THE holy month of Ramadan draws to a close this weekend with Eid celebrations. Muslims have been fasting between dawn and sunset for the past month, but in future it is going to get even harder. We reveal why.

FOR the past month Muslims have been fasting for 12 hours a day between around 6am and sunset at 6.30pm.

Ramadan is one of the 12 months in the Islamic Calendar and is the month where Muslims fast for up to 30 days During Ramadan, Muslims do not eat or drink from dawn to dusk in a bid to build discipline, grow spiritually and reflect on those less fortunate in the world.

But in future people's faith will be tested to the limit.

Changes to the Islamic Calender mean that Ramadan will take place at a time when there are 17 hours between dawn and sunset.

It will be the first time for 33 years that the fasting will be in the summer months.

Ikrash Darr, 22, a medical student at Birmingham University, of Livingstone Road, Witton, Blackburn, said: "Fasting this year has been difficult.

"I have spoken to a quite a few people and we feel this year we are really feeling it.

"Last year and the year before the clocks had gone back an hour so we could eat around 4pm.

"But this year will help, for next year and the next after that, I have never fasted in the summer before".

Moulana Hanif Dudhwala, of Troy Street Mosque, Blackburn, remembers the last time Ramadan fell in summer.

He said: "Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam which are duties that every Muslim must strive to do.

"When the month of Ramadan begins after June 21, the summer solstice, fasts will open later and later.

"Some will start at 4am and end at 10pm.

"I was in the 4th year at Pleckgate High School when I first experienced fasting in June or July.

"I used to get up before 4am and eat then get to school for nine o'clock, then go home at 4pm.

"For those four hours from 4pm to 8pm we used to play, it was really hard some days."

This is all due to the moon.

Most of the world's countries including England follow a calendar which sees the new year begin at the same time every year on January 1.

The 12 months of the year which run from January through to December are commonly known as months of the Gregorian calendar, or a Christian calendar, which has 365 days and 366 in a leap year.

The Gregorian calendar is based on the earth's orbit, or circular movement, around the sun and how day and night falls in relation to the star.

Individuals who follow the religion of Islam and countries where the dominant religion is Islam use another type of calendar based on the moon for the months of the year.

The lunar calendar, as it known, is based on the moon's orbit of the earth rather the earth's orbit of the sun as in a solar calendar.

Like the Gregorian calendar the Islamic or Muslim calendar also has 12 months in a year but number of days in a month depend on the phases of the moon.

The cycle, from new moon to full moon, takes 29 or 30 days each month making a total of 354 days in a lunar year.

Instead of adding a few days to some months, or creating a new one the Islamic year begins 11 days earlier each year.

And for this reason alone in two years' time the fasting month of Ramadan will start in August when dawn is before 5.30am and sunset is after 8pm.

When Ramadan reaches June Muslims will fast for around 17 hours without eating of drinking until after 10pm.

Moulana Munir Vali, assistant principle of Tauheedul Islamic High School, Bicknell Street, Blackburn, said: "Islamic calendar, or Muslim calendar, is based on the Muslim holy text called the Qur'an and its proper observance is a sacred duty for Muslims.

"The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar having twelve lunar months in a year, the beginnings and endings of which are determined by the sighting of the crescent moon, or new moon.

"These lunar months, or lunations are based on the motion of the moon, and the 12 synodic months, the time it takes for the moon to reappear in the same point, is only 12 times 29.53 days which equals 354.36 days.

"Therefore the Islamic calendar is consistently about eleven days shorter than a tropical year or solar year."

Mr Vali said that therefore Islamic holidays usually shift eleven days earlier each successive solar year.

He added: "Muslims do not adjust their Islamic year by adding an extra month, as the Jewish faith does to keep their lunar calendar in synch with the seasons.

"Hence the months of the Muslim Islamic year do not relate to the seasons which are fundamentally related to the solar cycle.

"This means that important Muslim festivals, which always fall in the same month may occur in different seasons.

Mr Vali said that following the calander balanced it out for Muslims fasting in Ramadan across the world.

He said: "The effect of this is to balance out the discrepancy between fasting in the northern and the southern hemispheres.

"But Ramadan, creeping forward at a rate of about eleven days in each solar year, ensures that wherever one may be on the planet, the fast will fall sometimes in winter and sometimes in summer.

"Similarly although in high latitudes the days can be long, there is no heat.A balance is thus obtained."