Qibla direction in Lowell

How to face the Qibla in Lowell

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 29.7° towards north: the result is the bearing of 60.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 30° off.

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 Lowell, 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 Lowell to Mecca points to 102.8° (east), a full 42.6° away from the true Qibla of 60.3° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 629 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Lowell first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 60.3° obtained? From the coordinates of Lowell (42.6334° N, 71.3162° 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 Lowell to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 10,005 km from Lowell as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 9,744 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 12 h 16 min, although most pilgrims from Lowell connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Lowell run 8 hours behind Mecca in winter and 7 hours behind Mecca in summer, because of daylight saving time. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Lowell rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Lowell

From Lowell the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 60.3°, so you cannot simply face the sun. The opposite method works instead, as the right-hand column of the table shows.

On 292 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 March (31 days), for instance on 1 February 2027 at 16:17.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Lowell (05:18 and 05:27 local time), so they cannot be used here.

Lowell compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 636 km away, the Qibla in Lowell is turned 3.7° further clockwise (60.3° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 628 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Boston (37 km), prays towards 60.4°, 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 Lowell

• Boston60.4° · 37 km
• Manchester, New Hampshire, United States60.2° · 42 km
• Worcester, Massachusetts, United States59.9° · 57 km
• Providence60.2° · 90 km
• New Bedford60.5° · 116 km
• Springfield, Massachusetts, United States59.4° · 120 km