To find the qibla direction by sun, use your qibla time, the minute the sun sits on the line to the Kaaba. Then face the sun or follow a stick's shadow. With no qibla time that day, mark the noon shadow and turn from it. Sunset alone misleads. Get your degree number from the qibla finder before you go outside.
What is the daily qibla time?
The daily qibla time is the moment the sun's direction matches your qibla bearing, or the exact opposite of it. At that moment a vertical stick's shadow lies right along the line to the Kaaba in Makkah (Mecca) (Wikipedia, Qibla observation by shadows). Unlike the rare sun-over-Kaaba days, it comes back on most days in most places. In Turkey it is called kıble saati.
What you do depends on which side of you the sun is on:
- Face the sun: the sun itself is on the qibla line, and your shadow falls behind you.
- Follow the shadow: the sun is directly opposite the qibla, so stand with it at your back and look where the shadow points.
Four cities on two dates show how it works. The times, dates and sun heights on this page are worked out for 2027 from NOAA's sun equations. They are good to about a minute or a day.
| City and bearing | 15 Apr, follow the shadow | 15 Apr, face the sun | 15 Jun, follow the shadow | 15 Jun, face the sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karachi, 267.7 | 07:37 | 16:44 | 10:42 | 13:40 |
| Lahore, 260.3 | 05:52 | 15:49 | 07:38 | 14:04 |
| Dhaka, 277.7 | 08:39 | 17:45 | 11:47 | 14:39 |
| Dubai, 258.8 | None | 15:21 | 08:25 | 12:53 |
Skip a time when the sun is very low or nearly overhead. Lahore's April 05:52 comes with the sun 3 degrees up, Dhaka's June 11:47 with it 87 degrees up, and Dubai's June 12:53 with it 82 degrees up.
To use a time, stand a straight stick upright on flat ground a few minutes early. At the minute, lay a string along the shadow, and you have a line you can keep.
Times move fast. Karachi's afternoon time falls from 16:44 to 16:19 in the week after 15 April. Nor can you borrow a neighbouring town's time, because the bearing changes as you travel. If your town is missing here and no local calendar prints it, go straight to the noon shadow, which needs only one lookup.
Which months have no qibla time?
Winter has no usable qibla time in the four cities above, because the sun sets before it swings round to the line. With the sun at least 5 degrees up, the seasons run roughly:
- Karachi: 21 March to 22 September
- Lahore: 6 March to 7 October
- Dhaka: 8 March to 6 October
- Dubai: 28 February to 14 October
Near the equator the trouble is the opposite. Lagos has a qibla time almost all year. From about 25 March to 18 April, and from 26 August to 17 September, it lands close to noon. The sun is then 80 degrees up or more, too high to read.
Qibla direction by sun at noon
At solar noon, the sun's highest point of the day, a stick's shadow lies on the north-south line. So on any clear day you can mark it and turn by your bearing. North of the Tropic of Cancer the sun is then due south and the shadow points north. South of the Tropic of Capricorn the sun is due north (Wikipedia, Noon).
- Look up solar noon for your town and date on the timeanddate.com sun calculator.
- Plant a straight stick upright in flat, open ground ten minutes before that.
- Mark the shadow tip every couple of minutes. The shortest tip is noon.
- Draw a line from the foot of the stick through that tip, and find its north end.
- Turn from north by your bearing. In Karachi that is 92 degrees to the left. The turn table for readers with no compass has other cities and a way to measure the angle by hand.
Solar noon is rarely 12:00 on your clock. The sun's own timing shifts it by up to 16 minutes, and time zones and summer time by over an hour. Clock times for the same day in four months:
| City | 15 Jan | 15 Apr | 15 Jun | 15 Oct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karachi | 12:41 | 12:32 | 12:32 | 12:18 |
| Lahore | 12:12 | 12:03 | 12:03 | 11:48 |
| Dhaka | 12:08 | 11:59 | 11:59 | 11:44 |
| Dubai | 12:28 | 12:19 | 12:19 | 12:05 |
| Cape Town | 12:56 | 12:46 | 12:47 | 12:32 |
| New York | 12:05 | 12:56 | 12:57 | 12:42 |
New York shows the summer time jump: 51 minutes from January to April.
What if the noon shadow is short or flips?
A short noon shadow means you should switch to the qibla time. In mid-July the noon sun stands 80 to 88 degrees up in Lahore, Karachi, Dhaka and Dubai, which leaves a stub. Winter reverses this. Karachi's January noon sun is about 44 degrees up, the shadow is long and clear, and there is no qibla time anyway. The two methods take turns through the year.
Between the tropics the shadow changes side. The noon sun passes straight overhead around these dates:
- Lagos: 6 April and 6 September
- Nairobi: 18 March and 27 September
- Jakarta: 5 March and 10 October
Between each pair of dates the noon shadow points south, so take your turn from south. For about four weeks either side of each date the noon sun is 80 degrees up or more. The shadow is then only a stub, so use the two-mark circle instead.
For the circle, mark the morning shadow tip and draw a circle through it around the stick. In the afternoon, mark where the tip touches the circle again. Join the two marks for an east-west line, with the morning mark to the west. An experiment with this method, on how the Great Pyramid may have been aligned, averaged about 2 arc minutes off.
Is the qibla towards sunset or sunrise?
Not as a rule. Sunset is a moving point, while the qibla itself is a fixed direction from where you stand. The two line up for a few days or weeks a year, and in some cities never. Sunrise is close to due east, and sunset to due west, only around the March and September equinoxes (Wikipedia, Sunrise).
| City | Qibla bearing | Sun's range in 2027 | Worst miss | Within 1 degree of the qibla |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lahore | 260.3 | Sunset, 243 to 298 | 38 | 24 to 28 Feb, 14 to 17 Oct |
| Karachi | 267.7 | Sunset, 244 to 296 | 29 | 13 to 16 Mar, 27 Sep to 1 Oct |
| Dhaka | 277.7 | Sunset, 245 to 296 | 33 | 5 to 9 Apr, 3 to 7 Sep |
| Dubai | 258.8 | Sunset, 244 to 296 | 38 | 19 to 23 Feb, 18 to 22 Oct |
| New York | 58.5 | Sunrise, 58 to 121 | 62 | 2 Jun to 10 Jul |
| Lagos | 63.2 | Sunrise, 66 to 114 | 50 | Never |
| Cape Town | 23.4 | Sunrise, 62 to 119 | 96 | Never |
Dubai's dates fit what astronomer Ibrahim Al Jarwan told Gulf News in 2021: 18 to 25 February and 16 to 23 October.
Those sunset days also open and close the qibla time season in Lahore, Karachi and Dubai. Before the first one, the sun sets short of the qibla line and cannot reach it before dark.
On other days, the "How to face it" box on the qibla finder gives you the turn from that day's sunrise or sunset. IslamQA (answer 95241), citing al-Mughni 2/105, says rising and setting points help only someone who already knows how the qibla lies from them. So first learn which side of the Kaaba your country lies on.
Why do some families pray towards sunset?
Old custom may be the reason. Muslims in India once faced the equinox sunset, due west, and in Iraq the winter sunset. Legal scholars did not oppose these old directions, according to Wikipedia's Qibla article. In Indonesia the calculated qibla is 291 to 295 degrees. There the traditional name "the west" led to mosques built due west or towards sunset, so some mihrabs differ from the modern number.
How close does each sun method get?
The qibla time, the two-mark circle and the noon shadow are all strong. A quick shadow tip or a sunset can leave you tens of degrees out.
| Sun method | How close it gets |
|---|---|
| Daily qibla time | Faid and colleagues (Universiti Malaya journal) worked the method out for 5 places and give its accuracy error as 30 arc seconds. A clock one minute off moves the sun 0.06 to 0.20 degree at the times in the table with the sun 5 to 80 degrees up |
| Two-mark circle | About 0.04 degree off east-west in one experiment |
| Noon shadow | "Very accurate" if the time is right (Wikipedia, Qibla) |
| Shadow tip after 15 minutes | 21 degrees off at 08:00 and 3 at 12:00, Karachi in mid-July |
| Sunrise or sunset | Up to 38 degrees off in Lahore and Dubai, 96 in Cape Town |
For the shadow tip, mark the tip, wait 15 minutes and mark it again. The first mark is the west end. Trust it only near noon.
Finding the qibla direction by sun depends on a clear shadow, so thick cloud stops all of these. Fall back on a phone compass reading or ask at the nearest mosque. The margin each school of law accepts is a separate question. A sun line also does not travel with you, so on a plane or train you need another way.
Sun mistakes that turn you the wrong way
The worst slip puts your back to the qibla, so read the column headings in the qibla time table before you trust a line.
| Habit | How far off | Better move |
|---|---|---|
| Following the shadow at a face-the-sun time | 180 degrees | Check which column the time sits in |
| Facing the sunset every evening | Up to 29 degrees in Karachi | Use sunset only on its matching days |
| Taking 12:00 as noon | New York's June solar noon is 12:57 | Look up solar noon for the date |
| Reading a noon shadow under a high sun | Karachi's mid-July noon sun is 87 degrees up | Use the qibla time |
| Reusing last week's qibla time | 25 minutes in Karachi in April | Get the time for today's date |
FAQ
Should I face the sun or my shadow?
Islamweb (fatwa 324238) says neither as a fixed habit, because the sun only marks east and west. It quotes Ibn 'Uthaymeen: west of the Kaaba the qibla is east, east of it west, north of it south, south of it north. At your daily qibla time the table tells you which: face the sun, or put it behind you.
Can I find the qibla by sun in winter?
Yes, with the noon shadow, which suits winter in Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka and Dubai. The sun is lower then, so the shadow is long and its shortest point is easy to mark. Karachi's January noon sun stands about 44 degrees up. Mark the tip, then turn by your bearing.
How do I find qibla by sun in America?
Follow the shadow at the afternoon qibla time. In the lower 48 states the qibla lies north-east, about 24 degrees in Los Angeles and about 59 in New York. The afternoon sun therefore stands on the far side from Makkah. In New York that moment is about 15:29 EDT on 15 April 2027.
What does kıble saati mean?
Kıble saati is Turkish for qibla time. Turkish Wikipedia explains that every region has its own value each day, and that facing the sun at that moment means facing the qibla. Diyanet, Turkey's religious affairs office, publishes the figures on its website.
Does sunrise ever match the qibla?
Yes, where the qibla lies on the sunrise side of the horizon, and only for a short spell. New York's sunrise stays within a degree of its qibla from about 2 June to 10 July 2027. Karachi, facing almost due west, gets a sunset match instead and never a sunrise one.
Conclusion
Choose by the calendar. Take the qibla time in the months your town has one, the noon shadow when it does not, and sunset only on its listed days. Once a line is right, fix it on your floor so you need the sun no longer. If a family's old sunset line turns out to be off, the rulings on earlier prayers are a separate matter.