Prayer Times
Prayer Times in Jordan — All Cities
Jordan uses its own national calculation convention, maintained by the Ministry of Awqaf, which oversees Islamic affairs and holy places, rather than an imported international method. Every Jordanian city on this site is computed to that convention on a clock fixed permanently at UTC+3, the offset the country adopted year-round in 2022 when it stopped changing its clocks.
A small country that is not a flat one
Jordan is compact. The whole country fits inside about three degrees of latitude and barely one degree of longitude, so horizontally the prayer times really are close to uniform. Vertically it is a different matter entirely.
Amman sits around a thousand metres above sea level, spread across a set of hills. Salt, Jerash, Madaba and Irbid all stand on the same highland belt at various heights. Aqaba is at sea level on the Red Sea. And the Dead Sea shore, a short drive west of Amman and Madaba, lies roughly 430 metres below sea level, the lowest exposed land on earth. Within an hour or two of driving you can change your elevation by well over a kilometre and a half, and that is enough to change when you actually see the sun, even where it barely changes the calculation.
Permanent summer time since 2022
Jordan used to move its clocks twice a year, keeping UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer. In late 2022 it stopped switching and settled permanently on UTC+3. This is the most useful single fact about Jordanian timekeeping, because it did not merely remove the changeover: it moved the winter half of the year an hour forward for good.
The effect shows in the mornings. Through the winter months, Fajr and sunrise now fall an hour later on the clock than they did before the change, which is why winter dawn in Amman is late compared with how longer-standing residents remember it. There is a second effect that is easy to overlook. Jordan sits near 36 degrees east, while UTC+3 is properly centred on 45 degrees east, so Amman is around nine degrees west of its own timezone meridian. Solar noon there arrives roughly half an hour or more after twelve by the clock, which means Dhuhr in Jordan never begins near midday.
The Jordanian ministry convention
Jordan does not borrow an international method. Prayer times for Jordanian cities here are calculated with the convention maintained by the Ministry of Awqaf, and that is the standard reflected in mosque timetables across the country.
Both ends of the night rest on twilight here. Dawn and nightfall are each pegged to how far the sun has dropped below the horizon, never to a stopwatch running from sunset. That is the opposite approach to the Umm al-Qura method used in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where Isha is pinned at ninety minutes past Maghrib regardless of the season. In Jordan the evening gap opens out across the summer and tightens again over the winter, which matters if you are planning around Taraweeh in Ramadan or an evening congregation in July.
Aqaba, the rift valley and where the sun really disappears
Calculated sunset assumes a clear horizon at sea level, and Jordan offers several places where that assumption fails, in both directions.
From Amman, at a thousand metres, the true horizon sits slightly below the horizontal and the sun remains visible for something like three or four minutes past the calculated sunset. In the Jordan rift the opposite applies, and with more force: down near the Dead Sea you are below sea level with high escarpments to both east and west, so the sun clears the eastern ridge well after the calculated sunrise and drops behind the western hills well before the calculated sunset. We do not publish a separate entry for the Dead Sea shore; Madaba and Amman, on the plateau above it, are the nearest cities we hold. Aqaba is the simple case, at sea level with an open outlook down the gulf, and needs no mental adjustment.
Asr, and Hanafi worshippers in Jordan
The Asr shown for Jordanian cities follows the standard reckoning. Under it, the window opens when a shadow has grown by one object-height beyond whatever that object was already throwing when the sun stood at its highest. This is the measure behind the national timetables.
Hanafi jurists measure it differently, holding Asr back until the shadow has doubled, which in practice puts it somewhere between forty minutes and an hour further on. Jordan has long-established Hanafi communities, along with many residents and visitors from Turkey, Pakistan and India, countries where Hanafi practice is the norm. Where that is what you follow, read the Asr here as the earlier of two valid views and take your timing from a mosque that shares your reckoning.
Seven cities, and how little they differ
We publish Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, Salt, Madaba, Jerash and Aqaba. It is worth being direct about the scale of the differences: they are small. Amman, Zarqa, Salt, Madaba and Jerash all lie within about half an hour of each other by road, and their prayer times run within two or three minutes. Irbid, further north, differs a little more.
Aqaba is the only genuine outlier, and even there the difference is modest. Around midwinter its Maghrib falls roughly ten minutes after Irbid's; around midsummer the order reverses and Irbid is a few minutes later. Nowhere in Jordan is the spread large. We still compute each city separately, because a few minutes matters at Maghrib during Ramadan even when it matters little the rest of the year.
Frequently asked questions
Which calculation method does Jordan use?
Jordan uses its own national convention, maintained by the Ministry of Awqaf, rather than an international method borrowed from elsewhere. It is the standard behind mosque timetables across the country, and it is applied to every Jordanian city on this site. Dawn and nightfall are each pegged to how far the sun has fallen below the horizon rather than to a stopwatch running from sunset, so the evening gap changes across the year.
Does Jordan still change its clocks for summer time?
No. Jordan used to keep UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer, but in late 2022 it stopped switching and adopted UTC+3 permanently. That did more than remove the changeover; it shifted the winter half of the year an hour forward for good. Fajr and sunrise in the winter months now fall an hour later on the clock than they did before the change, which is the difference most residents notice.
Why does Dhuhr in Amman not fall close to twelve o'clock?
Because Jordan keeps a clock offset that belongs further east. UTC+3 is properly centred on the 45th meridian east, while Amman lies near 36 degrees east, about nine degrees west of that line. Solar noon in Amman therefore arrives roughly half an hour or more after twelve by the clock, and Dhuhr, which begins after the sun passes the meridian, follows it. This is a permanent feature of Jordanian timekeeping, not a seasonal one.
How much do prayer times differ between Amman and Aqaba?
Not much, and the direction depends on the season. Amman and Aqaba are only about two and a half degrees of latitude apart and almost the same longitude. Around midwinter Aqaba, lying further south, reaches Maghrib later than the northern cities by up to roughly ten minutes; around midsummer that reverses and the northern cities are a few minutes later. Across the whole country the spread stays modest, but we still calculate each city separately.
Does altitude affect prayer times in Jordan?
It affects what you see more than what is calculated, since our figures use a sea-level horizon. From Amman at around a thousand metres, the sun stays visible roughly three or four minutes past the calculated sunset. Down in the Jordan rift the reverse is stronger: below sea level with high ground on both sides, the sun rises above the eastern ridge late and disappears behind the western hills early. Follow the mosque rather than the horizon there.