Why Prayer Times Differ From Your Mosque

You open a prayer app, glance at your mosque's printed timetable, and check a second app a friend recommended. Three sources, three slightly different Fajr times. If you have ever wondered why prayer times differ like this, the reassuring answer is that nothing is broken. Each source is following a set of rules, and the rules are not all the same. Once you know which rules are in play, you can line QiblaTrue up with the timetable your community actually uses. For the direction you face, see Qibla direction.

Start time is not the same as jamā‘ah time

The start of a prayer is the calculated beginning of its time. A mosque's jamā‘ah (congregation) time is the moment the congregation actually prays, and it is often later than the start, so that people have time to arrive and gather.

Many mosque timetables print both columns side by side. If you compare an app's start time with the mosque's jamā‘ah column, the two will disagree even when the calculation method is exactly the same. Before anything else, make sure you are comparing start times with start times.

Calculation methods change Fajr and Isha

A calculation "method" is mainly a rule for how far the sun is below the horizon when Fajr begins and when Isha begins, or, for some methods, a fixed interval after Maghrib for Isha. Because twilight is gradual, different authorities have chosen different angles, and a few degrees can move Fajr and Isha by many minutes.

Dhuhr and Maghrib usually stay close between methods, because they are tied to solar noon and sunset. Some methods do add a few fixed minutes there too. For example, ISNA adds one minute to Dhuhr, and Moonsighting Committee adds five minutes to Dhuhr and three to Maghrib. Those built-in adjustments are part of the method itself, and they are separate from the ±30-minute adjustments you can make yourself.

QiblaTrue offers 14 methods: ISNA, Muslim World League, Moonsighting Committee, Umm al-Qura, Egyptian Authority, Karachi, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Singapore (MUIS), Diyanet, and France (UOIF). A later methods guide will list every angle and built-in adjustment; here, the point is simply that two apps using different methods will rarely agree on Fajr and Isha.

The app picks a default method based on the country of your location:

• United States: ISNA, with Fajr and Isha at 15°, and Standard Asr.
• United Kingdom: Moonsighting Committee, with Fajr and Isha at 18° (then seasonal handling), and Hanafi Asr.
• Turkey: Diyanet, with Standard Asr.
• France: France (UOIF), with Fajr and Isha at 12°, and Standard Asr.
• Saudi Arabia: Umm al-Qura.

For Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Canada, the app picks a default based on your country; you can change it. In every country, a default is only a starting point.

Standard Asr and Hanafi Asr are a different setting

Asr is not controlled by the method. It is a separate setting, and it is one of the largest sources of disagreement.

• Standard Asr, used by the Shafi‘i, Maliki and Hanbali schools, begins when an object's shadow equals its own length, added to the shadow it had at noon.
• Hanafi Asr begins when that shadow equals twice the object's length, again added to the noon shadow.

The gap can be tens of minutes. On 10 November 2026, the QiblaTrue city pages showed:

• New York: Standard Asr 2:20 PM, Hanafi Asr 3:01 PM.
• London: Standard Asr 13:53, Hanafi Asr 14:29.

Those are dated examples; the times shift every day. QiblaTrue city pages show both Asr times so you can see the difference at a glance. In the app, the default is Standard in the US and Hanafi in the UK. Scholars differ on this question; ask your local imam or a scholar you trust, and follow the Asr your mosque uses.

Caution minutes, rounding, and ±30-minute adjustments

Even when a mosque and an app share a method and an Asr setting, small gaps can remain. Some timetables add a few minutes of caution to certain prayers, and some round times to the next five minutes so the printed sheet is easier to read. That is a timetable choice, not a new method.

There are three layers to keep apart:

1. The method's angles or intervals, which set the basic Fajr and Isha times.
2. The method's own built-in minute adjustments, such as the extra minutes ISNA and Moonsighting Committee add to Dhuhr or Maghrib.
3. Your own adjustments, of up to ±30 minutes per prayer, which QiblaTrue applies after the method and its built-in adjustments.

In QiblaTrue, choose the closest method and Asr setting first. Then, if a mosque timetable still sits a few minutes away for a particular prayer, use your own adjustment to close the gap.

A US worked example

Take the New York page. It uses ISNA, with Fajr and Isha at 15°, and shows both the Standard and Hanafi Asr times. The Chicago and Dearborn pages work the same way. Dearborn has its own page, separate from Detroit.

Now imagine a mosque a few blocks away. It might calculate with a different method, follow Moonsighting Committee, or publish a printed table prepared by its own committee. Any of those can move Fajr and Isha by several minutes, even though you are standing in the same city and looking at the same sky. Dhuhr and Maghrib will usually stay close, while Asr will depend on whether that mosque uses Standard or Hanafi.

If your mosque's start times differ from the page, that does not make either one wrong. It tells you which settings to look at. You can browse more US cities to see the same layout elsewhere.

A UK worked example, including London

The London and Birmingham pages use Moonsighting Committee, with Fajr and Isha at 18°, and the app uses Hanafi Asr by default in the UK.

Many London mosques follow a published London Unified Prayer Timetable. That is a fixed table, rather than a raw angle calculation done fresh each day, so it will not always match any single method exactly. A later guide will cover it in more depth.

Here is a dated illustration. On 10 November 2026, the QiblaTrue London page showed Fajr at 05:32 and Isha at 17:47 (Moonsighting Committee, 18°). A widely used Unified figure circulating the same day was Fajr 05:27 and Isha 17:54. That is a several-minute gap, exactly the kind this article explains: two careful sources built on different rules. It is not a permanent, fixed difference, and it does not mean any mosque or app is wrong. If your mosque follows the Unified table, follow it, and use QiblaTrue's adjustments if you want the app to sit closer. More UK cities are listed on the hub page.

High-latitude and summer times (especially the UK)

Far from the equator, the sun may not sink far enough below the horizon in summer for a twilight angle to give a usable Fajr or Isha. QiblaTrue's default high-latitude setting is "Recommended for this location": if latitude is greater than 48°, it uses one-seventh of the night; otherwise, including exactly 48°, it uses the middle of the night. You can change this in Prayer Settings to middle of the night, one-seventh of the night, or twilight angle.

The UK default method, Moonsighting Committee, works differently: its Fajr and Isha do not use that generic night-fraction rule. They start at 18°, then the method's own seasonal twilight bounds apply. At 55° or further north, the 18° times are first replaced with a one-seventh night fraction (Fajr is sunrise minus one-seventh of the night; Isha is sunset plus one-seventh of the night), and the seasonal bounds still apply. Glasgow, at about 55.9°N, is in that band; London, at about 51.5°N, is not, though it does get the seasonal bounds. Umm al-Qura and Qatar set Isha as a fixed 90 minutes after Maghrib, so the Isha high-latitude bound is not applied for those methods. A later UK summer guide will go deeper. Whatever the season, follow your local mosque.

How to match your mosque in QiblaTrue

1. Compare start times, not jamā‘ah. Find the start column on the mosque timetable.
2. Choose the method that comes closest. Fajr and Isha are the prayers to watch.
3. Choose Standard or Hanafi Asr. Match the Asr your mosque uses.
4. If needed, apply adjustments of up to ±30 minutes. Use them for any prayer that still sits a few minutes away.
5. When in doubt, follow the mosque's published timetable.

Once set, the app works offline, so your times stay available without a connection. Country defaults follow your location, not the app language, so reading the app in another language will not change your times. And if you have picked a method yourself, it is not overwritten.

When in doubt, follow your local mosque.

FAQ

Which method does QiblaTrue use?

It depends on the country of your location. The defaults are ISNA in the United States, Moonsighting Committee in the United Kingdom, Diyanet in Turkey, France (UOIF) in France, and Umm al-Qura in Saudi Arabia. For Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Canada, the app picks a default based on your country; you can change it. You can change the method anywhere.

Why are there two Asr times on the city page?

One is Standard Asr, when a shadow equals the object's length plus its noon shadow. The other is Hanafi Asr, when it equals twice the object's length plus the noon shadow. Follow the one your mosque uses.

Why is London different from my mosque?

Usually it is one of five things: a different method, the London Unified Prayer Timetable, the Asr setting, a jamā‘ah column compared with a start time, or the method's seasonal handling. Check each in turn, adjust if you like, and follow your mosque.

QiblaTrue is a free download for iPhone. It shows the qibla as a bearing from true north, works offline, and can be aligned to a mosque timetable with method, Asr and ±30-minute adjustments. Get QiblaTrue on the App Store.