Prayer times: Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha in your city

The tool above shows today’s times for the five obligatory prayers, Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha, as well as sunrise, for the city of your choice or for your current location. You can also choose the calculation method, since not all mosques follow the same one. This page explains how the time of each prayer is defined, why times vary with place, season and convention, and what changes during Ramadan.

Five prayers, each at its time

Prayer (salah) is the second pillar of Islam, and it is tied to specific moments of the day: “Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times” (Quran 4:103, Surah an-Nisa). The Quran refers to these times several times, for example: “Establish prayer at the decline of the sun [from its meridian] until the darkness of the night and [also] the Quran [i.e. recitation] of dawn” (Quran 17:78).

It was the angel Gabriel (Jibril) who taught these times to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: he led each of the five prayers with him, one day at the beginning of its time and the next day at its end, and then said that the time of prayer lies between these two (Sunan Abi Dawud 393; Jami‘ at-Tirmidhi 149; graded hasan sahih). Each prayer therefore has a window of time, not a single minute.

Praying within this window is essential. Asked which deed is most beloved to Allah, the Prophet ﷺ replied: “Prayer at its proper time” (Sahih al-Bukhari 527; Sahih Muslim 85). A prayer performed within its time is valid, even if it is not offered as soon as the call is made; it is generally better not to wait too long, and deliberately delaying it beyond its time is a serious sin. Anyone who forgot a prayer or slept through it makes it up as soon as they remember (Sahih Muslim 684). Praying in congregation, at the mosque or at home, multiplies the reward: “Prayer in congregation is twenty-seven degrees superior to prayer offered alone” (Sahih al-Bukhari 645; Sahih Muslim 650); another narration speaks of twenty-five degrees (Sahih al-Bukhari 646).

How the time of each prayer is defined

The times are not arbitrary: they correspond to positions of the sun described in the hadiths and nowadays translated into astronomical calculations based on latitude, longitude and date.

These limits follow the hadith of ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr: “The time of Dhuhr lasts as long as Asr has not come; the time of Asr, as long as the sun has not turned yellow; the time of Maghrib, as long as the twilight has not disappeared; the time of Isha, until the middle of the night; and the time of Fajr, as long as the sun has not risen” (Sahih Muslim 612).

Fajr

Fajr does not begin at sunrise, as is sometimes thought, but well before, at dawn: in fact it ends at sunrise. Scholars distinguish the “false dawn”, a vertical glow that appears first in the sky, from the “true dawn”, a light that spreads horizontally along the horizon. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Do not be misled by the call of Bilal nor by this whiteness, until it spreads out like this” (Sahih Muslim 1094). It is the true dawn that marks both the time of Fajr and the start of the fast.

Dhuhr

Dhuhr begins as soon as the sun has passed the meridian, that is, just after solar noon (zawal), which does not coincide with twelve o’clock on the clock. To be safe, timetables usually add a few minutes to the astronomical time. In intense heat, the Prophet ﷺ advised waiting until it had eased (Sahih al-Bukhari 533).

Asr and the difference between the schools

According to the Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools, as well as Abu Hanifa’s two main students, Asr begins when an object’s shadow equals its own length, plus the length of its shadow at noon. For Abu Hanifa, it begins when the shadow reaches twice that length. The so-called “Hanafi” Asr is therefore later: in Paris the gap ranges from half an hour in winter to more than an hour in summer. Timetables in the Indian subcontinent generally follow the Hanafi view and most others the majority view; the tool offers both.

Maghrib and Isha

Maghrib begins when the sun’s disc has completely disappeared below the horizon; allowing for atmospheric refraction, the centre of the sun is then taken to be about 0.83° below the horizon. Isha begins at the end of twilight, when the red glow disappears in the west according to most scholars (the white glow according to Abu Hanifa).

Times when one does not pray

The Prophet ﷺ forbade voluntary prayers at three moments: while the sun is rising, when it is at its zenith and while it is setting (Sahih Muslim 831). This is why timetables also show sunrise, which marks the end of the time for Fajr.

Calculation conventions for Fajr and Isha

Dawn and the end of twilight do not happen at a sharp instant: the light grows or fades gradually. To calculate them, an angle of the sun below the horizon is chosen. The larger the angle, the earlier Fajr and the later Isha. The main conventions are as follows:

In France, the 12° convention adopted by the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF, renamed Musulmans de France in 2017) is followed by many mosques; others use 15° or 18°. The difference is far from negligible: in Paris, Fajr calculated at 12° falls 40 to 50 minutes later than at 18°, depending on the season. The tool above lets you choose the method: the simplest course is to follow your mosque’s, so that you pray and fast in step with your community.

High latitudes

North of roughly the 48.5th parallel, a latitude that Paris already exceeds, the sun no longer sinks 18° below the horizon around the summer solstice: twilight then lasts all night, and dawn or the end of twilight, as defined at 18°, no longer exist. Further north, the phenomenon also affects smaller angles and lasts for several weeks; beyond the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set at all in summer.

Jurists and astronomers have proposed several solutions: setting Fajr and Isha according to a fraction of the night (half, or one seventh), using a rule proportional to the chosen angle, or taking the times of the nearest day or latitude at which the signs are still visible. They draw on the principle of estimation the Prophet ﷺ gave regarding abnormally long days: “Estimate its measure” (Sahih Muslim 2937). The tool on this page applies the angle-based proportional rule. In these regions it is especially advisable to follow the timetable of your mosque or of the local religious authorities.

Prayer times during Ramadan

During Ramadan, prayer times also set the rhythm of the fast: Fajr marks its beginning (imsak, a few minutes earlier, is only a precaution), Maghrib its end, and tarawih is prayed after Isha. Our Ramadan calendar gives these times day by day for the whole month.

You sometimes read that during Ramadan every prayer is “worth a thousand prayers”. This claim rests on no authentic text. The figure of a thousand comes from the Quran, but it concerns a single night: “The Night of Decree is better than a thousand months” (Quran 97:3, Surah al-Qadr). As for the long sermon attributed to the Prophet ﷺ according to which, in Ramadan, a voluntary deed is worth an obligatory one and an obligatory deed is worth seventy, it is reported by Ibn Khuzaymah with reservations, and hadith specialists consider it weak. Ramadan nonetheless remains a month in which good deeds are encouraged: voluntary prayers, Quran recitation, charity. Among the prayers recommended all year round are the twelve regular rak‘ahs that accompany the obligatory prayers: four before Dhuhr and two after, two after Maghrib, two after Isha and two before Fajr; “a house will be built in Paradise for whoever prays them” (Sahih Muslim 728; Jami‘ at-Tirmidhi 415). More ideas are gathered in our article on earning hasanat in Ramadan.

Using prayer times well

• Choose the city closest to you, or use your location for a more precise calculation.
• Select the calculation method used by your mosque; if in doubt, ask the imam.
• Calculated times may differ by a few minutes from those of your mosque, which sometimes adds a safety margin.
• Remember the clock changes in spring and autumn: all the times then shift by an hour.

To learn how to perform the prayer, its conditions and its movements, see our page on prayer in Islam. And for everything about the month of fasting, see our guide to Ramadan.