol and tobacco.

Imam, who comes from Sudan in northeast Africa, said being Muslims in the Arctic doesn't lessen their value in the eyes of God, but he agreed with fellow community member Isam Abdelhalem that being a minority can make it more difficult.

"In Sudan people go to the mosque and fast together, and so you could say it's harder here," he said, "but it doesn't bother us and we have to deal with it in an Islamic way."

Abdelhalem stressed that in his experience employers have proved understanding about his need to pray.

"Whether they're Christian or Jewish, they've never said no," he said.

Another community member, Mohamed Mohamed, said many Inuvik residents have been curious about their Muslim neighbours and what brought them North of 60.

"But we didn't come here to convert them," he assured with a grin. "We came for the work, and it's an adventure -- especially for those of us who are used to hot weather."

"God said, 'I create you to worship me, wherever you are,'" continued Imam.

"You have to accept your situation in the knowledge of God. So, you don't have to regret anything, unless you disobey God."