Mecca Prayer Times

Prayer Times in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Meccaprayer times are calculated based on the city's precise geographic coordinates (21.3891°N, 39.8579°E) using the Umm al-Qura calculation method — the standard followed by most mosques in Saudi Arabia. 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 Mecca'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 Mecca prayer time calendar for the full month is shown below — so you can plan ahead without checking daily.

How Mecca's prayer times are worked out

Mecca sits 5 km (3 miles) from the Kaaba in Mecca, so the Qibla from here is 319° from true north — you face northwest to pray. Fajr and Isha depend on how far the sun drops below the horizon, and Saudi Arabia follows the Umm al-Qura method set by Umm al-Qura University, Makkah: Fajr begins when the sun is 18.5° below the horizon, and Isha is fixed at 90 minutes after Maghrib rather than an angle. 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 Mecca. Measured with the Umm al-Qura method, the longest daily fast here — from Fajr to Maghrib — runs about 14h 55m around June, while the shortest is roughly 12h 12m in December: a swing of 2h 43m across the year. That spread is set by Mecca's latitude (21.39°N); cities nearer the equator barely vary, while far-northern ones swing by many hours.

One local quirk worth knowing: Dhuhr in Mecca does not fall at 12:00. Because the city sits well west within its Asia/Riyadh time zone, the sun peaks about 28 minutes after clock noon, and Dhuhr follows the sun rather than the clock — today it is at 12:27 PM. The nearest cities we also publish times for are Ta’if, Ash Shafā, Jeddah — close enough that their times differ from Mecca's by only a few minutes.