A Muslim’s guide to going to bed on time

Please note: These calculations are based on the East London Mosque prayer times — so may not work for you but the principles in this posts still apply

If you’re Muslim, you probably sleep at different times throughout the year because prayer times change daily, etc.

Recently I’ve been meaning to change my sleeping habits to wake up earlier and start my day before everyone else. I’ve also found that I’m most productive in the mornings, so I could potentially get my whole day's work done by the time someone decides even to wake up. I have been a “night owl” most of my life; however, as I get older, I cannot stay up as late as I used to.

My process of working out when to go to bed

For my situation, I had the following requirements (these may be different for you):

• I need about 6 hours of sleep
• I need to be able to pray my Isha and Fajr (before sunrise) salaah

The first thing I did was look at the data. I got a CSV of all the Isha prayer times and sunrise (when Fajr prayer ends) throughout the year and plotted it on a graph.

Graph showing Isha begins and Sunset times throughout the year

After plotting the points, I found that the latest time Isha began was 10.45 pm, and the earliest sunrise time was 4.40 am.

Given 15 minutes to pray each salaah, I worked out that the best time to go to sleep would be 11 pm and wake up around 4 am. This meant I would only get 5 hours of sleep (which probably isn’t good for me).

Graph highlighting British summer times changing the time of prayer

I then noticed an hour jump at two points of the year, and I realised those were the two times we moved from standard UTC/GMT to BST and vice versa!

I worked out that if I get into the habit of sleeping at 10 pm GMT every day and waking up at 4 am GMT every day, I can get a full 6-hour sleep.

This would mean my day would start at 4 am GMT, and I would be 4–5 hours ahead of everyone else.

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This works perfectly in the winter.

This is where British Summertime messes everything up!

In the summer, Isha prayer’s latest start time is 10.45 pm BST.

Initially, I thought my 10 pm plan was a failure, but then I realised that my body would be used to sleeping at 10 pm, and the extra 1 hour would mean I would get tired at 11 pm.

Perfect! right? Not quite.

It also meant Sunrise is now 1 hour earlier, with 4.40 am BST being the earliest (instead of 5.40 am GMT) — which means you only get 5 hours of sleep instead of 6.

So my body would be programmed to wake up at 5 am BST, but I would need to wake up at 4 am BST to ensure I pray Fajr.

Back to the drawing board? Maybe not.

So my body needs 6 hours of sleep, but it doesn’t mean I can’t do the other hour after I pray. So I decided, in the summer, I would go back to sleep after fajr for an hour, then start my day.

I feel like I rambled; if you’ve skipped to the end — this is the TLDR;

My conclusion

When it is GMT:

• Go to sleep at 10 pm GMT
• Wake up and start your day at 4 am GMT

When it is BST (British Summertime):

• Go to sleep at 11 pm BST
• Wake up at 4 am BST
• Pray Fajr and go back to sleep for an hour
• Start your day at 5.30 am BST