Waktu Solat in George Town, Malaysia Today

The last place in Malaysia the sun sets

George Town stands at about 5.41 degrees north and 100.33 degrees east, on Penang island. It is the westernmost city on Malaysia's list, which means Maghrib arrives later here, on the clock, than anywhere else in the country.

The comparison worth making is with Kota Kinabalu, at 116.07 degrees east. The two are separated by nearly sixteen degrees of longitude, and since each degree is worth four minutes of solar time, that comes to something over an hour. Both cities keep UTC+8. So when the call to Maghrib goes out in Kota Kinabalu, George Town still has more than an hour of daylight left. That is the widest solar spread on a single clock anywhere in Malaysia.

How JAKIM sets the angles

Subuh is calculated at 20 degrees of solar depression and Isyak at 18. The 20-degree figure is worth pausing on: it is among the earliest dawn conventions used by any national authority. Most work at 18 or 18.5 degrees.

Close to the equator the sun sinks nearly straight down through the twilight band, covering about one degree every four minutes. So Malaysia's convention opens Subuh roughly eight minutes earlier than an 18-degree method would at the same spot. If a travel app or an international default disagrees with a Penang masjid by around that much before dawn, this is why. Fuller detail is on the Malaysia prayer times hub.

Against the rest of the peninsula

Kuala Lumpur is 1.36 degrees east of here, so George Town runs about five and a half minutes behind the capital on every prayer. Ipoh is roughly three minutes ahead, Kota Bharu about seven and a half minutes ahead on the other side of the peninsula.

These offsets apply equally to all five prayers, do not vary with the season, and come purely from longitude. Within the peninsula they are small enough that a borrowed timetable will not cause real harm on an ordinary day, though they are worth respecting in Ramadan.

Asar and the Shafi'i threshold

Penang follows Shafi'i practice, as Malaysia does generally, and this table publishes the Shafi'i Asar: the window opens when a vertical object's shadow has grown by one further object-height beyond its shortest measure at midday.

Hanafi reckoning requires a second object-height and lands roughly forty to sixty minutes later in the afternoon. A minority here follow it, and anyone who does should change the setting in their app rather than treat the state timetable as mistaken. Both are established readings of the same evidence.

Masjid Kapitan Keling and a long-settled community

Masjid Kapitan Keling has stood in the old town since the early nineteenth century and remains one of the landmarks of George Town's historic core, alongside the temples and churches that share those streets. The Muslim community here is old and well established.

None of that changes the arithmetic. The times above are astronomical, derived from the island's coordinates, and they are the same whichever masjid you attend. Where congregations differ is in the interval they keep between the azan and the iqamah, which is a local decision and not a difference in calculation.

Syuruk and the imsak on Penang timetables

Syuruk closes the Subuh window and is listed for that reason alone; no prayer falls at that moment. Malaysian state timetables also print an imsak a short interval ahead of Subuh, a customary margin for ending sahur rather than an astronomical boundary. This page gives the calculated Subuh and leaves the margin to you.

How little the year changes here

At five and a half degrees north, daylight in George Town varies by around forty minutes across the entire year. Johor Bahru, close to the equator, sees barely ten minutes of variation. Even here, at the wider end of the Malaysian range, forty minutes spread over twelve months is a very small quantity.

The honest description is that seasons do not do much to this timetable. A calendar that fits in March fits in September. What that stability removes is the need to keep rechecking; what it does not remove is the need to use the right city's table, since the east-west differences are far larger than the seasonal ones.

Berbuka and sahur through Ramadan

The fast runs from Subuh to Maghrib, and in Malaysia both boundaries move only a few minutes over the thirty days. A monthly calendar printed at the start of Ramadan stays accurate to the end of it, which is not true in most of the countries this site covers.

The variable that does matter is location. Anyone breaking fast on a call heard from a broadcast originating in Sabah or Sarawak would be berbuka more than an hour early. Use a Penang table in Penang.

Solat Jumaat on the island

Jumaat stands in place of Zohor for those attending, timed from the Zohor entry above. The state mosque and the older city masjid fill early, and each sets its own interval before the khutbah. Anyone praying at a surau or at home performs Zohor at the listed time in the ordinary way.

Determining the kiblat here

Use the Qibla direction tool, which computes the great-circle bearing from the coordinates you supply. That is the correct calculation, and it is not the same as the direction a straight line appears to take on a flat map. For a fixed installation, have the bearing surveyed rather than set from a phone compass. Ramadan and Eid dates are on the Hijri calendar, and the useful comparisons are Ipoh prayer times nearby and Kota Kinabalu prayer times at the far eastern end of the country.