Qibla direction in Al Jumayl

How to face the Qibla in Al Jumayl

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 17.9° towards south: the result is the bearing of 107.9°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 18° 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. The simplest check in Al Jumayl is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Al Jumayl. 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 Al Jumayl to Mecca points to 114.9° (south-east), 7.0° away from the correct 107.9°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 6 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 32.8529° N, 12.0612° 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 Al Jumayl to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,015 km from Al Jumayl as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 2,835 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 4 h 03 min, although most pilgrims from Al Jumayl connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Al Jumayl run 1 hour behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Al Jumayl rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Al Jumayl

On 253 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Al Jumayl 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 08:46 local time.

On 85 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 July (31 days), for instance on 15 May 2027 at 19:23.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Al Jumayl: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Al Jumayl compared with other cities

Compared with Tripoli, Libya, 105 km away, the Qibla in Al Jumayl is turned 1.3° further anticlockwise (107.9° against 109.2°), and Mecca is 98 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Al Ajaylat (31 km), prays towards 108.0°, a difference of 0.2°.

Across the 17 cities in Libya on this site, the Qibla ranges from 98.1° in Sabha to 123.1° in Tobruk, a spread of 25.0°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Libya.

Qibla in cities near Al Jumayl

• Al Ajaylat108.0° · 31 km
• Az Zawiyah108.4° · 63 km
• Janzūr108.9° · 89 km
• Tripoli, Libya109.2° · 105 km
• Qaşr Bin Ghashīr108.8° · 107 km
• Tājūrā’109.3° · 120 km