Islamic Date Today in Pakistan

The box at the top shows today's Islamic date in Pakistan, worked out on your own device for today, so it is never a day old. It follows the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, whose announcement on the evening of the 29th decides when each month starts here. Every month from Muharram 1445 onwards uses the date the committee announced.

The Islamic day begins at Maghrib, not at midnight. Choose your city and the page shows the Maghrib time and the date that starts with it, so after sunset you can see the date for tonight as well as today's. Switch to the converter to change any English date to the Islamic date in Pakistan, or an Islamic date to the English one.

How the Islamic date is set in Pakistan

Pakistan follows one national Hijri date, set by the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. The Ministry of Religious Affairs organises its meetings, and zonal committees meet at the same time in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and other cities.

1. The 29th evening. On the 29th of every Islamic month, the committees look for the new crescent after sunset and collect reports from people across the country. Staff of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, SUPARCO and the Ministry of Science attend with the moon's position for each place.
2. Sighted. If the committee accepts that the crescent was seen in Pakistan, the new month begins the next day, and the month just ending had 29 days.
3. Not sighted. If not, the month completes 30 days and the new month begins the day after. A month never has more than 30 days, so this day is certain.

The chairman announces the decision at a press conference the same evening, usually some time after Maghrib. That is why the page marks the months it has from an announcement as confirmed, and the months after them as expected until the 29th evening comes.

Why Pakistan is often a day behind Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia runs its civil calendar on Umm al-Qura, a calendar worked out in advance. Under its rule a month begins when, on the 29th, the new moon has formed before sunset at Makkah and the moon sets after the sun there. The crescent itself does not have to be seen. Pakistan waits for an actual sighting inside Pakistan.

Two things push Pakistan later. A crescent that has only just formed is too thin and low to see, and the sun sets in Pakistan about two hours before it sets in Makkah, so on any evening the moon here is younger and lower. Of the 28 months from Muharram 1446 to Rabi us Sani 1448, Pakistan began 19 months one day after Saudi Arabia, 6 months two days after, and only 3 on the same day.

For Ramazan, Eid ul Fitr and Hajj, Saudi Arabia also confirms the crescent by sighting, and its announced dates have matched Umm al-Qura in recent years. Hajj and the day of Arafah follow the Saudi date.

Month starts announced in Pakistan since 1446

Each row is the committee's announcement, with what it said about the crescent on the 29th evening before. The Saudi column gives day 1 on the Umm al-Qura calendar. The last column shows whether our moon model, started from the month before, gives the same day.

Run from each month's announced start, the model gives the announced day for 38 of the 39 months from Rabi ul Awal 1445 to Jamadi ul Awal 1448. It differs for Rabi ul Awal 1445 (the model gave 17 September 2023, a day early).

Islamic calendar 1448 AH in Pakistan

Hijri year 1448 began in Pakistan on Wednesday 17 June 2026, a day after Saudi Arabia. Months marked confirmed come from the committee's announcements; later months are the dates our model expects, and a month marked "or a day later" or "or a day earlier" is a close call on its 29th evening.

To look at another year, use the converter at the top: choose "Islamic to English" and type day 1 of any month from 1400 to 1500 AH.

Islamic dates in Pakistan: Ramazan, Eid, Muharram and 12 Rabi ul Awal

Shab-e-Miraj, Shab-e-Barat and Shab-e-Qadr are nights, so they are kept from Maghrib on the evening before the Hijri date. The table gives that evening's date.

Ramazan 1448 is expected to begin in Pakistan on 9 February 2027, with Eid ul Fitr expected on 10 March 2027 and Eid ul Adha on 17 May 2027. The Cabinet Division announces the public holidays after each sighting.

When the Islamic date changes: Maghrib

An Islamic date runs from one sunset to the next. The evening belongs to the next day, so the night before a date is part of that date.

Worked example

Saturday 10 October 2026 was 27 Rabi us Sani 1448 in Pakistan during the day. Lahore's sunset that evening was at 5:37 pm, and from then on the date was 28 Rabi us Sani 1448. In Karachi the change came at 6:11 pm, because the sun sets later in the south west.

The same rule explains the nights. Shab-e-Barat is the night of 15 Shaban, so it is kept from Maghrib on 14 Shaban. In Ramazan, the first taraweeh is prayed on the evening the crescent is announced, and the first fast is the next day.

Maghrib on this page is the standard sunset: the moment the top of the sun goes below a flat, sea-level horizon, allowing for the bending of light by the air. Masjid timetables may show Maghrib a minute or two later, and hills on the horizon can make the sun disappear earlier.

How the expected dates are worked out

For months the committee has not yet announced, the page works out the 29th evening from the month's start, and computes the new moon for that evening from the positions of the sun and moon (the methods in Jean Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms). It then finds the sunset and moonset at Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta and Peshawar, and scores the crescent at each city with the Yallop visibility test used by the UK's Nautical Almanac Office.

In the committee's decisions since 1445, a sighting has been announced when the crescent was well placed over the whole country, including the north, and not when it was well placed only in the south west. So the page counts the crescent as seen when its Yallop score clears a set level at every one of the five cities. That level was chosen to match the committee's own decisions, which are all listed in the table above with the model's result.

The model can still be a day out on a close call, and a wrong guess corrects itself within a month or two, because each later month is worked out from the moon again. Close calls are marked on the page. Always go by the committee's announcement on the 29th evening.

Islamic date questions