🇵🇰 Islamabad

Islamabad uses the University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi method (method 1 in our calculator), an 18°/18° Fajr-and-Isha convention developed at the eponymous Karachi institution and adopted as the national standard across Pakistan. The Pakistan Meteorological Department, the Council of Islamic Ideology and the Islamabad Capital Territory's mosque administrations all publish the daily timetable on this basis, and Faisal Mosque, the country's national mosque, follows it without variation. The method's 18-degree Fajr and Isha angles behave well at Islamabad's 33.7°N latitude and align the capital's schedule with Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta, ensuring nationwide uniformity. The same method is used across the Indian subcontinent, so cross-border family travel between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh sees consistent timetables. Apps configured for Muslim World League or Egyptian conventions will show Fajr and Isha shifted by a few minutes, while Dhuhr, Asr and Maghrib remain identical because those depend on the sun's transit and altitude rather than on a twilight depression angle.

Prayer times in Islamabad shift most between the long summer days of June and July and the short winter days of December and January, with the swing driven by Islamabad's 33.7°N latitude in the Pothohar Plateau. In late June, Fajr is called shortly after 03:00 and Isha around 21:00, stretching the daylight fast in Ramadan to over fifteen hours when the month falls in summer. By late December, sunrise slips toward 07:00, Maghrib arrives around 17:00, and the gap between Fajr and Maghrib compresses to roughly ten hours under sharp dry winter cold, with occasional snow on the Margalla Hills above the city. The equinoxes in March and September are the most stable periods, when daily times drift only a minute or two each day. The summer monsoon between July and September brings dramatic cloud cover that disrupts outdoor congregations, and Faisal Mosque issues monthly timetables to absorb the gradual seasonal drift.

Yes, Pakistan is overwhelmingly Muslim-majority — Islam is the state religion under the constitution and roughly 96–97 percent of the country's 240 million population identifies as Muslim, making Pakistan home to the second-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. The Sunni majority of around 80–85 percent follows mostly the Hanafi school with significant Barelvi and Deobandi traditions, while a Shia minority of around 10–15 percent is concentrated in cities including Karachi, Lahore and parts of Gilgit-Baltistan. Islamabad as the planned capital concentrates federal Islamic institutions including the Council of Islamic Ideology, the Federal Shariat Court and the International Islamic University. Friday and Sunday form the official weekend, although Friday is treated as a working half-day with extended Jumu'ah breaks. The five-times-daily adhan is broadcast across the city, and Islamic public life — including Ramadan iftar markets, Eid congregations on open ground, and Muharram processions — is universal.

Faisal Mosque, the national mosque of Pakistan, hosts the largest Friday prayer in Islamabad and was for decades the largest mosque in the world by area. Inaugurated in 1986 and gifted by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (after whom it is named, although he was assassinated in 1975 before its completion), the contemporary tent-and-spire design by Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay departs from traditional dome-and-minaret forms and seats around 100,000 worshippers across the prayer hall, courtyards and surrounding lawns. The mosque sits at the foot of the Margalla Hills and serves as the principal state Friday congregation. Other major Islamabad mosques include Masjid-e-Tooba (popularly known) sites in the sectoral grid, Lal Masjid in the central area and the Saudi-Pak Tower mosque, while Rawalpindi's Jamia Masjid and the Bari Imam Shrine in Nurpur Shahan host substantial weekly congregations. Friday khutbas are delivered in Urdu with selected Arabic verses.

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. Islamabad sits at 33.7°N, 73.0°E in the Asia/Karachi time zone, in the Pothohar Plateau between the Margalla Hills and the Potwar uplands, 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 for the Fajr and Isha twilight depression angles, which is why Islamabad, Kabul and Tehran — all near 33–35°N — publish noticeably different daily timetables despite their similar latitudes.