Essaouira Prayer Times

Prayer Times in Essaouira, Morocco

Essaouiraprayer times are calculated based on the city's precise geographic coordinates (31.5125°N, 9.7700°W) using the Muslim World League calculation method — the standard followed by most mosques in Morocco. Times shown are for today's date and update automatically at midnight.

The five daily prayers — Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha — are calculated from the sun's position relative to Essaouira's latitude and longitude. As the sun's declination changes throughout the year, prayer times shift by several minutes each day. This is why a Essaouira prayer time calendar for the full month is shown below — so you can plan ahead without checking daily.

How Essaouira's prayer times are worked out

Essaouira sits 5,020 km (3,119 miles) from the Kaaba in Mecca, so the Qibla from here is 90° from true north — you face east to pray. Fajr and Isha depend on how far the sun drops below the horizon, and Morocco follows the Muslim World League method set by the Muslim World League: Fajr begins when the sun is 18° below the horizon, and Isha when it reaches 17°. A city that used ISNA's 15° instead would get a noticeably different Fajr — which is why the method, not just the coordinates, decides the answer.

Day length is what really moves the timetable in Essaouira. Measured with the Muslim World League method, the longest daily fast here — from Fajr to Maghrib — runs about 15h 52m around June, while the shortest is roughly 11h 33m in December: a swing of 4h 19m across the year. That spread is set by Essaouira's latitude (31.51°N); cities nearer the equator barely vary, while far-northern ones swing by many hours.

One local quirk worth knowing: Dhuhr in Essaouira does not fall at 12:00. Because the city sits well west within its Africa/Casablanca time zone, the sun peaks about 48 minutes after clock noon, and Dhuhr follows the sun rather than the clock — today it is at 1:46 PM. The nearest cities we also publish times for are Safi, Agadir, Dakhla — close enough that their times differ from Essaouira's by only a few minutes.