Our own engine
MiqatLive calculates every prayer time itself, on our own server. Our prayer engine is built on adhan, a widely used open-source astronomy library, and adds the method settings, the Ramadan rule for Isha and the rule for high latitudes. No time is copied from another website, and no outside service is asked when you open a page.
The inputs are the city’s coordinates and time zone, the date and the settings of the city’s country: method, Asr school and high-latitude rule. Times follow the city’s own time zone, including daylight saving time where it applies, and are rounded to the minute. Where a city’s mosques follow a different method or Asr school than the rest of the country, the city can have its own, and its page names it.
We test the engine against prayer timetables published by official bodies.
How each time is found
Four positions of the sun set the five prayers and sunrise.
| Time | When it begins |
|---|---|
| Fajr | When the sun is the method’s Fajr angle below the horizon before sunrise. |
| Sunrise | When the top edge of the sun appears on the horizon, allowing for the bending of light by the air. |
| Dhuhr | Just after the sun passes its highest point (solar noon). Most methods add one or more minutes (see the methods table). |
| Asr | When an object’s shadow has grown by its own length (Standard) or by twice its length (Hanafi) beyond its shadow at noon. |
| Maghrib | At sunset, when the top edge of the sun disappears; methods with a Maghrib angle wait until the sun is that far below the horizon. |
| Isha | When the sun is the method’s Isha angle below the horizon after sunset, or a fixed number of minutes after Maghrib. |
Calculation methods and their angles
A method sets how far below the horizon the sun must be for Fajr and Isha. Each country uses the method most of its mosques follow (see settings by country). These are the methods our engine offers, with the values it uses.
| Method | Fajr | Isha | Maghrib | Built-in minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi | 18° | 18° | Sunset | Dhuhr +1 |
| Muslim World League | 18° | 17° | Sunset | Dhuhr +1 |
| Islamic Society of North America | 15° | 15° | Sunset | Dhuhr +1 |
| Umm al-Qura University, Makkah (120 min in Ramadan) | 18.5° | 90 min after Maghrib (120 in Ramadan) | Sunset | — |
| Egyptian General Authority of Survey | 19.5° | 17.5° | Sunset | Dhuhr +1 |
| Dubai | 18.2° | 18.2° | Sunset | Sunrise −3, Dhuhr +3, Asr +3, Maghrib +3 |
| Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, Turkey (with Diyanet minute offsets) | 18° | 17° | Sunset | Sunrise −7, Dhuhr +5, Asr +4, Maghrib +7 |
| MUIS / JAKIM style (rounded up) | 20° | 18° | Sunset | Dhuhr +1 |
| Kuwait | 18° | 17.5° | Sunset | — |
| Qatar | 18° | 90 min after Maghrib | Sunset | — |
| Moonsighting Committee Worldwide (seasonal adjustment) | 18° | 18° | Sunset | Dhuhr +5, Maghrib +3 |
| Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran | 17.7° | 14° | 4.5° below the horizon | — |
Angles are degrees of the sun below the horizon. Built-in minutes belong to the method itself and come before any local adjustment. To compare the methods for one city today, see prayer times worldwide.
Standard and Hanafi Asr
The schools of law differ on when Asr begins. In the Standard view (the Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools) it begins when an object’s shadow has grown by its own length beyond its noon shadow; in the Hanafi view, by twice its length. The other prayer times are the same in both views.
Each country has a default school. Every city page shows the Asr time of that school as the main time and the other school’s Asr time next to it.
Places far from the equator
Far from the equator the sun may not sink to the Fajr or Isha angle on summer nights, so twilight lasts all night. A high-latitude rule then sets a limit based on the length of the night, from sunset to sunrise:
- Middle of the night: Fajr is never earlier, and Isha never later, than the middle of the night.
- One seventh of the night: Fajr is never earlier than the start of the last seventh of the night, and Isha never later than the end of the first seventh.
- Twilight angle: the share of the night is the angle divided by 60. With 18°, Fajr is never earlier than three tenths of the night before sunrise.
A country can choose one of these rules. Without a choice, places north of 48° use one seventh of the night; everywhere else the middle of the night is the limit, which at most latitudes is never reached.
Where the sun does not rise or does not set at all on a day, the times of the nearest day on which it both rises and sets are used.
Hijri dates and moon sighting
Hijri dates start from the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia, as built into today’s browsers and servers. Each country has a default difference to it in days, for example one day behind.
A new month begins when the country’s own authority announces it. We record each announcement: if the moon was sighted on the evening of the 29th, the month starts the next day; if not, the month before completes 30 days and the new month starts the day after next.
Only announcements approved by the owner or a reviewer change the site, and the calendar is never declared from astronomical predictions alone. Until an announcement is approved, Ramadan and Eid dates are shown as expected, subject to moon sighting.
Methods with a longer Isha interval in Ramadan (Umm al-Qura) follow the country’s own Hijri date.
Extra minutes and approved exceptions
Times stay fully calculated. Minutes are added on top only in three cases, and only the owner or a reviewer can set them:
- A country’s precaution (ihtiyat): minutes the whole country follows, for example Maghrib +2.
- A city’s local practice: minutes for one city whose mosques differ from the rest of the country.
- Dated exceptions: minutes for a set period, for example Ramadan, in one country or one city. They change the site only once approved.
When a time includes such minutes, the city page says so next to the method, for example “Maghrib +2 min (precaution)”.
Settings by country
Each country’s method, Asr school, high-latitude rule and moon-sighting authority. Settings marked “to verify” are checked by a reviewer before that country goes live.
The first country opens soon.
Qibla, sources and corrections
- How we calculate the Qibla: every step from the Kaaba’s coordinates to the live compass.
- Data sources and credits: where our data comes from and under which licence.
- Report a wrong time: if your masjid shows a different time, tell us. A reviewer checks every report.