India prayer times

India has no body that publishes prayer times nationally. This page explains the calculation the app uses instead, why Kerala timetables look different from northern ones, and what each city page shows.

Calculated · University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi

How these times are calculated

No national prayer timetable is published for India, and there is no single body with that role. The app calculates with the University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi method, the convention in widest use across Indian mosque timetables, and every row on a city page says that its time is calculated. Local committees often add precaution minutes, and some regional timetables are built on a different angle or a different Asr shadow ratio, so their printed minutes can differ from the calculated ones. Indian mosques do not all use the same convention, so a difference between this page and your local card is expected rather than an error.

Calculation and source

Institution
No published national timetable
Method
University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi
Fajr 18°, Isha 18° — a calculation, not a published table.
Asr
Asr defaults to the Hanafi shadow ratio of two, which is what most northern and western Indian cards print; Kerala and parts of the coastal south use the ratio of one, which the app can be switched to.
Precaution minutes
None. The app adds no precaution minutes of its own; the Karachi preset carries a single built-in minute on Dhuhr so the time can never fall before true zawāl.
Time zone
India does not observe daylight saving. Because the country is almost thirty degrees wide, that single clock hides a real astronomical spread: on the same date, Fajr in Kolkata can begin the better part of an hour before Fajr in Ahmedabad. A single national table would be meaningless here, which is why each city is calculated from its own coordinates.
Hijri calendar and crescent
Ramadan and the two Eids are announced locally: by a state Hilal committee, by a large mosque, or by a regional body, and neighbouring states can begin on different days. The Hijri date shown in the app is calculated and may sit a day away from your local announcement; where one has been made, follow it.

Prayer times in India are set locally — by a jama masjid committee, a state Hilal committee, or a printing house that has produced the same annual card for decades. None of them claims national authority, and no state or federal body issues a daily timetable.

India prayer times

Why there is no official Indian timetable

Unlike Turkey or Malaysia, India has no state or national religious body that issues a daily prayer timetable. Prayer times in India are set locally: a jama masjid committee, a state-level Hilal committee, a printing house that has produced the same annual card for decades. Some of the largest of these publish calendars for a city or a district, and none of them claims national authority. That is not a gap in this site’s data so much as a description of how the country actually works, and it is the reason every row on these pages is labelled as calculated.

The method Indian timetables share

What most of those local timetables do share is the underlying calculation. The convention in widest use across Indian mosque cards is the one set by the University of Islamic Sciences in Karachi: Fajr when the sun is eighteen degrees below the horizon, and Isha at the same eighteen degrees on the other side of the night. It travels well across India’s latitudes and is what the majority of printed cards in the north and west are built on. These pages use it, which is why a card built on the same angles usually sits within a minute or two of the time shown here.

Regional differences you should expect

Some parts of India follow a different convention, and the difference is real rather than an error. Kerala and parts of coastal Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have a strong Shafi tradition, and their timetables put Asr at one shadow length instead of two — which in winter can be close to an hour earlier than the time shown here by default. In those places, change the Asr setting in the app rather than the method: the five other times stay where they are. Elsewhere, a one- or two-minute gap against a local card is usually a precaution margin the committee added deliberately.

What each city page shows

Each Indian city page carries today’s six times for that city’s own coordinates, the Hijri date, and a monthly table where every row is labelled with its source. Because no Indian institution’s table is integrated, those labels all read as calculated — the honest answer rather than a placeholder. Cities are listed by population, and the list can grow: if your city is missing it is because the prayer-times database has no entry for it yet, not because it was left out.

Questions

Which calculation method does the app use in India?
The University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi method — fajr and isha both at 18° — with the Hanafi Asr ratio. Both are changeable in the app’s prayer-time settings.
My Kerala timetable shows a much earlier Asr. Why?
Kerala timetables generally use the shadow ratio of one rather than two, so Asr begins earlier — noticeably so in winter. Switch the Asr setting in the app and only that time moves.
Why is the Hijri date here a day off from my local announcement?
India has no single moon-sighting authority, and the date shown in the app is calculated. Where a local committee has announced a sighting, that announcement is the one to follow.

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