Why are the timings given by your Prayer Times service (Mobile/PC and Online) different from my local mosque? |
Assalamu Alaikum,
If the difference you find in prayer times is more than 30 minutes or
so, please ensure that you have tried changing the Prayer calculation
method/Daylight Savings settings and/or the longitude/latitude data
used by us for your city. Normally it is the Prayer Calculation method
that differs between two sources and can cause some difference in Fajr
and Isha timings.
However if the difference is less than a few minutes between our
generated timings and the ones you have with you, then please read on.
First of all we should mention that normally the difference found
between various sources is only that of a few minutes and not more. One
or two minutes here and there is not a big difference at all. The fact
of the matter is that
there is no timing or calculation method that one can say is absolutely 100% correct!
The reason for this is that there is so much detail involved in
calculating prayer timings that even the most powerful computer will
have an error rate of a couple of minutes.
There are in fact a number of scientific papers out there that talk
about prayer time calculation and mention how difficult it is to
calculate using computers as
manual observation is necessary in deciding whether it's time for prayer.
Moreover, these papers suggest that adding 'safety minutes' to
calculated time is in fact safer and better because then one can be
sure that they're not praying before the time of actual prayer (such as
before zawwal) and therefor doing a grave sin. For this reason our
algorithm adds a minute to make sure this does not happen.
Furthermore, some websites have been providing prayer times for several years and thus have gained
trust
with its users that their data is in fact most accurate. Due to this, a
lot of mosques and cities and countries actually have adopted their
timings and think that these are 100% correct. The fact of the matter
is that their timing too are as prone to error as any other
calculation. In fact, for certain countries and cities with a higher
altitude, these timings can at times be completely wrong. A point to
note is that the standard timings followed by Mecca are different from
that which these websites provide (and similarly will be different from
what we provide). This however does not mean that Mecca is doing the
wrong thing or that we are wrong - these timings are only there to help
us determine what the correct time of prayer is, neither too early, nor
too late. So our advice to you is to not worry about a few minutes here
and there as every single algorithm will vary slightly.
Rest assured that the algorithm we use is authentic and provided by the
only authority in Saudi Arabia (a derivation of this algorithm is used
by many organizations, slightly modified to suite their needs).
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