Qibla direction in Okigwe

How to face the Qibla in Okigwe

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 29.6° towards north: the result is the bearing of 60.4°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 30° 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Okigwe to Mecca points to 63.6° (north-east), 3.2° away from the correct 60.4°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 3 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 5.8292° N, 7.3506° 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 Okigwe to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,901 km from Okigwe as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,016 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 05 min, although most pilgrims from Okigwe connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Okigwe run 2 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Okigwe rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Okigwe

On 156 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Okigwe while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in May (31 days); for example, on 15 April 2027 it happens at 12:02 local time.

On 209 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 16:23.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Okigwe: at 10:18 and 10:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Okigwe compared with other cities

Compared with Abuja, 359 km away, the Qibla in Okigwe is turned 4.1° further anticlockwise (60.4° against 64.6°), and Mecca is 180 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Umuahia (37 km), prays towards 60.0°, a difference of 0.5°.

Across the 90 cities in Nigeria on this site, the Qibla ranges from 58.6° in Esuk Oron to 70.9° in Sokoto, a spread of 12.3°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Nigeria.

Qibla in cities near Okigwe

• Umuahia60.0° · 37 km
• Owerri60.2° · 52 km
• Nnewi60.9° · 52 km
• Awka61.1° · 53 km
• Amaigbo60.1° · 54 km
• Atani61.0° · 70 km