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Zawal Time

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Abdurrahman ibn Yusuf Mangera

How long is actual zawal time?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Assalamu alaykum

In the name of Allah the Inspirer of truth

In actual fact, the word “zawal” literally means the time when the sun moves away from its central meridian and not time it is at its meridian as commonly mistaken. Zawal is the time when Zuhr begins and not the forbidden time (see Radd al-Muhtar).

“Istiwa'” on the other hand is the time when the sun is at its highest peak at noon when it is impermissible to perform prayer. People mistakenly refer to this as the time of zawal.

Hence, the time for istiwa’ or the period in which the sun is at its zenith and prayer is forbidden is in reality a very momentary period and cannot be counted in minutes or pinpointed accurately by everyone. Hence, the jurists, out of caution, include a few minutes from either side of it to be the forbidden time for prayer. Therefore, prayer must be avoided for approximately 3-5 minutes before noon and 3-5 minutes after noon, noon being the half way point between sunrise and sunset.

And Allah knows best.

Wassalam

Abdurrahman ibn Yusuf

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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