Updated 27 October 2026 · 6 min read
If you compare two prayer timetables for the same city, Dhuhr and Maghrib usually agree to the minute, but Fajr and Isha can be twenty or thirty minutes apart. Neither timetable is broken. They follow different calculation methods, and the difference comes down to one question: how dark does the sky have to be?
What the angle means
Fajr begins at true dawn, when light first spreads along the horizon, and Isha begins when the last red or white glow of twilight disappears. Astronomers describe twilight by how far the sun is below the horizon. A method that uses 18° for Fajr waits for the sun to be 18° below the horizon before the night ends, which makes Fajr earlier. A method that uses 15° makes Fajr later. The same logic applies to Isha in the evening. A few methods replace the Isha angle with a fixed interval after Maghrib instead.
Dhuhr (just after solar noon), Asr (shadow length) and Maghrib (sunset) are the same in every method.
The main methods
| Method | Fajr | Isha | Where it is common |
|---|---|---|---|
| Muslim World League | 18° | 17° | Europe, parts of Asia and Africa |
| ISNA (North America) | 15° | 15° | United States and Canada |
| Egyptian General Authority | 19.5° | 17.5° | Egypt, parts of Africa and the Levant |
| Umm al-Qura, Makkah | 18.5° | 90 min after Maghrib (120 in Ramadan) | Saudi Arabia |
| Univ. of Islamic Sciences, Karachi | 18° | 18° | Pakistan, India, Bangladesh |
| Moonsighting Committee | 18° | 18°, with seasonal adjustment | UK and other higher latitudes |
| Dubai | 18.2° | 18.2° | United Arab Emirates |
| Kuwait | 18° | 17.5° | Kuwait |
| Qatar | 18° | 90 min after Maghrib | Qatar |
| MUIS Singapore | 20° | 18° | Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia |
| Tehran | 17.7° | 14° | Iran |
| Diyanet | 18° | 17° | Türkiye |
How big is the difference?
Here are Fajr and Isha in London on 21 March 2026, calculated six different ways:
| Method | Fajr | Isha |
|---|---|---|
| Egyptian | 03:57 | 20:06 |
| Umm al-Qura | 04:04 | 19:45 |
| Muslim World League | 04:07 | 20:02 |
| Karachi | 04:07 | 20:10 |
| ISNA | 04:28 | 19:49 |
| Moonsighting Committee | 04:28 | 19:32 |
That is a 31-minute spread for Fajr and 38 minutes for Isha on the same day in the same city. The gap is smaller near the equator, where the sun drops steeply, and larger at higher latitudes, where twilight lingers.
Which method should you use?
- Follow your local mosque. Prayer in congregation matters more than any single angle. Ask which method or organisation their timetable follows and choose the same one in Settings.
- If you have no local guidance, use the method most common in your country. NextSalahClock does this automatically with the “Auto” setting.
- Use minute adjustments if your mosque's printed timetable adds a safety margin. Settings lets you shift any prayer earlier or later by a few minutes.
Remember that a timetable shows when each prayer begins. Mosques publish iqamah (congregation) times separately, usually some minutes later.
See also: prayer times at high latitudes and how prayer times are calculated.
Times in this guide are calculated start times. Your mosque may publish different times or iqamah times; see our calculation disclaimer.