As sunset creeps westward across the globe today, Ramadan follows – already the vast majority of the muslim world has already fallen into night, including India, Indonesia, and China. It is the verge of sunset in the Middle East as we speak. Ramadan will begin for muslims in Europe and Africa within a few hours and then finally the muslims in the Americas will catch up.

Here is the night and day map as of this posting, from Time and Date.com: (Friday August 21, 15:34:00 UTC)

When you consider that muslims not only differ in how they celebrate Ramadan’s arrival in terms of methodology (moonsighting or calculation), but also by simple dint of geography, it is rather humbling to realize that in a very real way Ramadan is an intensely personal journey. Still, within 12 hours we will all have embarked upon it together.

Ramadan mubarak!