SOURCES · LICENCES

Data Sources and Credits

Where the data behind MiqatLive comes from, the licence we use it under and the credit each source asks for.

What we calculate ourselves

These numbers are not copied from anyone. They are calculated on our own server, so we can show exactly how each one is made.

WhatHow
Prayer timesOur prayer engine, built on the open-source adhan library, from each city’s coordinates and its country’s settings. How we calculate prayer times
Qibla direction and distanceThe great-circle bearing and distance from the city to the Kaaba. How we calculate the Qibla
Hijri dates, Ramadan and EidThe Umm al-Qura calendar, moved only by each country’s approved moon-sighting announcements. Hijri dates

Data we use from others

We use these open datasets under their licences and credit them here.

SourceWhat we use it forLicenceCredit
GeoNamesCities, coordinates, time zones, population and city names in other languagesCC BY 4.0Place data: GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0
DB-IPDB-IP Lite City, read on our own server to estimate your city from your internet connection. The IP address is not stored.CC BY 4.0IP geolocation by DB-IP
WikidataCity identifiers and city names in other languages; a person checks every name before it is usedCC0 1.0Wikidata
World Magnetic Model (WMM2025)Magnetic declination, to turn a phone compass reading into true north on the Qibla pagesPublic domain (US government work)NOAA NCEI and British Geological Survey
Natural EarthLand outlines for the world map and globe on the Qibla pagesPublic domainNatural Earth

For imported datasets such as GeoNames we record the licence and the credit it asks for, and keep the downloaded files unchanged with a checksum.

Official announcements and timetables

Moon-sighting announcements come from each country’s official authority, named in the country settings. We record the facts (moon sighted or not, and the evening of the announcement) and write our own words.

We test our engine against prayer timetables published by official bodies. We use them only for comparison and do not republish them.

Open-source software and fonts

  • adhan (MIT licence): the astronomy library inside our prayer engine.
  • mmdb-lib (MIT licence): reads the DB-IP database file on our server.
  • Fonts Cinzel, Readex Pro, Reem Kufi, Noto Nastaliq Urdu and Amiri, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, served from our own server.

Reference works

The Quran and hadith references, geodesy and astronomy works behind the Qibla direction are listed on How we calculate the Qibla.

A credit missing?

If you hold rights to data we use, or a credit is missing or wrong, please contact us and we will correct it.