Qibla direction in Kassel

How to face the Qibla in Kassel

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 40.3° towards south: the result is the bearing of 130.3°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “east” would be off by more than 40°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Kassel.

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. The simplest check in Kassel is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Kassel. 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 Kassel to Mecca points to 141.4° (south-east), 11.1° away from the correct 130.3°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 18 km longer than 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 51.3167° N, 9.5000° 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 Kassel to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,232 km from Kassel as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,933 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 29 min, although most pilgrims from Kassel connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Kassel run 2 hours behind Mecca in winter and 1 hour behind 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 Kassel rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Kassel

On 311 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Kassel while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in March (31 days); for example, on 1 February 2027 it happens at 09:07 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Kassel 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 Kassel: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Kassel compared with other cities

Compared with Berlin, 300 km away, the Qibla in Kassel is turned 6.4° further anticlockwise (130.3° against 136.7°), and Mecca is 102 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Göttingen (39 km), prays towards 131.1°, a difference of 0.8°.

Across the 63 cities in Germany on this site, the Qibla ranges from 124.8° in Freiburg im Breisgau to 136.7° in Berlin, a spread of 11.9°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Germany.

Qibla in cities near Kassel

• Göttingen131.1° · 39 km
• Paderborn129.8° · 68 km
• Hildesheim131.7° · 98 km
• Bielefeld129.8° · 104 km
• Erfurt132.0° · 114 km
• Siegen128.0° · 114 km