Prayer Times in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt Today

The earliest prayer times in the country

Sharm El Sheikh sits at the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, at roughly 27.92 degrees north and 34.33 degrees east. That is the most easterly position of any Egyptian city on this site, and it makes this the first place in Egypt to receive each prayer.

Against Cairo the gap is a little over three degrees of longitude, which at four minutes to the degree comes to about twelve minutes. Against Alexandria, at the opposite corner of the country, it approaches eighteen. Every one of those minutes is astronomy rather than timekeeping: Egypt runs a single clock from the Mediterranean to the Sudanese border, and the sun simply arrives here first.

The one Egyptian city whose sun runs ahead of the clock

Egypt's standard time is reckoned from the meridian at thirty degrees east. Almost every populated place in the country lies east of that line, but only just — Cairo by a degree, the Delta cities by less, Minya and Alexandria to the west of it.

Sharm El Sheikh lies more than four degrees east of that reference meridian, far enough that the sun here runs a quarter of an hour or so ahead of the national timekeeping under standard time. It is the only city on Egypt's list where that lead is substantial. The practical effect is that the whole day feels shifted relative to what the rest of the country experiences at the same clock reading, which catches out visitors who have brought a schedule with them from the capital.

Mountains behind, water in front

The Sinai massif rises inland to the north and west, while the sea occupies the southern and eastern arc. The calculation assumes a level, unobstructed horizon at ground level in every direction, and here that assumption holds well over the water and poorly against the mountains.

In practice this means the listed sunrise over the sea is close to what you can actually observe, while in the deeper wadis and the inland settlements the sun disappears behind high ground before the listed Maghrib. The table is not adjusted for terrain anywhere in the world, and the mosques here are working from the same unadjusted figures. Follow the published time rather than the visible sun.

Egypt's two angles, referenced rather than restated

Fajr is calculated at 19.5 degrees of solar depression and Isha at 17.5, the General Authority of Survey convention used throughout the country. Only the coordinates change from one Egyptian page to another. The Egypt prayer times hub covers the convention's origin and its reach. Egypt observes summer time again, so the whole table steps by an hour twice a year.

Which Asr appears on this page

The afternoon prayer is placed at the Shafi'i and Maliki threshold: the moment an upright object's shadow has grown by the object's own height beyond the shadow it cast at midday. The Hanafi school requires that growth to double, which puts its Asr somewhere between forty minutes and an hour later.

Guests arriving from Hanafi countries — Turkey, much of South Asia, parts of Central Asia — routinely find the listed Asr earlier than they expect. That is the school, not the sums, and the other four prayers agree under both readings.

The size of the annual swing

At just under twenty-eight degrees north, day length here runs from roughly thirteen and three quarter hours at midsummer to about ten and a quarter at midwinter. That is around three and a half hours of range across the year — narrower than the Delta's four hours and wider than Aswan's three.

Isha and Fajr extend beyond those figures at both ends, since both are set by twilight rather than by the sun's disc, and the gap between Maghrib and Isha is therefore not a constant. It widens through the summer and contracts in winter.

Twelve minutes is exactly the error that matters at iftar

A great many people arrive here with a Cairo Ramadan calendar, printed or on a phone, and use it without adjusting. Twelve minutes falls precisely in the range where that decision has consequences: it is too large to absorb, and small enough that nobody notices they have got it wrong.

Using the capital's figures here means beginning the fast twelve minutes after it has actually begun, and breaking it twelve minutes after it could have been broken, every day of the month. Take the times from this page, and use the monthly view, since both boundaries drift steadily as Ramadan progresses. Sunrise is listed as well and marks neither boundary — it closes the window in which Fajr may still be prayed.

Friday in South Sinai

Jumu'ah replaces Dhuhr for those attending and is timed from the Dhuhr entry above. Congregations in the resort districts fluctuate with the season while those in the older residential areas and the inland settlements are steadier. Each mosque sets its own interval between the call and the standing; those praying elsewhere keep the ordinary Dhuhr time.

Direction, calendar and the neighbouring coast

Establish the direction of prayer from your own coordinates with the Qibla direction tool. A bearing brought from Cairo is not correct here — the Sinai is far enough east that the difference is real — and a phone compass inside a steel-framed hotel is unreliable in any case. Ramadan and Eid dates are on the Hijri calendar, an Arabic Sharm El Sheikh schedule carries the same figures, and Hurghada prayer times cover the opposite shore of the gulf, about two minutes behind this page.