Prayer Times in Nigeria

Muslims and mosques in Nigeria

Nigeria has one of the largest Muslim populations in Africa, but no recent census has published religion figures, so the numbers are estimates. The CIA World Factbook put Muslims at 53.5% of the population in 2018, and other estimates are a little higher, so Muslims are around half of all Nigerians. Islam is concentrated in the northern half of the country, where it is the majority religion, and the south-western states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Osun also have Muslim majorities, while the east and south have large Muslim minorities.

Islam reached what is now Nigeria early. It arrived from North Africa and the Senegal basin in the 11th century, and Mai Ume Jilmi of Kanem is reported to have converted in that century. In 1803 the scholar Usman dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate, which governed much of the north until the British dissolved it after the Battle of Burmi on 29 July 1903. The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa'adu Abubakar, the 20th in the line, is considered the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims. In 2008 twelve northern states had fully implemented Sharia law alongside the federal civil system, according to the US State Department.

Most Nigerian Muslims are Sunni of the Maliki school, with strong Sufi brotherhoods such as the Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya and the reformist Izala movement alongside them. Shia Muslims are a significant minority, about 5% of Muslims according to a 2008 Pew survey, mainly in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Osun, Kwara, Yobe and Sokoto states, and the Ahmadiyya movement also has a sizable presence. The National Mosque in Abuja is the country's national mosque.

For prayer times, Nigeria lies between about 4 and 14 degrees north, so the length of the day hardly changes through the year and Fajr, Maghrib and Isha move by only a few minutes between seasons. The whole country keeps West Africa Time, UTC+1, and has no daylight saving, so a prayer time in Maiduguri in the east comes earlier by the clock than in Lagos in the west. The start of Ramadan and Eid is generally announced by the Sultan of Sokoto after reports from moon-sighting committees across the country, but some groups announce on their own. This site uses the Muslim World League angles and the Standard Asr time for Nigeria, and the congregation times of each mosque are set locally.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Nigeria; Wikipedia: Sokoto Caliphate.