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What these times are

What each time on a prayer-times page means, how it is worked out, and why it can differ by a few minutes from another timetable.

The six times on every page

Every prayer-times page here shows six times for one place on one day. Five of them are prayers. Sunrise is not a prayer: it is the moment the Fajr period ends.

Fajr

Fajr begins when the first light appears before dawn. This site takes that as the moment the sun reaches a set number of degrees below the horizon, and the method decides the number. The Fajr period runs from that moment until sunrise.

Sunrise

Sunrise is the moment the sun appears. It is not a prayer, and it ends the Fajr period. From sunrise until Dhuhr no prayer's period is running, which is why a place page says that no prayer time is running and that Fajr ended at sunrise.

Dhuhr

Dhuhr begins once the sun has passed its highest point of the day. That highest point is shown separately as Zawal, under “Other times of the day”. The Dhuhr period runs until Asr.

Asr

Asr begins in the afternoon. On the standard school it begins when the shadow equals the object's length; on the Hanafi school it begins when the shadow is twice the object's length, which is later, by up to about an hour. The Asr period runs until Maghrib.

Maghrib

Maghrib begins at sunset. Under nearly every method this site offers, Maghrib is sunset itself; a few set it a little later, when the sun is further below the horizon. The Maghrib period runs until Isha.

Isha

Isha begins once the last light has left the sky. A method sets it either by a number of degrees below the horizon or by a fixed number of minutes after sunset. The Isha period runs until the next day's Fajr.

How the times are worked out

A prayer time is a position of the sun. This site holds the latitude, the longitude and the time zone of every place it lists, and works the day's times out from them. Nothing is asked of another service while a page is built, and no timetable is copied from anywhere.

The times are worked out for the place's own calendar day and written in the place's own time zone. The clock of the machine that serves the page cannot change an answer.

The times move by a minute or two from one day to the next, because the sun does not stand in the same place at the same hour through the year. The further a place is from the equator, the more they move. Every page is worked out again on the day you open it.

Elevation is not applied, the way the official national tables do not apply it. The times are worked out for a sea-level horizon.

Calculation methods and the Asr school

A method is a pair of sun angles. One says how far below the horizon the sun is when Fajr begins, and the other says the same for Isha. Bodies around the world have settled on different angles, so a method is a choice and not a calculation.

This site offers 26 methods. Each one is named for the body that publishes it.

Every page starts with a method. The site holds one starting method and one Asr school for each of the 248 countries in its table. A country the table does not list starts with the Muslim World League method and the standard (Shafi, Maliki, Hanbali) Asr. A starting method is a starting point and not a ruling: the country's own page names the one it uses, and “change” under the times on any page lets you pick another.

The Asr school is a separate choice, and every page offers both. The standard school (Shafi, Maliki, Hanbali) puts Asr earlier; the Hanafi school puts it later, by up to about an hour.

The methods this site offers

Why two timetables can differ

Two sites can show the same place on the same day and differ by a few minutes. Four things account for nearly all of it.

The method. A site that uses one Fajr angle and a site that uses another will not agree, and the gap grows the further a place is from the equator.

The Asr school. The Hanafi school puts Asr later than the standard school, by up to about an hour. That is a different rule, not a rounding difference.

Rounding. Most methods here round a time to the nearest minute and a few round up. Another site may round the other way, which moves a time by a minute.

The high-latitude rule. Far from the equator the sun does not go far enough below the horizon on some nights, so there is no angle left to measure. Every site applies a rule instead, and the rules differ. A place page says so in its own words on the days that rule is used.

Your mosque comes first. These times are worked out; they are not copied from a printed timetable. Where your mosque publishes its own times, follow those.

The Hijri date on the page

A place page shows the Islamic date beside the ordinary one. It is worked out from the Umm al-Qura calendar, which is calculated in advance. A country that begins a month on an actual sighting can be a day different, sometimes two, so the date on the page is the calculated one and never a sighted one.

The Qibla line

A place page carries one line that says which way the Kaaba is from that place, and about how far away it is. The direction is measured clockwise from true north. A phone compass points at magnetic north, and the two differ by up to about 20 degrees in parts of the world, so a compass reading needs that difference taken off it first.

Where to go next

The times for a city or town are on that place's own page. Prayer times for every city and town