Saudi Arabia prayer times

Choose a city to see today’s times and the month ahead. Saudi prayer times are read from the Umm al-Qura calendar published by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, and every row names its source.

Matches the Umm al-Qura calendar · 0-minute difference

Scope of this claim

For the city point registered in the app and the selected date, with the calculation method left on Umm al-Qura and personal minute adjustments set to zero. The times were compared cell by cell with the published calendar across a full year in several cities and matched in every cell. Umm al-Qura is a national service computed from coordinates rather than a closed list of cities, so every city is read from the same source at its registered point; a city name does not mean every spot inside its limits, and maghrib can differ by a minute between the two ends of a large city. The match no longer holds if the method is changed or a minute adjustment is added. The institution’s name identifies the data source; it does not imply partnership, endorsement or sponsorship.

Prayer times in major cities

Mecca Jeddah Buraydah Hail Khamis Mushait Hafar Al-Batin Abha

Medina Dammam Taif Najran Al-Hofuf Jubail Yanbu

Riyadh Sultanah Tabuk Al-Kharj Al-Mubarraz Sabya

Cities

Cities are listed by population. A city that is missing has no entry in the prayer-times database yet.

Najran

Northern Borders

Arar Turayf

Riyadh

Ad Dawadimi Ad Dir'iyah Al-Kharj Az Zulfi Riyadh Shaqra

Tabuk

Al Wajh Tabuk

Calculation and source

Institution: King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology — Umm al-Qura calendar
Method: Umm al-Qura; Fajr at 18.5°; isha a fixed 90 minutes after maghrib, 120 minutes during Ramadan.
Asr: Asr is shown at a shadow ratio of one, the column the Umm al-Qura calendar prints. Followers of the Hanafi school can switch to the two-shadow Asr in the app; the Asr row then differs from the published calendar by that difference in school.
Precaution minutes: None. The app adds no precaution minutes of its own, and the match depends on the personal minute adjustment staying at zero.
Time zone: Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time, so the clock never jumps in spring or autumn. The country is wide, though: Dammam on the Gulf and Jeddah on the Red Sea are about eleven degrees of longitude apart, which is roughly forty minutes of solar time on one shared clock.
Hijri calendar and crescent: The start of Ramadan and both Eids is announced by the Supreme Court after the crescent is sighted, while the civil calendar runs on the Umm al-Qura calculation. The Hijri date shown in the app can therefore differ from the announcement by a day.

The state science agency that computes and publishes the Umm al-Qura calendar, the Kingdom’s official calendar and the national reference for prayer times.

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology — Umm al-Qura calendar

The Umm al-Qura calendar as the reference

The Umm al-Qura calendar is the official calendar of Saudi Arabia, and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology publishes the prayer times built on it. The app reads those times for the registered point of each city and shows them as they are, without rounding and without adding precaution minutes. Because the service is computed from coordinates rather than kept as a closed list of cities, a page can be opened for every city the source returns with an official label — from Makkah, Madinah, Riyadh and Jeddah to Abha, Jazan, Sakaka, Arar and Qurayyat. Every row carries the name of its source so you always know where a time came from.

What “0-minute difference” means here

The times were compared numerically with the published Umm al-Qura calendar over a full year in several cities and matched in every cell; the other cities are read from the same source in the same way. It helps to understand what a city point is. A single city can stretch for tens of kilometres, and the difference in coordinates between its edges can move maghrib by a minute either way. The match is tied to the point registered in the app, not to every location inside the city limits — a distinction we state rather than hide.

Umm al-Qura and the time of isha

Umm al-Qura uses an angle of 18.5 degrees for fajr but no angle at all for isha. Instead, isha begins a fixed ninety minutes after the maghrib adhan, and during Ramadan the interval becomes one hundred and twenty minutes. This sets the Saudi calendar apart from most other methods, which use a solar angle for isha, and the app applies it exactly, including the Ramadan extension. If isha looks later than you are used to in another country, that is the effect of this rule rather than an error in the calculation. Dhuhr, asr, maghrib and sunrise come from the position of the sun at the city’s coordinates, as they do in every calendar.

Differences between Saudi cities

The Kingdom is wide from east to west. Dammam and Jeddah are about eleven degrees of longitude apart, close to two thirds of an hour of solar time, so the moment each prayer begins differs noticeably between the far east and the far west despite one official clock for the whole country. The difference in latitude between Tabuk in the north and Jazan in the south shows up in the length of the day and in the fajr and isha angles, most clearly in summer and winter. Do not read Riyadh’s times as the times of the whole Kingdom; choose the city actually nearest to you.

Monthly table and Ramadan timetable

Each city page shows today’s times followed by a thirty-day table with a source label on every row, and the Ramadan timetable page shows fajr and maghrib side by side as suhoor and iftar. In the app you can set an alert for each prayer with the adhan or silently, add a reminder a few minutes beforehand, and place the prayer-times widget on your home screen to see how long remains until the next prayer without opening the app.

Questions

Are these times the Umm al-Qura calendar itself?

Yes. They are read from the Umm al-Qura service of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology for the registered point of the city. Every row carries its source label, and if the source is unavailable the word “calculated” appears instead of the institution’s name.

Why does isha come about an hour and a half after maghrib?

Because the Umm al-Qura calendar does not calculate isha from a solar angle. It places isha ninety minutes after maghrib, and one hundred and twenty minutes during Ramadan. That is the calendar’s own rule, and the app shows it as published.

Why are the times in Makkah different from Riyadh?

The Kingdom is wide and the difference in longitude between its west and east is large, so the two cities share an official clock but not the moment of sunrise and sunset. Pick your city from the list to see its own table.