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Fajr time: what it is and how it is calculated

Published 2 November 2026 · Sahaar requires iOS 26 or later

What is Fajr time?

Sahaar defines Fajr as the moment the sun rises to a given angle below the horizon, when morning light begins. Fajr’s window runs until sunrise. Sunrise itself is shown in the list but is not a prayer. In Ramadan, Fajr is also when the fast begins, which is why Ramadan timetables print it so prominently.

Which angle does each method use?

Each authority sets how deep below the horizon the sun must be. These are the Fajr angles in the methods Sahaar offers:

Three rows need a note. The Türkiye method adds a few minutes of precaution (temkin) to match Diyanet’s calendar, so the sun’s angle at the printed time differs slightly from 18°. Sahaar calls it “Diyanet-compatible”: a calculation calibrated against published Turkish timetables, not a timetable issued by Diyanet. Indonesia’s method uses Singapore’s angles and adds two minutes. The Moonsighting Committee method, which Sahaar suggests in the United Kingdom, does not use a fixed angle all year.

Why does Fajr differ between apps?

• The angle. Two apps on different methods can be far apart at Fajr, and both are calculating correctly.
• The high-latitude rule. In summer, above roughly 48°, the rule decides Fajr, not the angle (next section).
• Precaution minutes. Some methods add a few minutes on purpose.
• Location. The Earth turns one degree of longitude every four minutes, so a timetable printed for a city centre will not match a town well to its west.
• The clock. A device clock set by hand shifts every prayer by the same amount.

More on each cause in Why prayer times differ between apps.

What happens at high latitude?

On summer nights far from the equator, the sun can stay above the Fajr angle all night. There is no moment that matches the definition, so the time comes from a rule instead. When that happens, Sahaar’s “How prayer times are set” page says so and gives the sun’s lowest position that night.

Three rules are in common use:

• Middle of the night. Fajr is never earlier than the midpoint between Maghrib and sunrise, and Isha never later than it.
• One seventh of the night. Fajr is never earlier than the start of the last seventh of the night, and Isha never later than the end of the first seventh.
• Angle-based. The night is divided in proportion to the angle: an 18° Fajr is never earlier than the last 18/60 of the night.

What Sahaar does depends on the method and the place, and there is no separate setting for it:

• Above 48.5°, Sahaar suggests the middle-of-the-night rule for most countries. On nights when that rule would leave less than 20 minutes between Isha and the next Fajr, or would push Fajr onto the previous calendar day, Sahaar switches to the angle-based rule for that day.
• With the Türkiye method outside Türkiye, between 45° and 62° north, the times come from Diyanet’s own district timetable when Sahaar has one within 20 km. Without one, summer Fajr and Isha come from a model built from those timetables. Further north, the one-seventh rule applies on nights when the angle is not reached.
• In the United Kingdom Sahaar suggests the Moonsighting Committee method, which adjusts Fajr and Isha by season and uses one seventh of the night above 55°.

Fajr times in your city

City pages show this month’s Fajr with the calculation method named on the page: London, New York City, Toronto, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Cape Town. Every country Sahaar covers is listed on Prayer times by country.

More on prayer times

• Dhuhr time explained
• Asr time explained
• Maghrib time explained
• Isha time explained
• How many rak‘ahs is each prayer?
• Why prayer times differ between apps