Qibla direction in Negara

How to face the Qibla in Negara

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 23.8° towards north: the result is the bearing of 293.8°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 24° off.

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

On a flat (Mercator) map, the straight line from Negara to Mecca points to 292.1°, only 1.8° away from the true Qibla. Here the two methods practically agree, so a map gives a usable first idea, although the 293.8° bearing remains the exact one.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 8.3569° S, 114.6169° 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 Negara to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 8,799 km from Negara as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 8,901 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 10 h 51 min, although most pilgrims from Negara connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Negara run 5 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Negara rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Negara

On 203 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Negara 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 March 2027 it happens at 12:40 local time.

On 136 days the sun stands exactly opposite the Qibla: then the shadow of any vertical object, a pole, a door frame or a plumb line, points straight towards Mecca. This is most frequent in January (31 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 09:19.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Negara: at 17:18 and 17:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Negara compared with other cities

Compared with Jakarta, 890 km away, the Qibla in Negara is turned 1.3° further anticlockwise (293.8° against 295.2°), and Mecca is 879 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Banyuwangi (32 km), prays towards 293.9°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

Across the 140 cities in Indonesia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 290.2° in Merauke to 295.5° in Pelabuhanratu, a spread of 5.3°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Indonesia.

Qibla in cities near Negara

• Banyuwangi293.9° · 32 km
• Sukawati293.8° · 49 km
• Singaraja293.7° · 59 km
• Denpasar293.8° · 74 km
• Klungkung293.7° · 88 km
• Situbondo293.8° · 99 km