Qibla direction in Mesa

How to face the Qibla in Mesa

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 30.3° towards east: the result is the bearing of 30.3°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “north” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Mesa.

Facing the Qibla is a condition of the prayer. Whoever prays inside the Sacred Mosque faces the Kaaba itself; whoever is far away, as in Mesa, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. A nearby mosque is a handy reference, because its prayer rows were aligned when it was built. Once you know the direction at home, a discreet mark on the wall saves you from checking again.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Mesa to Mecca points to 95.1° (east), a full 64.8° away from the true Qibla of 30.3° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,769 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Mesa first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 30.3° obtained? From the coordinates of Mesa (33.4223° N, 111.8226° W) and of the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E), spherical trigonometry gives the starting bearing of the great circle joining them. Mosque architects and astronomical Qibla tables rely on exactly the same calculation.

Distance from Mesa to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 13,216 km from Mesa as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,904 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 16 h 03 min, although most pilgrims from Mesa connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Mesa run 10 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Mesa rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Mesa

From Mesa the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 30.3°, so you cannot simply face the sun. The opposite method works instead, as the right-hand column of the table shows.

On 365 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 14:28.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Mesa (02:18 and 02:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 14:29 and 28 November 2027 at 14:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Mesa points straight to Mecca.

Mesa compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 3,162 km away, the Qibla in Mesa is turned 26.2° further anticlockwise (30.3° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 2,583 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Phoenix (24 km), prays towards 30.1°, a difference of 0.2°.

Across the 244 cities in the United States on this site, the Qibla ranges from 17.2° in Hillsboro to 350.9° in Anchorage, a spread of 333.7°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for United States.

Qibla in cities near Mesa

• Phoenix30.1° · 24 km
• Peoria, Arizona, United States29.9° · 42 km
• Tucson31.5° · 158 km
• Henderson26.6° · 410 km
• Enterprise26.4° · 426 km
• Las Vegas26.4° · 430 km