Namaz Timing in Pakistan

Muslims and mosques in Pakistan

Pakistan is one of the world's largest Muslim countries. The 2023 census counted 231,686,709 Muslims, 96.35% of the population, and the 2017 census 200,362,718, or 96.47%. Estimates differ by source, but between 85% and 90% are Sunni and 10% to 15% Shia, and most Sunnis follow the Hanafi school. Within Sunni Islam the Deobandi, Barelvi and Ahl-e-Hadith schools of thought are the main groupings. Around 65% of the country's Islamic seminaries are Deobandi and about 25% Barelvi, and Deobandis are the majority among Sunnis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The constitution treats Ahmadis as non-Muslims, and Ahmadis together with a few other small groups make up less than 1% of the population.

Pakistan's first economic census in 2023 counted over 600,000 mosques and about 36,000 madrassas, so there is a mosque in nearly every village and neighbourhood. Many are small local mosques run by the community, next to the great historic ones in Lahore and the national mosque in Islamabad. The Data Darbar in Lahore, the shrine of the Sufi saint Ali Hujweiri, draws devotees from around the world, and the Council of Islamic Ideology, created by the 1973 Constitution, advises the state on whether laws agree with Islam.

The shared calendar is a matter of national announcement. The Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, whose members include representatives of the Ministry of Science, the Meteorological Department and SUPARCO, meets at the beginning of the month to hear sightings from across the country; on 18 February 2026 it met in Peshawar for Ramadan and its chairman, Maulana Abdul Khabeer Azad, said the whole country would start the holy month on the same day.

For prayer times, Pakistani mosques mostly use the University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi method, with Fajr and Isha at 18 degrees, and the Hanafi Asr, when the shadow is about twice the object's length, which comes later than the Standard Asr. Because nearly all mosques follow the Hanafi school, this site uses Hanafi Asr as the default for Pakistan. The country uses one time zone, Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+5), and currently does not use daylight saving, so prayer times shift gradually through the year from Karachi in the south to Gilgit in the north, which sees a larger seasonal change than the south. Shia communities follow separate times, and this site publishes them on the Jafaria pages.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Pakistan; Express Tribune: moon sighting coverage; ARY News: Ruet-e-Hilal Committee meets to sight the Ramazan moon.