How do we determine the times for prayer and fasting in countries where the day or the night lasts for days?

The questioner : A brother asks and says: The period from the setting of the sun until the appearance of the dawn is about five hours in a foreign country like Sweden. How do you see it, my master?The Shaykh : The timings for fasting in this country?

The Shaykh : Excuse me, five hours. What about the day?

The questioner : The night, from the setting of the sun until the appearance of the dawn.

The Shaykh : Okay, the matter is easy. First, one must look at that country: does it have a sunset, as it appears? The answer is yes. Okay, does it have the appearance of the red twilight? I do not know. If there is a twilight that appears in that country, then the ruling does not differ from any other country where the night is longer than five hours. The important thing is that the time is determined by the setting of the sun for Maghrib, and by the setting of the red twilight for Isha. There is no problem with the matter here, if Allah wills.

The questioner : Our Shaykh, regarding the time for fasting and prayer, there is a difference between the two times: the setting of the sun and the appearance of the dawn. Here is the confusion, because in many countries here, Brother Adnan, Brother Tahir, and Brother Zuhair, due to your travels and your knowledge, the red twilight does not disappear until the dawn appears. This is what is intended.

The Shaykh : This is what is intended, but the question is not clear... Excuse me, this is what is intended, meaning... Okay.
Abu Malik: This actually happened to me. I was on a plane and I wanted to pray Isha, so the twilight appeared to me. I wanted to pray Maghrib, and after the plane, the sunset appeared. So I said I would combine the two prayers, and the sun was rising and the twilight was still visible. Yes, that is right.

The Shaykh : Meaning, the twilight remains visible for five hours.
Abu Malik: It is permissible for five hours or less.

The Shaykh : Approximately, meaning.
Abu Malik: It is permissible for less than this, less than five hours.

Another questioner : In a time in countries where the night and the day connect, and the whole time becomes day.

The Shaykh : Yes, there is a well-known hadith in the Sahih that he says in the hadith that when the Dajjal comes out, one of his first days will be as long as a year, and his second day will be as long as a month, and the third a week, and the rest of his days like your days. So they asked him: "What is the state of the prayers at that time?" He said: So the problem is, as we assumed and heard and mentioned earlier, that in some countries the sun remains up for months, meaning the same for the night. So it is estimated by looking at the nearest neighboring country to that country where the sun or the night remains, and which has night and day. So then it is estimated, meaning, for example, how long does the time of sunset and the setting of the sun last in the nearest town until the red twilight appears? Let us assume one hour or two hours or more or less. The people of the country where the day is long for months, or the night is many months, deal with it accordingly. So the matter is easy; it returns to the estimation of the people living in the country by analogy to the neighboring countries.

The questioner : ...Okay, four hours.

The Shaykh : Regarding fasting.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Okay, if the speech is understood regarding prayer, it is also regarding fasting. Meaning, for the countries where the rising of the sun continues so they do not see night, or the opposite, the fasting is estimated according to the nearby countries themselves. But there is a case that can be handled, and it is necessary to handle it, which is that the day may be clear and the night distinct in one of those countries you are asking about, with a large difference between the length of the night and the length of the day. So it may be, let us assume with exaggeration or without exaggeration, twenty hours. Is this what you want the topic to be?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Yes, and the night is four hours. Do they fast for twenty hours? The answer is: as long as they see the dawn and they see the setting of the sun, they must fast, even if the hours are many and reach twenty or close to that. But it is not hidden that any religious ruling is only within the limits of So whoever is able to fast in those countries for twenty hours, as long as the day after the appearance of the dawn reaches these hours, he must fast. And in my opinion, the matter there is easy, because the difficulty is only imagined for the hot countries where the fasting person is exposed to drinking water. But in the cold countries, long fasting with these many hours is not difficult, as I imagine. The matter is that we set the rule: so whoever cannot fast, his ruling is one of two things: either we attach him toThe Shaykh : the old, dying person who cannot fast even in moderate countries, so he expiates for every day by feeding a poor person. Or he is able to utilize the time when the long day turns into a short day, which makes fasting easy for him, so he makes up what he missed of fasting at that time. His case in that is like the case of the sick person whose recovery is expected, and not the sick person whose recovery is hopeless. So the sick person whose recovery is hopeless is attached toThe Shaykh : the incapable, dying person, so he expiates for every day by feeding a poor person. But the sick person whose recovery is expected is as He the Exalted said: So these people who live in that long day, and in Ramadan, some of them are able and some are not able to fast as a performance. So the one who is not able to fast as a performance fasts as a make-up if he is able, otherwise his ruling is the ruling of the incapable who expiates for every day by feeding a poor person. Perhaps the answer regarding fasting has become clear.