Prayer Times in Omdurman, Sudan Today

West of the confluence

Omdurman occupies the west bank, across the water from the capital, near 15.64 degrees north and 32.48 degrees east. It is the largest city in the country by population and has a civic identity distinct from Khartoum's, but astronomically the two are the same place. The figures on this page and those on the capital's differ by seconds.

That is worth saying at the outset because it sets expectations correctly. Nothing about Omdurman's prayer schedule is peculiar to Omdurman. What is particular to the city is the practice built on top of the schedule, not the schedule itself.

The Ansar tradition and the school of law in use

Omdurman is closely associated with the Ansar and with the Mahdist period; the tomb of the Mahdi and the Khalifa House stand here, and the city remains a centre of that tradition. Sufi orders have a substantial presence in Sudanese religious life generally, and their gatherings follow their own calendars and rhythms.

None of that alters the five daily times. Sudanese practice is predominantly Maliki, and the Asr threshold used on this page follows accordingly: the prayer begins once an object's shadow has lengthened by the object's own height beyond its midday shadow. Shafi'i and Hanbali positions agree; the Hanafi school waits for a doubled shadow and arrives later. Devotional practice varies considerably across Sudan. The calculation underneath it does not.

The national figures, applied unchanged

Sudan uses the Egyptian General Authority of Survey figures — a 19.5-degree dawn angle and a 17.5-degree angle at nightfall — on a UTC+2 clock that does not change seasonally. The Sudan prayer times hub covers the background. Only the coordinates change between one Sudanese city page and another.

What this table is, and what it is not

It is a calculation of when each prayer's time enters, computed from Omdurman's position. It is not a schedule of when congregations start. Those two things routinely differ by five, ten or more minutes, because each mosque sets its own interval between the adhan and the iqama, and in a city with as many mosques as this one that interval is far from uniform.

Almost every apparent inconsistency people notice — between two mosques on the same street, or between a mosque and a phone — resolves into one of two explanations. Either it is iqama practice, which is local and legitimate, or it is an application still set to a calculation method other than the one Sudan uses. Neither is a fault in the arithmetic.

Where Omdurman sits in the national spread

Sudan spans a wide range of longitude on a single clock, so prayer times vary substantially from one end of the country to the other — by roughly three quarters of an hour between the far east and the far west. Omdurman sits near the middle of that range, marginally west of Khartoum and therefore marginally later, by an amount measured in seconds.

The practical guidance follows from this. Within the capital region, the choice of page makes no difference. Beyond it, the choice matters a great deal, and using this page in the east or the west of the country would put you out by a quarter of an hour or more in one direction or the other.

The fasting month in Omdurman

Fajr closes the pre-dawn meal; Maghrib opens the fast. Sunrise is listed as well, and it marks neither of those — it is the point after which Fajr can no longer be prayed. With a dawn angle as wide as Sudan's, the interval between Fajr and sunrise is long, so treating sunrise as the boundary of the fast would be a significant error rather than a marginal one.

Because Isha here is set by a twilight angle rather than a fixed interval after sunset, the distance between Maghrib and Isha changes with the season. The gap between breaking the fast and standing for taraweeh is therefore not the same in every Ramadan, and not quite the same on the last night of a month as on the first. The monthly table shows the drift; a single day's figures do not.

Friday congregation in Omdurman

Jumu'ah replaces Dhuhr for those attending, and the call is anchored to the Dhuhr time listed here. Sermon length and congregation size vary from mosque to mosque. Those praying at home pray Dhuhr at the ordinary time shown.

Facing the Kaaba from Omdurman

Establish the direction of prayer with the Qibla direction tool, which computes it from your coordinates, rather than relying on a bearing recalled from elsewhere. For Ramadan and Eid dates alongside this table, see the Hijri calendar. There is an Arabic Omdurman schedule for readers who prefer it. Khartoum prayer times cover the far bank; for a city where the difference from this page is genuinely large, see Port Sudan prayer times on the Red Sea coast.