Qibla direction in Shahrīār

How to face the Qibla in Shahrīār

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 37.6° towards west: the result is the bearing of 217.6°. 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 Shahrīār.

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 Shahrīār is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Shahrīār. 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 Shahrīār to Mecca points to 214.6° (south-west), 3.0° away from the correct 217.6°. 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 35.6588° N, 51.0578° 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 Shahrīār to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 1,923 km from Shahrīār as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 1,659 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 2 h 46 min, although most pilgrims from Shahrīār connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Shahrīār 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 Shahrīār rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Shahrīār

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Shahrīār 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 Shahrīār 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 Shahrīār: at 12:48 and 12:57 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Shahrīār compared with other cities

Compared with Tehran, 33 km away, the Qibla in Shahrīār is turned 0.9° further anticlockwise (217.6° against 218.5°), and Mecca is 23 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Robāţ Karīm (20 km), prays towards 218.0°, a difference of 0.4°.

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 Shahrīār

• Robāţ Karīm218.0° · 20 km
• Eslamshahr218.3° · 20 km
• Karaj217.1° · 20 km
• Tehran218.5° · 33 km
• Nazarabad215.8° · 52 km
• Qarchak219.4° · 54 km