How our prayer times are calculated

Every prayer time on this site is calculated astronomically for the exact coordinates and time zone of each city, using the open-source adhan calculation library. Times are worked out fresh for each day rather than copied from a fixed timetable, so they follow the sun through the seasons and the daylight-saving changes in every country we cover.

Calculation methods by country

Muslims in different countries follow different conventions for the angle of the sun at Fajr and Isha. We use the convention most widely followed by mosques and Muslim organisations in each country.

• United Kingdom: Moonsighting Committee Worldwide. Fajr and Isha use seasonally adjusted twilight, which was designed for higher latitudes where twilight lasts much longer in summer.
• United States and Canada: Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), with Fajr and Isha at 15 degrees below the horizon.
• Australia and New Zealand: Muslim World League (MWL), with Fajr at 18 degrees and Isha at 17 degrees below the horizon.

High latitudes and summer nights

In summer the sun never sinks far enough below the horizon in some northern cities for true astronomical twilight to end. Where that happens we follow the rule recommended for each method. For Moonsighting Committee cities above 55 degrees north, such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, Fajr and Isha follow the one-seventh-of-the-night rule. For ISNA and MWL cities we apply the twilight-angle rule, which divides the night in proportion to the method's angles. Each affected city page shows a note when an adjustment is in use.

Asr: Standard and Hanafi

Two opinions exist on when Asr begins. The Standard opinion, followed by the Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali schools, begins Asr when an object's shadow equals its length plus its shadow at noon. The Hanafi school begins Asr when the shadow reaches twice the object's length, which is later in the afternoon. Every city page shows both times. UK pages highlight the Hanafi time because most UK mosques follow it; pages for other countries highlight the Standard time. You can switch the highlighted time on any page, and your choice is remembered.

Precautionary minutes

Following the guidance of each method, Dhuhr is shown one minute after solar noon for ISNA and MWL. For the Moonsighting Committee method, Dhuhr is shown five minutes after solar noon and Maghrib three minutes after sunset. These small margins make sure a prayer is never started before its time has begun.

Hijri date

The Hijri date shown on each page follows the Umm al-Qura calendar. Your local community may begin a month a day earlier or later based on moon sighting, especially for Ramadan and Eid, so follow your local mosque's announcement for those dates.

Please check with your local mosque

Calculated times are an accurate guide, but many mosques publish their own timetables with congregation (jama'ah) times and small local adjustments. When in doubt, follow the timetable of the mosque you pray at.

Data sources

City names, coordinates and populations come from GeoNames, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Mosque locations come from OpenStreetMap contributors and are available under the Open Database Licence. Prayer times are calculated with the adhan library, which is released under the MIT licence.