Prayer Times & Namaz: The Complete Guide

The five daily prayers (namaz)

Islam prescribes five obligatory prayers each day, spread from before dawn to night. Their timing follows the sun, so the exact minutes change daily and by location:

• Fajr - the dawn prayer, from true dawn until sunrise.
• Dhuhr - the midday prayer, once the sun has passed its zenith.
• Asr - the afternoon prayer (its start depends on shadow length; see below).
• Maghrib - just after sunset; also the moment of iftar in Ramadan.
• Isha - the night prayer, after the twilight has disappeared.

Alongside these are voluntary prayers such as Duha (forenoon), Witr (after Isha) and Tahajjud (late night), and the weekly Jumu’ah (Friday) prayer that replaces Dhuhr. Sunrise is listed on every city page because it marks the end of Fajr, but no prayer is offered at that moment.

Namaz, salah, prayer and azan

These words cause a lot of confusion, but they overlap: salah (or salat) is the Arabic term for the ritual prayer; namaz is the same thing in Urdu, Persian and Turkish; and prayer is the plain English word. The azan (adhan) is the call to prayer announced at the start of each time, and the iqamah is the shorter call given just before the congregation begins. So "namaz time", "salah time", "azan time" and "prayer time" all point to the same five daily times shown on this site.

How prayer times are calculated

Dhuhr, Asr and Maghrib are tied to clear solar events (the zenith, a shadow ratio and sunset). Fajr and Isha are harder: they depend on how far the sun sits below the horizon during twilight, and different authorities choose slightly different angles. That choice is called the calculation method - for example the Muslim World League, ISNA, Umm al-Qura and the University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi. Each city on this site shows which method its times use; the full list is on the calculation methods page.

Standard vs Hanafi Asr

The one prayer whose time genuinely differs by school of law is Asr. In the standard position (followed by the Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools) Asr begins when an object’s shadow equals its own length. In the Hanafi school it begins when the shadow reaches twice the object’s length, so the Hanafi Asr is noticeably later. Every city page lists both Asr times in its monthly table and offers a Standard/Hanafi toggle on the live cards, so you can follow whichever your community uses.

The Qibla

Wherever you are, prayer is offered facing the Qibla - the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. It is calculated as the great-circle bearing (the shortest path over the Earth’s surface) from your coordinates, expressed in degrees clockwise from true north, and it is fixed for a given place. Use the Qibla finder for a bearing, distance to Mecca and a live phone compass in any city.

Ramadan: sehri and iftar

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. The pre-dawn meal, sehri (suhoor), must end at Fajr, and the fast is broken with iftar at Maghrib. Because both follow the sun, sehri and iftar times differ by city and shift a little each day - so a local timetable matters. See the Ramadan sehri & iftar timetable for any city.

Tahajjud and the night

Tahajjud is a voluntary night prayer offered after Isha and before Fajr. It is most rewarded in the last third of the night, which every city page calculates from that night’s Maghrib and the next Fajr, along with the midpoint (Islamic midnight). Witr, an odd-numbered prayer, is usually offered after Isha or at the end of the night.