Prayer Times in Spain

Muslims and mosques in Spain

Spain's Muslim population is mostly measured by the UCIDE, the Islamic community's own demographic study, because the state does not ask about religion. It counted 2,412,344 Muslims in 2023, and for 2019 it estimated 2,091,656, or 4.45% of the population, of whom 42% were Spanish citizens, 38% Moroccan and 20% of other nationalities. The largest groups by origin were Spanish-born (879,808) and Moroccan (812,412) Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Senegal, Algeria and Nigeria. In 2019 Catalonia had the most Muslims (564,055), then Andalusia (341,069), the Community of Madrid (299,311), the Valencian Community and Murcia. In the two Spanish cities on the African coast the shares are the highest in the country: 51.98% in Melilla and 43.43% in Ceuta.

Spain is the only large Western European country with a Muslim past of nearly eight centuries. Muslim forces landed at Gibraltar on 30 April 711, and Al-Andalus reached its height under the Umayyad Caliphate in the 10th century, with Córdoba as its capital. The last Muslim territory, the Emirate of Granada, fell in 1492. The Great Mosque of Córdoba was turned into a church after the Reconquista and still stands as the Mosque-Cathedral, and the Alhambra in Granada remains one of the best known Islamic palaces in Europe. The first mosque built in the modern period on the peninsula, the Al-Morabito Mosque in Córdoba, was opened under Franco.

Islam gained legal standing late. It was recognised as a religion of 'notorio arraigo', deeply rooted in Spain, in 1989, when the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (FEERI) was created, and in 1992 the state signed a Cooperation Agreement with the Islamic Commission of Spain. For 2019 the religious entities office registered 1,704 Muslim communities, 49 federations and 21 associations, and the Observatorio Andalusí counted 1,774 Islamic entities. Many of them are prayer rooms in converted shops and flats, while large mosques stand in cities such as Madrid, Granada and Marbella.

Spain has an unusual prayer day. The whole mainland keeps Central European Time, although it lies mostly west of the Greenwich meridian, so the sun rises and sets late by the clock. In summer Maghrib in Madrid falls after nine in the evening and Isha comes later still, while the Canary Islands keep their own time zone one hour behind the mainland. Communities do not all start Ramadan and Eid on the same day, because some mosques follow the announcement of their country of origin, such as Morocco, some follow Saudi Arabia and some use local sighting or calculation. Check your mosque for its congregation times, which this site does not publish.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Spain (UCIDE data); Wikipedia: Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba.