Prayer Times
Prayer Times in India — All Cities
Indian namaz timings on this site are calculated to the convention of the University of Islamic Sciences in Karachi, which places both Fajr and Isha at 18 degrees of solar depression. Every city is computed from its own coordinates on Indian Standard Time, the half hour offset at UTC+5:30 that the whole country keeps without any seasonal change.
Why the Asr on this page may not be the Asr at your masjid
More questions reach a prayer times site about Asr than about any other prayer, and in India the reason is jurisprudence rather than astronomy. Two positions have been held for centuries. The Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali schools begin Asr once a vertical object casts a shadow equal to its own length, added to the shadow it was already casting at solar noon. The Hanafi school waits until that shadow has doubled, so it begins Asr when the shadow is twice the object's length plus the noon shadow.
On the clock the two are roughly forty to sixty minutes apart in most of India, with the gap widening in the northern summer. The Hanafi school predominates across the north, the Deccan and Bengal, so mosques in Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Kolkata generally announce the later time. Kerala and much of the coastal south are historically Shafi'i, and mosques in Kochi and along that coast commonly use the earlier one. The times on these pages are calculated on the earlier reckoning. If you follow the Hanafi position, expect the Asr namaz called at your masjid to fall up to an hour after the figure shown here, and take that later time as yours. Neither is an error, and neither school regards the other as praying outside the window.
The Karachi convention applied to Indian cities
The calculation standard behind the Fajr and Isha figures is the one maintained by the University of Islamic Sciences in Karachi, long used across the subcontinent and applied here to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh alike. It sets Fajr at a solar depression of 18 degrees and Isha at the same 18 degrees, treating the beginning of dawn and the end of dusk as mirror images of one another.
Because both are twilight angles rather than fixed intervals, Indian prayer times breathe with the seasons. The interval between Maghrib and Isha lengthens in summer and shortens in winter, and it does so more sharply in Srinagar or Delhi than in Chennai or Kochi. This is worth knowing if you are comparing our figures against a timetable produced under a different convention: a discrepancy of a few minutes at Fajr and Isha, with Dhuhr and Maghrib agreeing exactly, almost always means two different angles rather than a fault in either calculation.
A single clock, offset by half an hour
India runs on one timezone for the whole country, and that timezone is set half an hour off the hour at UTC+5:30, an arrangement only a handful of countries use. There is no daylight saving, so the clock itself never moves.
The consequence for prayer times is large, because India is wide. Kolkata sits past 88 degrees east while Mumbai and Ahmedabad lie close to 72 and a half degrees, a span of more than fifteen degrees of longitude. At four minutes to the degree that is over an hour of solar time carried on a single clock. Maghrib arrives in Kolkata first, then in Lucknow and Chennai, then in Delhi and Hyderabad, and last in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. During Ramzan an eastern city breaks its fast the better part of an hour before a western one, so a timetable shared in a group chat is worth checking against the city you are actually in.
From Srinagar to Kochi: what latitude does to the year
The north to south range is even wider in its effect. Srinagar lies past 34 degrees north; Kochi sits below 10 degrees, close enough to the equator that its days barely change length across the year. Everything else we cover falls between them.
So the southern cities have a remarkably stable timetable. Kochi, Bengaluru and Chennai see only a modest difference between their longest and shortest days, and the fasting day in the far south varies little whichever season Ramzan falls in. Srinagar is the opposite: long summer days and short winter ones, with the interval between Fajr and Maghrib opening and closing considerably. Srinagar also lies well to the west and far to the north, which combine in summer to give it the latest Maghrib in the country by a wide margin.
Sehri, iftar and the fasting timetable
For Ramzan the two figures to watch are Fajr, which ends sehri, and Maghrib, which begins iftar. Both are on every Indian city page, and the monthly calendar shows the full month at once rather than one day at a time.
Many Indian timetables print a separate sehri ending time slightly before the calculated Fajr, kept as a margin of caution. We publish the astronomical Fajr without that margin, so use it as the outer limit and stop eating earlier if your mosque advises it. Taraweeh follows Isha, and since Isha here is set by twilight rather than by a fixed interval after sunset, the wait between iftar and Taraweeh is longer in the summer months and shorter in winter.
The twelve Indian cities on this page
We publish Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Srinagar and Kochi. Each is calculated from its own stored latitude and longitude, which is the only honest way to handle a country where two cities on the same clock can be an hour apart in the sun.
Open any of them for today's five namaz timings and sunrise, a live countdown to the next prayer, and a full monthly calendar. The calculation convention in force is named directly beneath the times table.
Frequently asked questions
Which calculation method is used for Indian prayer times?
The convention of the University of Islamic Sciences in Karachi, which sets Fajr at 18 degrees of solar depression and Isha at the same 18 degrees. It has long been the standard used across the subcontinent, and this site applies it to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Because both times are defined by twilight angles rather than by fixed intervals after sunset, Indian Fajr and Isha shift gradually through the year instead of staying a set distance from sunrise and sunset.
Are these namaz timings Hanafi or Shafi'i for Asr?
The Asr shown here uses the earlier of the two positions, the one held by the Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali schools, where Asr begins when an object's shadow equals its own length plus the noon shadow. The Hanafi position waits for the shadow to double and falls roughly forty to sixty minutes later. Most mosques in northern India, the Deccan and Bengal follow the Hanafi time, while Kerala and much of the coastal south follow the earlier one. Take Asr from your own masjid.
Why do prayer times in Kolkata and Mumbai differ so much?
Because India keeps a single clock across more than fifteen degrees of longitude. Kolkata lies past 88 degrees east and Mumbai close to 72 and a half, and the earth turns through a degree every four minutes, so over an hour of solar time separates them while the clock shows the same reading. The sun rises and sets in Kolkata first. During Ramzan this means eastern cities break their fast well before western ones on the same evening.
Does India observe daylight saving time?
No. India keeps Indian Standard Time at UTC+5:30 for the whole year and for the whole country, with no seasonal changeover. The half hour offset is unusual but stable, and prayer times move only as the sun moves. If a timetable or app appears to be out by exactly one hour, or by exactly thirty minutes, the cause is almost always a device set to the wrong timezone rather than a difference in the underlying calculation.
Do prayer times in Srinagar and Kochi change differently through the year?
Yes, and the contrast is striking. Kochi sits below 10 degrees north, close enough to the equator that the length of its day varies only modestly between summer and winter, so its timetable is one of the steadiest in the country. Srinagar lies past 34 degrees north and has a wide seasonal swing, with long summer days and short winter ones. The gap between Fajr and Maghrib therefore changes far more across the year in Kashmir than in Kerala.