There is no country where the Lebanese community has not set its foot in and spread its culture alongside the culture of the host country, and this Lebanese man is living proof!
Meet Wassam Azaqeer, the Lebanese-born man living in Greenland. Azaqeer is the only Muslim person living on the world’s largest island, and he does not mind being the only one.
Wassam Azaqeer has been living for many years in Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and he does not think of leaving the arctic-cold island any time soon.
Wassam has been running a small, successful business that consists of a restaurant in the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, where he also lives. Around 200 customers visit Azaqeer’s restaurant on a daily basis.
The only time that Azaqeer thinks of coming to Lebanon is during Ramadan, where he usually fasts for 21 hours a day and only has 3 hours to eat and prepare for the next day.
Wassam says that he sometimes considers going back to Lebanon during Ramadan but he stops himself by thinking that if he left Greenland, there will be no one to fast and pray the way Muslims do on the land.
While the majority of Muslims partaking in the religious festival may have to fast for 12-16 hours depending on where they live, Greenland’s geographical location – between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic – coupled with the months that Ramadan falls in, meant Azaqeer had to fast for 21 hours.
This puts Greenland, along with Finland, as one of the countries with the longest hours of fasting due to the fact that, in some seasons, the sun goes down for just a few hours a day, particularly in August.
