Qibla direction in Islamabad

How to face the Qibla in Islamabad

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 14.2° towards south: the result is the bearing of 255.8°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 14° 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 Islamabad is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Islamabad. 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 Islamabad to Mecca points to 247.3° (south-west), 8.6° away from the correct 255.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 11 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 33.7215° N, 73.0433° 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 Islamabad to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,528 km from Islamabad as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,390 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 4 h 39 min, although most pilgrims from Islamabad connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

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

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Islamabad

On 235 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Islamabad 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 17:24 local time.

On 108 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 May (31 days), for instance on 1 May 2027 at 05:53.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Islamabad: at 14:18 and 14:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Islamabad compared with other cities

The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Abbottabad (50 km), prays towards 255.3°, a difference of 0.5°.

Across the 125 cities in Pakistan on this site, the Qibla ranges from 253.6° in Mingora to 269.0° in Badin, a spread of 15.5°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Pakistan.

Qibla in cities near Islamabad

• Abbottabad255.3° · 50 km
• Dhirkot255.8° · 61 km
• Attock City255.2° · 63 km
• Tordher254.7° · 76 km
• Muzaffarabad255.2° · 82 km
• Chakwal256.9° · 89 km