Prayer Times in Bangladesh

Muslims and mosques in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is among the world's largest Muslim countries. The 2022 census counted about 150 million Muslims, 91.04% of a population of 165 million, and the Socio-Economic and Demographic Survey of 2023 found 91.58%. Pew Research projects between 218.5 and 237.5 million Muslims by 2050, about 95% of the population. The share has risen steadily, from 66.1% in 1901 (19,121,160 people) to 90.4% in 2011 (135,394,217 people). Most Muslims are Sunni, following the Hanafi school of law and the Maturidi school of theology. Shia Muslims, Ahmadis (about 100,000), Quranists and Mahdavia are smaller groups, and the Dawoodi Bohra Shia are concentrated in Chittagong. Islam was declared the state religion by a constitutional amendment in June 1988, although the country remains secular in many ways.

Islam came by sea and by saints. Arab traders reached Bengal in the late 7th century, mainly through Chittagong, and in the early 13th century Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest founded the first Muslim kingdom in Bengal. The Bengal Sultanate was united in 1352 under Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah. Sufi preachers such as Shah Jalal, whose shrine in Sylhet draws visitors from across the country, helped the faith spread among rural communities, and shrine visiting remains a living tradition alongside reformist movements.

The state and the madrassas share religious life. The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Islamic Foundation Bangladesh regulate matters such as the Hajj and zakat, and Islamic education is divided between two streams, the state-recognised Alia madrassas and the independent Qawmi madrassas. The country's national mosque is the Baitul Mukarram in Dhaka, and mosques stand in nearly every village.

For prayer times, Bangladesh lies between about 20 and 27 degrees north and uses one time zone, Bangladesh Standard Time (UTC+6), so Maghrib in Sylhet in the east comes earlier by the clock than in Khulna in the west, by about 10 minutes. On this site's calculation the fast from Fajr to Maghrib in Dhaka lasts about 15 hours on 21 June and 12 hours on 21 December. Mosques overwhelmingly use the Karachi angles of 18 degrees and the Hanafi Asr, which is the default here. The start of Ramadan and Eid is announced after a national crescent-sighting meeting; in 2026 Bangladesh and India both marked the first day of Ramadan on 19 February. Congregation times (jamaat) are set by each mosque and differ from the start times shown on this site.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Bangladesh (2022 census); The News: Bangladesh and India announce sighting of Ramadan crescent.