Prayer Times
Prayer Times in Yemen — All Cities
Yemeni prayer times on this site are calculated with the Umm al-Qura convention maintained by Umm al-Qura University in Makkah, which sets Fajr at 18.5 degrees of solar depression and fixes Isha at 90 minutes after Maghrib. Yemen keeps a single clock at UTC+3 with no seasonal change, and each city is computed from its own coordinates.
Sanaa at 2,250 metres, and what height does to sunset
Sanaa sits on a highland plateau roughly 2,250 metres above sea level, among the highest capital cities anywhere, and this gives Yemen a genuine complication that most countries do not have. Prayer time calculations, including the ones published here, work from a mathematical horizon at sea level. An observer standing well above the surrounding land sees further than that, and the true horizon drops below the horizontal by an amount that grows with height.
At Sanaa that drop is on the order of one and a third degrees, which at this latitude translates into roughly five minutes of time. In practice the sun remains visible from Sanaa for a few minutes after the calculated sunset, and it appears a few minutes before the calculated sunrise. The figures on this site remain the right reference for Maghrib as the mosques of the city reckon it, but if you are judging by eye from an open vantage point, expect the sun itself to linger a little past the printed moment.
Yemen and the Umm al-Qura reckoning
Yemeni cities here follow the Umm al-Qura reckoning issued from Makkah, which is also the standard across Saudi Arabia. Dawn is taken when the sun reaches 18.5 degrees below the horizon. Isha, unusually, involves no angle whatsoever: the convention simply counts ninety minutes forward from Maghrib, and two hours forward through Ramadan.
That fixed interval has a consequence worth understanding. In countries that define Isha by a twilight angle, the gap between sunset and Isha widens through the summer and narrows in winter. Under this convention it does not move at all. Isha follows Maghrib by an hour and a half whatever the season, so anyone arriving from Egypt, Turkey or South Asia will find Isha noticeably earlier in the summer months than they are accustomed to, and later in midwinter.
Highlands, the Tihama coast and Hadhramaut
Yemen keeps one clock at UTC+3 and makes no seasonal adjustment, but the country spreads across about six degrees of longitude. Hodeidah lies on the Red Sea coast in the west, and Mukalla is on the Gulf of Aden coast far to the east. That separation produces a difference of roughly twenty five minutes in Maghrib between the two, with Mukalla reaching sunset first.
Because the six cities we publish all fall within a narrow band of latitude, between about 12.8 and 15.4 degrees, that east to west gap barely changes through the year. It behaves close to a constant offset. Sanaa, Ibb and Taiz are grouped in the highlands and their times run within a few minutes of one another; Aden and Hodeidah are coastal and much lower; Mukalla stands apart chiefly on longitude rather than on latitude.
A year with very little seasonal movement
Yemen lies close to the tropics, and the effect on the prayer day is straightforward: it changes remarkably little across the seasons. Between the longest and the shortest day of the year the difference in daylight is under two hours, where a country at 40 degrees north would see four hours or more. Fajr and Maghrib do shift through the year, but they shift gently and without the long summer nights that complicate timetables further north.
The practical result is that a Yemeni timetable is stable in a way that a European or Turkish one is not, and the same rough daily rhythm holds from month to month. It also means the difference between one Yemeni city and another is driven far more by how far east or west it lies than by the time of year.
Shafi'i and Zaydi practice side by side
Yemen has two long-established juristic traditions. The Shafi'i school predominates in the south, the coastal lowlands and Hadhramaut. The Zaydi school, one of the Shia schools of law, predominates in the northern highlands. On the start of Asr both hold that an upright thing must cast a shadow as long as itself, over and above the shadow already there at noon, and that is the reckoning applied to the times on this site. The later Hanafi measure, which waits for the shadow to double, is not the local norm in Yemen.
Where practice can differ is in combining prayers. It is common in Zaydi practice, as in other Shia traditions, to pray Dhuhr and Asr together and Maghrib and Isha together. That does not alter when each prayer window opens; it alters when the prayer is performed within it. We publish the separate start times under the country convention and make no ruling between positions. Take your timing from your own mosque.
The six cities we publish, and a note on conditions
We list Sanaa, Aden, Taiz, Hodeidah, Ibb and Mukalla, each computed from its own stored coordinates. We do not claim coverage beyond those six. If the place you need is not listed, the nearest city in the same part of the country is a reasonable approximation, with Mukalla the exception because its eastern position sets it apart from the rest.
Yemen has been in a prolonged humanitarian emergency, and electricity, connectivity and mosque broadcasts are not uniformly available. A calculated timetable is useful in exactly those conditions, because it requires nothing but the date and the coordinates. Each city page shows today's five prayers and sunrise together with a full month ahead, which can be read or written down while a connection is available.
Frequently asked questions
Which calculation method is used for Yemen?
The Umm al-Qura reckoning issued from Makkah, which Saudi Arabia also follows. Dawn is taken when the sun reaches 18.5 degrees below the horizon, and Isha is counted as ninety minutes forward from Maghrib, becoming two hours during Ramadan. No twilight angle is involved at the evening end at all. This is what every Yemeni city on this site is computed with, and the method is named beneath the times table on each city page.
Does Sanaa being 2,250 metres high change its prayer times?
It changes what you observe more than what is calculated. Our figures use a sea-level horizon, as most published timetables do. From a high plateau the true horizon sits lower, so the sun stays visible for roughly five minutes past the calculated sunset and appears about that far ahead of the calculated sunrise. For Maghrib, follow the mosque or the published time rather than trying to judge the moment from a distant ridge line.
Why is Maghrib in Mukalla earlier than in Hodeidah?
Because Yemen keeps a single clock at UTC+3 while spanning about six degrees of longitude. Mukalla lies on the Gulf of Aden coast in the east and Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast in the west, so the sun sets on Mukalla first, by roughly twenty five minutes. The two cities are at nearly the same latitude, so that gap stays close to constant through the year rather than widening and narrowing with the seasons.
Do Zaydi Muslims in Yemen use different prayer times?
The start of each prayer window is reckoned in much the same way, and on Asr the Zaydi and Shafi'i positions agree that the shadow equals the object plus its noon shadow. What differs in practice is that combining Dhuhr with Asr, and Maghrib with Isha, is common in Zaydi practice as in other Shia traditions. That affects when a prayer is performed, not when its time begins. We publish the separate start times and do not rule between positions.
How much do Yemeni prayer times vary between summer and winter?
Less than in most countries. Yemen lies close to the tropics, between roughly 12.8 and 15.4 degrees of latitude across the cities listed here, so the difference in daylight between the longest and shortest day of the year is under two hours. Fajr and Maghrib move through the year, but gently. The larger source of variation between Yemeni cities is longitude, which separates the eastern and western coasts by around twenty five minutes.