Qibla direction in Maghāghah

How to face the Qibla in Maghāghah

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 39.6° towards south: the result is the bearing of 129.6°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “east” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Maghāghah.

Scholars agree that someone who can see the Kaaba must face it exactly, while someone far away faces its direction (jihat al-Ka‘bah) as precisely as reasonably possible. If a mosque is nearby, its mihrab and prayer lines are the easiest reference, since they were set when the building was laid out. At home, mark the direction once with tape or a small arrow so the whole family prays the same way.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Maghāghah to Mecca points to 131.6° (south-east), 2.0° away from the correct 129.6°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is not the true shortest route. The Qibla follows the great circle, the shortest path on the curved Earth, which is why the bearing differs.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 28.6478° N, 30.8410° E to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E). It is the method used by mosque architects and by every serious Qibla calculator, and it gives one exact answer for each point on Earth.

Distance from Maghāghah to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 1,209 km from Maghāghah as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 988 km away. The distance is short enough that many pilgrims from Maghāghah travel to the Hijaz by road.

Clocks in Maghāghah run 1 hour behind Mecca in winter and the same time as Mecca in summer, because of daylight saving time. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Maghāghah rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Maghāghah

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Maghāghah while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 08:28 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Maghāghah during daylight, so the shadow method does not apply here; the left-hand column is the one to use.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Maghāghah: at 12:18 and 12:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Maghāghah compared with other cities

Compared with Cairo, 162 km away, the Qibla in Maghāghah is turned 6.6° further anticlockwise (129.6° against 136.2°), and Mecca is 78 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Banī Mazār (17 km), prays towards 128.9°, a difference of 0.7°.

Across the 55 cities in Egypt on this site, the Qibla ranges from 111.3° in Aswān to 149.5° in Arish, a spread of 38.2°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Egypt.

Qibla in cities near Maghāghah

• Banī Mazār128.9° · 17 km
• Al Fashn130.5° · 20 km
• Samālūţ127.8° · 39 km
• Banī Suwayf132.2° · 54 km
• Minya127.0° · 62 km
• Al Fayyum132.2° · 74 km