Qibla direction in Dorūd

How to face the Qibla in Dorūd

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 36.4° towards west: the result is the bearing of 216.4°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “south” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Dorūd.

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 Dorūd to Mecca points to 214.1° (south-west), 2.3° away from the correct 216.4°. 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 33.4922° N, 49.0616° 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 Dorūd to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 1,620 km from Dorūd as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 1,360 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 2 h 24 min, although most pilgrims from Dorūd connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Dorūd run 0.5 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Dorūd rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Dorūd

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Dorūd 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 14:42 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Dorūd 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 Dorūd: at 12:48 and 12:57 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Dorūd compared with other cities

Compared with Tehran, 327 km away, the Qibla in Dorūd is turned 2.0° further anticlockwise (216.4° against 218.5°), and Mecca is 326 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Borūjerd (53 km), prays towards 214.6°, a difference of 1.9°.

Across the 90 cities in Iran on this site, the Qibla ranges from 195.9° in Khoy to 257.6° in Iranshahr, a spread of 61.7°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Iran.

Qibla in cities near Dorūd

• Borūjerd214.6° · 53 km
• Khorramabad214.2° · 65 km
• Arak217.0° · 89 km
• Malāyer213.9° · 93 km
• Dezful217.0° · 138 km
• Hamadan212.0° · 154 km