Waktu Solat in Kota Bharu, Malaysia Today

A state where the weekend falls on Friday and Saturday

Kota Bharu is the capital of Kelantan, one of the Malaysian states that observes a Friday and Saturday weekend rather than the Saturday and Sunday used across most of the country. Offices, schools and government departments here close on Friday.

That has a direct bearing on how the timetable above is used. In Kuala Lumpur, Jumaat sits in the middle of a working day and people leave desks to attend it. In Kota Bharu the Friday gathering falls on a day that is already free, and the surrounding hours are not shaped around getting back to work. The prayer times themselves are unaffected — the sun does not know what day it is — but the practical rhythm around Jumaat here is different from the peninsula's commercial centres, and it is one of the few genuinely local facts about how these times get used.

The northernmost city on Malaysia's list

Kota Bharu sits at about 6.13 degrees north and 102.24 degrees east, near the mouth of the Kelantan river on the northeast coast. It is the furthest north of the Malaysian cities covered here, and latitude is what decides how much the length of the day changes across the year.

The result is that Kota Bharu has the widest annual variation in the country — and that this amounts to roughly forty minutes of difference in day length between midsummer and midwinter. Johor Bahru, near the equator, sees barely ten. So Kelantan has the most seasonal movement in Malaysia, and it is still a very small quantity by any international standard. Malaysian prayer times are unusually stable, and being at the top of that range does not change the conclusion.

Two minutes ahead of the capital

At 102.24 degrees east, Kota Bharu is 0.55 degrees east of Kuala Lumpur, which puts every prayer here about two minutes ahead of the capital's. George Town, on the opposite coast, runs around seven and a half minutes behind.

Malaysia keeps a single clock, UTC+8, and the meridian defining it runs through 120 degrees east — nearly eighteen degrees east of Kota Bharu, worth around seventy-one minutes. That is why prayer times across the peninsula fall so late on the clock. The genuinely large differences in the country are not seasonal and not within the peninsula: they are between here and Borneo, where Kota Kinabalu reaches Maghrib nearly an hour before Kelantan does, on the same clock.

JAKIM's twenty-degree dawn

Subuh is calculated at 20 degrees of solar depression and Isyak at 18. The 20-degree figure is among the earliest dawn conventions applied by any national authority; most work at 18 or 18.5 degrees.

At this latitude the sun still drops through the twilight band at close to one degree every four minutes, so Malaysia's convention opens Subuh roughly eight minutes earlier than an 18-degree method would. Anyone running an app on an international default will see that gap before dawn and may assume something has gone wrong. It is a settings difference, and the Malaysia prayer times hub explains the method behind it.

Masjid Muhammadi and the state timetable

Masjid Muhammadi is the state mosque of Kelantan and stands in the centre of Kota Bharu, with masjid and surau throughout the surrounding districts. All of them time prayer from the same astronomical figures.

The state religious authority publishes an official waktu solat for Kelantan's zones, applying JAKIM's parameters to areas rather than to points, so a zone table and a coordinate calculation for the city can differ by about a minute. Where the state timetable is the operative one, follow it. What also differs between congregations is the interval each keeps between azan and iqamah, which is a local decision and not a disagreement about the position of the sun.

Asar, and the school Kelantan follows

Practice here is Shafi'i, and this table publishes the Shafi'i Asar: the window opens once a vertical object's shadow has grown by one further object-height beyond its shortest measure at midday.

Hanafi reckoning requires a second such length and produces an Asar roughly forty to sixty minutes later. Those following it are a minority in Malaysia and should set their app to that option rather than treat the published table as mistaken.

Syuruk, and the customary imsak

Syuruk closes the Subuh window and does nothing else; no prayer falls at sunrise. Malaysian timetables also carry an imsak shortly before Subuh, a customary margin for ending sahur rather than an astronomical boundary. What is published above is the calculated Subuh.

Sahur, berbuka, and the kiblat

The fast runs from Subuh to Maghrib, and both boundaries move only a few minutes across the thirty days. A calendar printed at the start of Ramadan stays accurate to the last night, which is a real convenience and not something most countries can offer. Nor does it much matter which season Ramadan falls in; at this latitude the difference between a June and a December fasting day is small.

The variable worth attention is location rather than date. Content produced in Sabah or Sarawak circulates widely, and following it here would mean breaking the fast the better part of an hour late. Use a Kelantan table in Kelantan.

For direction of prayer, use the Qibla direction tool, which resolves the great-circle bearing from the coordinates you give it — the correct calculation, and not what a straight line on a flat map suggests. Ramadan and Eid dates are on the Hijri calendar. For comparison, see George Town prayer times on the west coast and Kota Kinabalu prayer times in Sabah.