Prayer Times in Malaysia

Muslims and mosques in Malaysia

Islam is the religion of the Federation of Malaysia under Article 3(1) of the Constitution, and Article 160 defines every ethnic Malay as a Muslim. The 2020 census counted 20,623,140 Muslims, 63.5% of the population, up from 17,375,794 in 2010. The Shafi'i school of Sunni jurisprudence is the official and dominant one, while Hanafi followers are a minority, mainly among the Chinese Hui Muslims. Muslim life in Malaysia runs next to a separate Sharia court system that handles Muslim family matters, alongside the civil courts.

Islam in the Malay world is old. The Terengganu Inscription Stone, found at Kuala Berang, carries Islamic law and is dated to 1303 or 1383, and a tombstone in Pahang is dated to 419 AH (1028 CE), although most early inscriptions concern foreign Muslims. By the 17th century most of the Malay Peninsula had converted, and the Kampung Laut Mosque in Tumpat, Kelantan, from the early 18th century, is one of the oldest in the country. Today the National Mosque (Masjid Negara) in Kuala Lumpur and the Putra Mosque in Putrajaya are among the landmarks of the capital.

Religious affairs are shared between the federal and state governments. JAKIM, the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, sits under the Prime Minister's Department, each state has its own religious department and mufti, and the National Fatwa Council, set up by the Conference of Rulers, issues fatwas. Tabung Haji organises the pilgrimage to Mecca. Because each sultan or ruler heads Islam in his own state, authority over Islam is split between the federal and state levels. Prayer times are published by zone, not for the country as a whole.

That explains JAKIM's zones. JAKIM divides the country into zones, such as Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, and publishes one timetable for each; every place in a zone shares the same times, worked out at the zone's reference point with JAKIM's small precaution minutes (ihtiyat), so this site shows the zone for each Malaysian town. The start of Ramadan and Eid is announced by the Keeper of the Rulers' Seal on the advice of the state muftis and JAKIM, using both the physical sighting of the crescent (rukyah) at designated observation sites and calculation (hisab). Malaysia and Brunei have applied the revised MABIMS imkan al-rukyah criteria since 1 Muharram 1443, which began on 9 August 2021, and Indonesia has adopted the same revised MABIMS criteria. Near the equator the day varies little through the year, so the prayer times move by only a few minutes between seasons.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Malaysia (2020 census); Determining the Beginning of Ramadan in Malaysia (Asian Heritage and Cultural Studies, UTHM); JAKIM e-Solat prayer timetable.