Support and frequently asked questions

How do I reach you?

There’s one address: contact@sahaar.app. Questions, bug reports, feature ideas, billing and privacy requests all go there. We don’t provide support through social media.

How long until I get a reply?

Sahaar is built by a one-person team. Emails are usually answered within 2 business days. During busy periods such as Ramadan a reply may take a little longer — nothing gets lost.

How do I get Sahaar?

Sahaar is on the App Store, free to download: apps.apple.com/app/id6802656574. It requires an iPhone with iOS 26 or later.

What should I include in a bug report?

Include these and we can usually solve it in one round:

• App version (Settings › About › Version)
• iOS version and device model
• Your city and calculation method (Settings › Prayer time calculation)
• What you expected, what happened, and when (date and time)
• A screenshot, if you have one

For alarm problems, also copy what’s under Settings › Alarms & Notifications › Status: “Alarm permission”, “Notification permission”, “Last rebuild”, and the “N alarms · M notifications planned” note beneath it.

Why are Sahaar’s times different from my mosque or another app?

Prayer times aren’t one fixed number — they depend on which sun angles and which Asr measure are used. Sahaar works them out on your device and always names the method on screen. The Today screen shows the short name, such as “MWL”; Settings spells it out as “Calculated — MWL”. If you’ve added a minute adjustment by hand, the label says that too.

Differences usually come from one of three things:

1. The method. The app you’re comparing against may use another authority’s angles (MWL, ISNA, Umm al-Qura, Egyptian, Karachi, and so on). Outside Türkiye this can account for as much as 20 minutes at Fajr and Isha.
2. The Asr measure. If the app you’re comparing against uses the Hanafi measure (2× shadow), its Asr starts later; how much later depends on where you are and the season. On the Türkiye method Sahaar uses the standard measure (1× shadow) — the time the adhan is actually called. On other methods you pick the measure in Settings.
3. Your location. Times shift minute by minute with longitude. Sahaar calculates for where you actually are — a nearby city’s printed timetable will differ by a few minutes.

If you see a large, consistent difference, send us the city, the date and your method — the engine is checked against official timetables every month.

The angles, the Asr measure and the high-latitude rules are explained in full in Why prayer times differ between apps.

Does Sahaar match Diyanet times in Türkiye?

Sahaar’s Türkiye profile is calibrated against the official Turkish timetables. It’s calculated and Diyanet-compatible — not an official Diyanet feed, and we don’t claim otherwise. The label on screen says so.

When the method is Türkiye and you’re in Türkiye, Sahaar calculates from the district centre’s coordinates rather than your exact GPS point, so the result lines up with the district timetable people are used to. Typical remaining difference: ±1 minute.

How do I change the calculation method?

Go to Settings › Prayer time calculation. Three settings live there:

• Method — 18 to choose from: Türkiye (Diyanet-compatible), Muslim World League (MWL), ISNA (North America), ISNA — Canada, Egypt (GAS), Umm al-Qura, Karachi, Moonsighting Committee, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore (MUIS), Tehran, France — UOIF, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia — Kemenag, Russian Muftis Council.
• Asr — Standard (1× shadow) or Hanafi (2× shadow). On the Türkiye method this row doesn’t appear; the measure is always standard.
• Hijri calendar — Diyanet, Umm al-Qura, FCNA (Fiqh Council of North America) or ECFR (European Council for Fatwa and Research).

Sahaar suggests a method based on your location during setup. When you change any of these, times, alarms, notifications and widgets are recalculated immediately. Once you pick a method by hand, travelling won’t change it.

The Hijri date is off by a day.

Hijri month beginnings depend on the authority. Pick the one your community follows under Settings › Prayer time calculation › Hijri calendar. Religious days follow that choice: the Turkish kandil nights appear only under the Diyanet calendar; other authorities show the universal set (Ramadan, the two Eids, Ashura, Arafah).

I live at a high latitude and the times look strange.

Above 48.5° latitude (London, Cologne, Stockholm, Oslo) the sky never gets dark enough in summer for the Fajr and Isha angles to occur. Sahaar handles this in two ways:

• On the Türkiye (Diyanet-compatible) method, a rule matching Diyanet’s own overseas practice applies; on nights where the angle never occurs, Fajr and Isha use “one-seventh of the night”.
• On other methods, setup offers a High latitude option: Middle of the night, One-seventh of the night, or Angle-based. Which one is correct is a jurisprudential question for your area — if you’re unsure, ask your local mosque.

This option only appears above 48.5° latitude.

Why can’t I mark some prayers as prayed?

A prayer can only be marked once its time has begun. Upcoming prayers are inactive. Each prayer’s window runs from its own beginning until the next prayer begins; Fajr ends at sunrise, and Isha continues until the following Fajr (crossing midnight).

Sunrise is not a prayer — it stays in the list for reference but can’t be marked.

What are the default alarm and notification settings?

The default setup is:

• Fajr: Alarm, at the time itself. The alarm opens full screen and breaks through Silent mode and Focus.
• Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha: Notification, at the time itself.
• As Ramadan approaches, the app asks once: “Move your alarm earlier for Suhoor?” Choose “Move to Suhoor” and the Fajr alarm moves to 45 minutes before Fajr; choose “Keep my setting” and nothing changes. If your alarm is already set before Fajr, the question doesn’t come up at all. Sahaar doesn’t assume you’re fasting — it’s your call, once each Ramadan.

You choose when the Fajr alarm rings from the Timing menu in the Fajr row: 15–60 minutes before Fajr, at Fajr itself, or 15–60 minutes before sunrise. When Fajr and sunrise are close together — that depends on where you are and the season — some of the sunrise options would land before Fajr, so those are left off the list. If you don’t want an early alarm outside Ramadan, set Fajr to “Notification” — one tap.

Each prayer can be set to Off / Notification / Alarm on its own, moved earlier than the prayer time, and given its own alarm sound.

My alarm didn’t go off. What should I check?

Work through these in order:

1. Alarm permission. Under Settings › Alarms & Notifications › Status, does “Alarm permission” say “Granted”? If not, tap “Request alarm permission” or allow it in iOS Settings. Without it, prayers set to “Alarm” fall back to ordinary notifications (if those are allowed) — and a notification stays quiet in Silent mode and Focus, so it may not wake you.
2. The mode for that prayer. Is it set to “Alarm” or “Notification”? A notification makes no sound in Silent mode. Anything that has to wake you should be an Alarm.
3. Notification permission. Check iOS Settings › Notifications › Sahaar. If you use Focus, allow Sahaar’s notifications as Time Sensitive.
4. The alarm horizon. Sahaar schedules alarms 14 days ahead and tops them up whenever you open the app (and in the background when iOS lets it). If you don’t open the app for longer than that, the horizon runs out — at Dhuhr on the last day you get an “Alarms end today” notification. Under Status, “Last rebuild” and the “N alarms · M notifications planned” note beneath it show whether the horizon is full.
5. Pro may have ended. Without an active Pro subscription, alarms for prayers other than Fajr become notifications and custom sounds fall back to the default. The Fajr alarm keeps ringing. Subscribing again restores your saved settings at once.
6. “Rebuild alarms”. This button under Status rebuilds the whole schedule; “Last rebuild” shows when that last happened.
7. Low Power Mode makes background refresh less frequent. Alarms that are already scheduled still ring, but the horizon extends more slowly — open the app now and then while it’s on.

If none of that helps, send us the Status lines and the date.

Can I count on the alarm?

Short answer: yes. When it’s time, it rings — Silent mode or not, Focus or not. Three limits to know about:

• The alarm that rings on Silent and through Focus needs a permission from iOS (it uses Apple’s own alarm framework, AlarmKit). If you decline, those prayers fall back to ordinary notifications, which stay quiet in Silent mode and may not wake you.
• Alarms are scheduled 14 days ahead. If you don’t open the app at all in that time, you get an “Alarms end today” notification on the last day; opening the app once is enough.
• If the device is switched off or the battery is dead, no app can sound an alarm — including Apple’s own Clock.

Can I change the alarm sound? Is there a snooze?

Both are under Settings › Alarms & Notifications, and changing either needs Sahaar Pro:

• Alarm sound — every prayer set to “Alarm” has a Sound menu in its row. With Sahaar Pro, pick one of Sahaar’s five sounds (Seher, Flow, Melody, Morning, Wake) for each prayer; “Listen…” plays a preview before you choose. On the free plan the Fajr alarm rings with the iOS default sound.
• Snooze — on by default at 9 minutes, and a Snooze button appears on the alarm screen. Changing the length or turning snooze off is a Sahaar Pro feature; without Pro, snooze stays at 9 minutes.

I changed time zone / I’m travelling.

If your location is set to “device location”, Sahaar checks your position each time you open the app (at most once every ten minutes). If you’ve moved more than 3 km, or into another country or time zone, times are recalculated, alarms and notifications are rebuilt, and a short banner appears on the Today screen (“Location updated · Muğla, Bodrum”). If the country changed and you haven’t picked a method by hand, the method suggestion is refreshed too.

If you picked your city by hand, it never changes on its own — change it yourself when you travel.

Daylight saving transitions don’t shift alarms, because each alarm is pinned to an absolute moment rather than a wall-clock time. After moving to a new time zone, opening the app once is enough to reschedule pending notifications.

My widget says “Open the app”.

Two possible reasons:

• The timetable ran out. The widget reads a ~35-day table that the app prepares. If you haven’t opened Sahaar for more than 35 days, the table is exhausted. Opening the app once fixes it.
• It’s a Pro widget and Pro has ended. Next prayer and Today’s prayers keep working without Pro. Day flow, Two prayers, Prayed, Dhikr, Where you left off and Verse of the day show a “With Sahaar Pro” prompt instead; tapping it opens the plans. They fill in the moment you subscribe.

My widget isn’t updating / shows an old time.

Widgets refresh on the iOS timeline; when you open Sahaar it refreshes the table and asks the widgets to reload. If one looks stuck:

1. Open and close the app.
2. If that doesn’t help, long-press the widget › Edit Widget › change a setting and change it back.
3. If it still misbehaves, remove the widget and add it again.

Countdowns run on the system’s live timer and are shown without seconds (for example “1 hr 42 min”).

Why doesn’t the circular Lock Screen widget show a progress ring?

That’s deliberate. The circular widget is small, and at that size the most useful thing at a glance is the prayer name and time. A ring made the time harder to read.

Can I set the widget’s appearance?

Yes. Long-press the widget › Edit Widget › Appearance: System, Light or Dark.

When does the countdown on my Lock Screen (Live Activity) appear?

In Ramadan, open Sahaar within eight hours of iftar or Fajr and a countdown appears on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island — for everyone. With Sahaar Pro the same countdown runs all year: open the app within an hour of the next prayer. It’s on by default (“Countdown as the prayer approaches” in Settings). One limit: iOS only lets an app start a countdown while it’s open, so it can’t begin on its own in the background.

Is Sahaar free?

Yes. Prayer times, notifications and a real Fajr alarm are free, with no ads and no data selling. Sahaar Pro is an optional subscription that adds alarms for every prayer, custom sounds, history and the richer widgets; it opens with a 7-day free trial.

How does the trial work?

On the purchase screen, pick yearly or monthly and confirm on Apple’s sheet. The 7-day trial starts there and runs through your Apple Account, not through us. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before day 7 ends, the plan you picked starts and Apple charges you. Cancelling during the trial costs nothing; the steps are under “How do I cancel my subscription?” below.

The trial belongs to the subscription group, so it is one trial per Apple Account: if you have already used it on the yearly plan, monthly starts as a paid subscription, at the price shown on the purchase screen.

What happens when the trial ends?

If you left it running, the plan you picked begins, Apple charges your Apple Account, and nothing in the app changes.

If you cancelled, Pro lasts until the trial’s last day. After that Pro features return to their free behaviour: alarms for the other prayers become notifications and Pro widgets show a Pro prompt. The Fajr alarm, your prayer times, notifications and the standard widgets keep working. Subscribing again brings Pro back immediately, with your saved settings.

Your prayer marks and history are never deleted — they stay exactly where they were.

What does it cost?

• Yearly — $19.99 (recommended)
• Monthly — $3.99

Prices in other countries follow the App Store’s regional price tiers; the amount shown at checkout is the one that applies. There is no second purchase screen and no add-on packs after you buy.

How do I cancel my subscription?

A free trial and a paid subscription are cancelled the same way, and cancelling during the trial costs nothing. To avoid being charged, do it at least 24 hours before the trial ends.

Cancellation goes through the App Store:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap your name at the top.
3. Tap Subscriptions.
4. Select Sahaar.
5. Tap Cancel Subscription.

Alternative route: App Store › your account icon (top right) › Subscriptions.

After cancelling you keep access until the end of the period you already paid for — including the rest of a free trial.

Can I switch between yearly and monthly?

Yes. Both are in the same subscription group, so you can change plans from the Subscriptions screen; Apple prorates the charge.

I got a new phone / reinstalled and my purchase is gone.

Tap Restore purchases on the purchase screen. As long as you’re signed in with the same Apple Account, your access comes back.

Is Family Sharing supported?

Yes — on both plans. One subscription covers everyone in your family group.

I’d like a refund.

Apple handles all payments and all refund decisions. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with your Apple Account, find Sahaar and submit your request. We can’t issue refunds on your behalf, but we may be able to fix the underlying problem — try contact@sahaar.app first.

What data does Sahaar collect?

In the app, we don’t collect personal data. No account, no ads, no advertising ID, no third-party tracking or analytics SDKs. Only fourteen anonymous counters go to our own server (each one listed in the privacy policy), and you can switch them off under Settings › Privacy. This website is measured separately — see the next question.

The one thing we do collect is anonymous aggregate counters: events such as completing a setup step, seeing the purchase screen, starting the trial, making a purchase, or setting your first alarm are sent to our own server as counts. What’s sent is only: the event name, the date, the app version and the country. There is no device ID, no user ID and no session; IP addresses are not stored or logged. These numbers can’t be linked to each other or to you.

Nothing about your religious practice — prayer marks, Ramadan countdowns, qibla use — is ever sent, not even anonymously. That rule is not negotiable.

Full details: Privacy policy

Does sahaar.app use cookies or analytics?

The website — not the app — uses Google Analytics 4 so we can see which pages people read. The advertising consents are denied in every country — we run no advertising. If you are in the EU/EEA, the UK or Switzerland, the analytics consent defaults to denied too and never changes, so no cookie is written and no identifier is stored; Google only receives a cookieless signal. That is also why there is no cookie banner: we would rather collect less than interrupt you. Elsewhere, Analytics runs normally. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store individual IP addresses anywhere: for EU, Swiss and UK visitors the request is handled on EU servers, where the IP is used only momentarily to derive a country and is then discarded.

The app itself contains no Google code of any kind, and a visit to this site is never linked to your use of the app. Any content blocker stops the script and the site works exactly the same. Full details: Website analytics.

Can I turn the counters off?

Yes. Switch off Settings › Privacy › Anonymous usage counters. Nothing is sent from that moment on.

Where does my location go?

Your location is used to calculate prayer times and is never sent to our server. It does go to Apple in these cases:

• To resolve a place name (for example “Muğla, Bodrum”), and in Türkiye to find the district centre, Sahaar uses Apple’s geocoding service.
• If the weather card is on, Apple Weather (WeatherKit) is used to fetch the temperature. You can turn the card off under Settings › Appearance.
• When you open the qibla map, Apple Maps satellite imagery is loaded.

Your calendar is separate: “Add to Calendar” only writes prayer-time events (write-only access), and “Remove exported events” reads your calendar solely to find and delete the events Sahaar added — nothing is stored or sent.

Apple’s own privacy policy governs those requests. We never see that data.

Where are my prayer records and settings stored?

On your device, and nowhere else. The same goes for your Quran reading progress, bookmarks and downloaded surahs. Your trial and subscription live in your Apple Account, which the App Store manages — we never see your payment details.

How do I delete my data?

Deleting the app is enough: your settings, location, prayer records and Quran reading go with it. Deleting it does not cancel a subscription or a running trial — cancel that separately with the steps above.

There’s no account or profile of yours on our server to delete. If you still have a request, write to contact@sahaar.app.

Do I need a connection to read the Quran?

No. The Arabic text and the translations are inside the app, so reading and search work offline. The recitation streams from our own server, so listening needs a connection; with Sahaar Pro you can download a surah and listen to it offline. Reading, translation, search, streamed recitation and read progress are free.

Can I follow along while the recitation plays?

Yes. The word being recited is marked as the reciter reads it, a thin line under the verse shows how far into it he has gone, and the page follows on its own. Scroll away to read somewhere else and it stops following — a “Back to the recitation” button appears, and one tap returns you. The player stays with you across the Quran tab: go back to the surah list or to search and it is still there, telling you which surah and verse is playing, ready to pause or close, and one tap takes you to the verse. All of this is free.

Which translation does it show? Is there a tafsir?

The translation follows Sahaar’s language: English or Turkish, both by the Rowwad Translation Center. The short tafsir (Al-Mukhtasar) is only available in Turkish for now, so it appears only when Sahaar is in Turkish; Sahaar never shows a tafsir in a language other than yours. To change the language, see “Can I change the app’s language?” below.

When does a verse count as read? Can I undo it?

A verse counts as read once you scroll past it yourself. Opening a surah, jumping to a verse from search or flicking quickly past a long stretch doesn’t count, and a surah short enough to fit on one screen isn’t marked on its own.

To mark what you have already read, long-press a verse and choose Mark read up to here; everything before it is marked too. To take marks back, choose Mark unread from here. Your reading progress stays on your iPhone and is never sent to us.

Can I have the translation read aloud?

Yes, with Sahaar Pro. Tap the speaker icon under a verse and iOS reads the translation aloud using the on-device voice from your system’s Spoken Content settings — no audio is streamed and nothing is sent to a server. It reads in the translation’s language and stops when you leave the Quran tab. The Quran player only ever plays one source at a time: starting the translation read-aloud stops the Arabic recitation, and the other way around.

Does the recitation keep playing if I leave the app?

Yes. Once you start the Arabic recitation or a translation read-aloud, it keeps playing if you go to the Home Screen, switch to another app, or lock your phone — you can pause or skip from Control Center or the Lock Screen. Inside Sahaar itself, switching to another tab (Today, Qibla, and so on) stops playback, so it never runs on in the background of the app by mistake.

Can I share a verse?

Yes, with Sahaar Pro. Tap the share icon under a verse to turn it into an image card in Sahaar’s colours — the translation in your app language, the surah and verse number, and the source. The image is created on your iPhone; nothing is uploaded. The system share sheet then lets you save it, send it or post it. Saving a card to Photos only adds that one image — Sahaar never reads your existing photos.

Is there Apple Watch support?

Yes. The Watch app lists the day’s prayer times, and the complications (Smart Stack, corner, circular) show the next prayer and its time at a glance. Times come from the paired iPhone, and the second page holds the dhikr counter (with Sahaar Pro). Alarm controls and the qibla aren’t on the Watch yet.

Alarms sound on the iPhone; the Watch mirrors the alert.

Can I change the app’s language?

Sahaar is available in English and Turkish and follows your device language. To change only Sahaar’s language: iOS Settings › Sahaar › Language.

Are times shown in 12-hour or 24-hour format?

Sahaar follows your device setting. To change it: iOS Settings › General › Date & Time › 24-Hour Time. There’s no separate option in the app — the system setting wins.

Is the qibla compass accurate?

The qibla direction is the great-circle bearing from where you are to the Kaaba, and Sahaar calculates it from your live GPS position. The heading itself comes from the device’s magnetic sensor, which metal, magnets, vehicles and nearby electronics can throw off. Calibrate by moving the phone in a figure-eight.

If you don’t trust the sensor, switch to Map mode: on satellite imagery you can check the line drawn from your position to the Kaaba against the buildings around you. The map is locked north-up on purpose — a rotating map made the line’s angle misleading.

Will there be an Android version?

No. Sahaar is built for Apple platforms only.

A prayer time looks wrong. How do I report it?

Send us the city, the date, your selected method, the time Sahaar shows and the time you expected, at contact@sahaar.app. The engine is compared against official timetables every month, and your report goes straight into that check.