Twice a year the sun's path crosses the latitude of Mecca at the very moment it is highest over the city. At that instant it stands straight above the Kaaba, and anyone, anywhere, who can see the sun is looking along the great circle that runs to the Kaaba. Face the sun and you face the qibla; a vertical stick's shadow points directly away from it. The practice is old — it is usually called rasd al-qibla, "observing the qibla", and the moment itself istiwa' a'zam, the great zenith passage — and it is still announced every year in Indonesia and Malaysia.
We computed the moments for 2026 and 2027 from the solar position formulas astronomers use, worked out the local time and the height of the sun in twelve cities, and then asked the practical question: how wrong are you if you are a few minutes or a few days off?
When it happens
The sun's declination — the latitude of the point on Earth where it is directly overhead — climbs to 23.4° N in June and falls back. It passes 21.42° N, the latitude of the Kaaba, once on the way up in late May and once on the way down in mid-July. The event is the moment on each of those days when the sun is also at its highest over Mecca's longitude, around 12:18 and 12:27 Mecca time.
It is never mathematically perfect, because the declination changes continuously while the Earth turns. In 2027 the closest approach in May leaves the sun 0.03° from the Kaaba's zenith — about 3 kilometres of ground — and in July 0.06°, about 6 kilometres. From any city far enough away to need the method, that difference is invisible.
| Year | Date | UTC | Mecca time | Closest approach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 28 May | 09:18 | 12:18 | 7.6 km |
| 2026 | 15 July | 09:27 | 12:27 | 7.4 km |
| 2027 | 28 May | 09:18 | 12:18 | 3.3 km |
| 2027 | 16 July | 09:27 | 12:27 | 6.3 km |
What time that is where you are
Because the event is a single instant, everyone observes it at the same moment — 09:18 UTC in May 2027 — whatever their clock reads. What differs is how high the sun is, and that decides whether the method is usable at all.
Across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and most of Asia the sun is well up. In Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta it happens in the late afternoon with the sun at 27° and 19°, which is still fine for a shadow. On the east coast of North America the sun has not yet risen (New York is 2.7° below the horizon), and in Sydney and Los Angeles it is night. Those cities need the other date, below.
| City | 28 May | 16 July | Sun altitude | Qibla |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 10:18 | 10:27 | 47° | 119.0° |
| Lagos | 10:18 | 10:27 | 52° | 63.3° |
| Istanbul | 12:18 | 12:27 | 68° | 151.6° |
| Cairo | 12:18 | 12:27 | 78° | 136.1° |
| Nairobi | 12:18 | 12:27 | 67° | 7.2° |
| Karachi | 14:18 | 14:27 | 65° | 267.7° |
| Jakarta | 16:18 | 16:27 | 19° | 295.2° |
| Kuala Lumpur | 17:18 | 17:27 | 27° | 292.5° |
| New York | 05:18 | 05:27 | below horizon | 58.5° |
| Los Angeles | 02:18 | 02:27 | below horizon | 23.9° |
| Sydney | 19:18 | 19:27 | below horizon | 277.5° |
The other half of the world: the antipodal day
If the sun is below your horizon at the Kaaba transit, you are on the far side of the planet — and for you there is a mirror event. Twice a year the sun stands over the point exactly opposite the Kaaba, in the South Pacific at 21.42° S, 140.17° W. When it does, the sun is on the great circle through you and the Kaaba, but at the far end of it. So you do the opposite: turn your back to the sun, and the shadow of a vertical stick points straight at the qibla.
These are the dates that matter for the Americas and Australia. New York is the awkward case: at the Kaaba transit the sun has not quite risen, and at the antipodal moment it has not quite set — 2.7° up, too low and too hazy to trust. Toronto gets 4.4°. For most of North America's east coast, a compass checked against a well-surveyed map is the better tool.
| City | 28 Nov 2026 | 13 Jan 2027 | Sun altitude | Qibla |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UTC | 21:09 | 21:29 | — | — |
| Los Angeles | 13:09 | 13:29 | 31° | 23.9° |
| Sydney | 08:09 (29 Nov) | 08:29 (14 Jan) | 29° | 277.5° |
| Toronto | 16:09 | 16:29 | 4° | 54.6° |
| New York | 16:09 | 16:29 | 3° | 58.5° |
How precise do you have to be?
The sun moves across the sky about a quarter of a degree a minute, so the time matters much more than the day. We shifted the moment by a few minutes, and separately by whole days at the same clock time, and measured how far the sun's bearing strays from the true qibla.
Two patterns stand out. A day or two either side costs well under a degree anywhere, so if the event falls on a cloudy morning the next day is almost as good. Minutes, on the other hand, add up fast — and they hurt most the closer you are to Mecca, because the sun's small drift is a large angle when seen from nearby. From Istanbul, five minutes late is a three-degree error; from Jakarta it is a quarter of one.
| Offset | London | Istanbul | Lagos | Karachi | Jakarta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 minutes | 0.6 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| 5 minutes | 1.4 | 2.9 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.3 |
| 10 minutes | 2.8 | 6.0 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 0.6 |
| 1 day | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
| 2 days | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.4 |
| 3 days | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.5 |
| 5 days | 0.9 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.9 | 0.9 |
Doing it, and what it tells you about your compass
Stand a rod, a plumb line or a straight pole vertically on level ground — check it from two sides, because a leaning stick throws a leaning shadow. A minute before the time, watch the shadow; at the time, mark its tip and the base. The line from the tip back through the base, continued past it, points to the qibla. On the antipodal days, the line from the base toward the tip does.
This is also the most honest test a phone compass will ever get. A magnetometer is thrown off by steel, speakers and magnets in cases — the reasons are in why your qibla compass keeps spinning — and there is normally nothing independent to compare it with. The sun is independent. Lay the phone along your marked line, open the qibla finder, and see how many degrees it disagrees by. If it is out by ten, you have learned something about that phone in that room that no calibration figure-of-eight would have told you. Mark the line permanently on a floor or a wall and you have a reference for the rest of the year.
The geometry behind the qibla bearings in the tables — the same great-circle formula the sun is tracing for you — is set out with a worked example on how the qibla is calculated.
How much precision the prayer actually needs
None of this is an obligation. The four schools agree that someone who cannot see the Kaaba must face its direction, arrived at by honest effort, and the majority position does not require a surveyed bearing; a prayer offered after reasonable effort is valid. The detail of where the schools draw the line is in how exactly must you face the qibla.
What the sun gives is not a stricter rule but a better effort, for free, with an instrument nobody can miscalibrate. For a mosque whose orientation was set by guesswork, or a household praying for years toward whatever a phone said, one sunny morning in late May is a good use of five minutes.
Common questions
- When is the sun directly over the Kaaba in 2027?
- On 28 May 2027 at 09:18 UTC (12:18 Mecca time) and on 16 July 2027 at 09:27 UTC (12:27 Mecca time). At those instants the sun passes within about 3 and 6 kilometres respectively of the zenith over the Kaaba.
- Which way does the shadow point?
- Directly away from the qibla. Face the sun, or follow the shadow from its tip back to the base of the stick and beyond, and you are facing the Kaaba. On the antipodal dates in late November and mid-January the reverse is true: the shadow points toward the qibla.
- Does it work if I miss the exact day or time?
- A day or two either side costs less than one degree in every city we measured. The time matters more: five minutes off gives about 1.4° of error in London and 2.9° in Istanbul, so use a clock synchronised to network time.
- Can I use it in America or Australia?
- Not on the May and July dates, when the sun is below the horizon there. Use the antipodal dates instead — 28 November at 21:09 UTC and 13 January at 21:29 UTC — when the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba and the shadow points toward the qibla. On the US east coast the sun is then only 3–4° high, which makes it unreliable.