🇮🇷 Tehran

Tehran uses the Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran method (method 7 in our calculator), a 17.7° Fajr and 14° Isha convention developed in the 1980s specifically for Iranian latitudes by the university's geophysics institute. The method differs from Sunni-majority conventions in two ways: a slightly shallower 17.7° Fajr angle, and a notably shallower 14° Isha calibrated to the Twelver Shia interpretation in which Isha can be prayed once the western glow of sunset has fully disappeared rather than waiting for full astronomical darkness. The official Iranian state calendar, Tehran's mosque federation and Iran's national broadcaster IRIB all publish the daily timetable on this basis, and major mosques including the Imam Khomeini Mosque in the Grand Bazaar and Mosalla Tehran follow it. Apps configured for Muslim World League or Karachi will show Isha materially later than what is announced in Tehran, while Fajr and the daytime prayers will line up much more closely.

Prayer times in Tehran shift most around the summer and winter solstices because the city sits at 35.7°N, far enough from the equator to feel a clear day-length swing. In late June, Fajr is called shortly before 04:00 and Isha after 21:30 once the western glow has fully disappeared, giving roughly sixteen hours of fasting in Ramadan when the month falls in summer. By late December the picture inverts: sunrise slips past 07:15, Maghrib arrives around 16:55, and the full arc of obligatory prayers compresses into roughly nine and a half daylight hours. The equinoxes in March — which coincide with Nowruz, the Iranian new year — and September are the calmest periods, when daily prayer slots move only a minute or two either way. Tehran's elevation around 1,200 metres in the Alborz foothills also produces sharp horizon definition, particularly in the dry summer months.

Yes, Iran is overwhelmingly Muslim-majority — over 99 percent of the country's 88 million population identifies as Muslim, with roughly 90 percent following Twelver Shia Islam (the official state religion since the 1501 Safavid conversion) and around 9 percent Sunni Muslims, mostly in the Kurdish, Baloch, Turkmen and southern coastal communities. Tehran as the capital concentrates a cross-section of all Iranian ethnic and religious groups — Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, Baloch and others — and serves as the seat of the Supreme Leader, the Council of Guardians and the major Shia seminaries' Tehran offices, although Qom remains the principal seminary city. Friday is the official weekend with Saturday, the working week running Saturday through Wednesday. The five-times-daily adhan is broadcast nationally on radio and television, and major Friday prayers from Mosalla Tehran are televised. Recognised religious minorities — Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians — have constitutionally reserved parliamentary seats.

The Imam Khomeini Mosque in the heart of Tehran's Grand Bazaar — sometimes still called by its older name, Masjid Shah — hosts substantial daily and weekly congregations and is one of the most historically significant mosques in the capital, sitting in the centre of the bazaar trading network. The much larger Mosalla Tehran (Imam Khomeini Mosalla), an immense complex begun in the 1990s on Resalat Highway and still being expanded, hosts the official state Friday prayer led by Tehran's appointed Friday imam and can accommodate hundreds of thousands of worshippers across its vast paved courtyards. Other major Tehran congregations include the University of Tehran mosque used for student Friday prayers, Masjid Jami' (the Friday Mosque) in the bazaar and Masjid al-Nabi in the southern districts. Friday khutbas at Mosalla are delivered in Persian with selected Arabic recitation and are televised nationwide, typically starting after Dhuhr.

Prayer times differ between cities because they are calculated from the apparent position of the sun, which depends on each city's latitude, longitude and the date. Tehran sits at 35.7°N, 51.4°E in the Asia/Tehran time zone (which uses a half-hour offset of UTC+3:30), so its sunrise, solar noon, sunset and twilight angles produce a daily timetable that no other city shares exactly. Two cities at very different latitudes — say London at 51°N and Riyadh at 24°N — experience twilight over very different durations, so Fajr, Maghrib and Isha can sit hours apart on the same calendar date. Even cities at similar latitudes drift if they sit in different time zones or follow different calculation conventions; Tehran's use of the University of Tehran method with a 14° Isha angle, reflecting the Twelver Shia interpretation, produces a notably earlier Isha than Sunni-majority cities at the same latitude using 17° or 18°.