Qibla direction in Bielefeld

How to face the Qibla in Bielefeld

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 39.8° towards south: the result is the bearing of 129.8°. 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 Bielefeld.

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 Bielefeld is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Bielefeld. 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 Bielefeld to Mecca points to 141.4° (south-east), 11.6° away from the correct 129.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 21 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 52.0333° N, 8.5333° 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 Bielefeld to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,335 km from Bielefeld as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,034 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 36 min, although most pilgrims from Bielefeld connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Bielefeld 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 Bielefeld rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Bielefeld

On 305 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Bielefeld 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 Bielefeld 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 Bielefeld: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Bielefeld compared with other cities

Compared with Berlin, 336 km away, the Qibla in Bielefeld is turned 6.9° further anticlockwise (129.8° against 136.7°), and Mecca is 204 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Paderborn (38 km), prays towards 129.8°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

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 Bielefeld

• Paderborn129.8° · 38 km
• Osnabrück129.4° · 42 km
• Münster128.6° · 63 km
• Hamm128.5° · 63 km
• Hanover131.6° · 90 km
• Dortmund127.9° · 93 km