When are the five daily prayers?
Fajr from dawn until sunrise; Dhuhr from just after midday until mid-afternoon; ‘Asr from mid-afternoon until sunset; Maghrib from sunset until the red twilight fades; ‘Ishā’ from then until midnight. They are tied to the sun, not the clock, so the times shift daily and differ by location — which is why any prayer-time app asks where you are.
The four schools concur on this.
Prayer is the only obligation in Islam fixed to specific times rather than left to the worshipper to arrange. Each prayer has a window, and the obligation is to pray inside it.
“Establish prayer at the decline of the sun from its meridian until the darkness of the night and also the Qur’ān i.e., recitation of dawn. Indeed, the recitation of dawn is ever witnessed.” (Qur’an 17:78)
The boundaries were stated directly: Fajr’s time lasts until the first part of the sun appears; Dhuhr’s until ‘Asr comes in; ‘Asr’s until the sun turns yellow; Maghrib’s until the twilight has gone (Sahih Muslim 612).
In practice:
- Fajr — from true dawn to sunrise. The short one, and the one most people find hardest.
- Dhuhr — from just after the sun passes its highest point, until the afternoon.
- ‘Asr — mid-afternoon until sunset.
- Maghrib — at sunset. The narrowest window of the five.
- ‘Ishā’ — after the twilight fades. Best prayed before midnight, though it remains valid until dawn.
Three points that save beginners a lot of anxiety. First, a prayer is not “missed” the moment its ideal time passes — you have the whole window. Second, the windows move through the year: in northern summers Fajr can arrive before 3am and ‘Ishā’ after 11pm, and communities in extreme latitudes follow local rulings for that. Third, if you genuinely cannot pray at the appointed time — an operating theatre, an exam, a shift you cannot leave — you pray as soon as you are able. That is not a failure; travellers and the ill have explicit allowances, and the aim is that the prayer is prayed.
- Qur’anQur’an 17:78
- HadithSahih Muslim 612