Tahajjud Time Calculator
The Islamic night runs from Maghrib until the next morning’s Fajr — not sunset to sunrise, and not midnight on the clock. Choose your city and this works out where the midpoint and the final third of tonight actually fall.
Night times for
Makkah, Saudi Arabia
Maghrib
—
The night begins
Length of the night
—
Islamic midnight: —
Fajr
—
Next morning — the night ends
The night in three parts
First third
— – —
Second third
— – —
Last thirdTahajjud
— – —
Tonight’s Tahajjud window
—–—
Starts in
—
Fajr in
—
The last third of the night, from Maghrib to the next Fajr. Any night prayer after sleep counts; this is simply the most virtuous part of it.
Resolving your location…
Method: Makkah
Calculation settings
Calculation method
Only Fajr moves between methods — Maghrib is sunset, which they all agree on. Pick whichever your local mosque uses.
Asr school
Shown for completeness. The Asr school changes the Asr time only; it has no effect on the night window below.
Manual adjustment
If your mosque prints times a few minutes away from the calculated ones, nudge them here. Everything below recalculates.
How the night is divided
In fiqh the night begins the moment the sun has set — at Maghrib — and ends the moment true dawn breaks, at Fajr. Everything else follows from those two times. It is not the astronomical night, which ends at sunrise, and it has nothing to do with 00:00 on a clock, which is an administrative point in a time zone that may be well over a thousand kilometres wide.
Take the interval from Maghrib to the following Fajr and divide it into three equal parts. The first third is the earliest stretch of the night. Islamic midnight is simply the midpoint of the interval — Maghrib plus half the night — and falls inside the second third. The last third is the final stretch before dawn, and it is the portion the hadith singles out: the Prophet ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam described the Lord descending to the lowest heaven in the last third of every night, asking who is calling on Him (al-Bukhārī 1145, Muslim 758).
The most common mistake is using today’s Fajr instead of tomorrow’s. Tonight’s night began at this evening’s Maghrib and ends at the Fajr that has not happened yet. Measuring against this morning’s Fajr describes the wrong night entirely and can shift the start of the last third by half an hour or more, depending on the season.
A worked example
Take London on the night of 15 April 2026, using the Muslim World League method. Maghrib falls at 19:57 and the following morning’s Fajr at 03:53. Everything after that is arithmetic.
| Maghrib — the night begins | 19:57 |
|---|---|
| Fajr the next morning — the night ends | 03:53 |
| Length of the night | 7h 56m (476 minutes) |
| One third of the night | 2h 38m 40s (158⅔ minutes) |
| First third | 19:57 → 22:35 |
| Second third | 22:35 → 01:14 |
| Islamic midnight (Maghrib + 238 minutes) | 23:55 |
| Last third — the Tahajjud window | 01:14 → 03:53 |
Two things are worth noticing. Islamic midnight lands at 23:55 — five minutes before midnight on the clock, and there is no reason the two should coincide: one is fixed by the sun over London, the other is a label every town in the time zone shares. And the last third runs 2h 39m on this night; by mid-December, when the London night stretches to just over fourteen hours, the same third is more than four and a half hours long.
Common questions
What exactly is the last third of the night?
Take the time from Maghrib to the following Fajr, divide it into three equal parts, and the last third is the final part — the stretch that ends the moment Fajr enters. In the London example above it runs from 01:14 to 03:53. It is not a fixed clock time: it moves every night with sunset and dawn, and it is considerably longer in winter than in summer.
Is Tahajjud the same as Qiyam al-Layl or Taraweeh?
They overlap without being identical. Qiyam al-Layl is the general term for standing in prayer at night, at any point after Isha. Tahajjud is specifically prayer offered after having slept, which is why it is associated with the later part of the night. Taraweeh is the congregational night prayer of Ramadan, prayed straight after Isha at the start of the night. Praying Taraweeh does not use up the Tahajjud window, although most scholars hold that witr should not be repeated in the same night.
What if I wake before the last third?
The prayer is valid and rewarded. Any night prayer offered after Isha and after some sleep counts as Tahajjud; the last third is the most virtuous portion, not a condition of validity. If you are likely to sleep through it, the practical guidance reported from the Prophet ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam is to pray witr before sleeping rather than gambling on waking.
How is Islamic midnight different from 12am?
Clock midnight is an administrative point defined for a whole time zone. Islamic midnight is the midpoint between Maghrib and Fajr, so it tracks the actual sun over your actual location. The two can be well over an hour apart — the further you sit from your time zone’s central meridian, and during daylight saving, the wider the gap. It matters in fiqh because a number of scholars treat it as the end of the preferred time for Isha.
Does the calculation method change the answer?
Yes, but only through Fajr. Maghrib is sunset, and every method agrees on it to within a minute. Fajr depends on how far the sun must sit below the horizon for true dawn, and the conventions differ: 18° for the Muslim World League, 15° for ISNA, 19.5° for the Egyptian General Authority, 18.5° for Umm al-Qura. One degree is roughly four to six minutes at mid latitudes, so the end of the night — and with it the start of the last third — can move by ten minutes or more between methods. Use the one your local mosque uses.