


   (Praytime Version 1.0)					 PRAYTIME(1L)



   NAME
     praytime -	produce	Islamic	prayer time schedule

   SYNOPSIS
     praytime [-i] [-f fiqh] [-r ratio]	[-a angle] [-t time] [ [month] year ]

   DESCRIPTION
     praytime generates	Islamic	prayer time schedules and computes the direc-
     tion of the Qiblah	for any	location.  If no argument is given, the
     prayer time schedule for the current date at the current (configured)
     location is produced.  If a year is specified, the	program	outputs	a
     schedule for the entire year.  The	year can be between 1900 and 2200, or
     0 for a "perpetual" schedule.  If a month is also specified, a schedule
     just for that month is printed.  The month	is a number between 1 and 12.
     Times in a	"perpetual" schedules are essentially the average for the
     four years	of a leap cycle.  (The yearly variation	in prayer times	is
     seldom more than two minutes, and the times return	back to	almost the
     same value	every four years.)

     praytime allows for Fiqhi variations in computing methods.	 The follow-
     ing command line options affect the method	of computation.

     -f	fiqh  Fiqh should be S(Hafi'i) or H(anafi).  Sets the shadow ratio
	      for determining 'Asr to 1	or 2, respectively.  Default value is
	      SHafi'i.

     -r	ratio Specifies	the value of the 'Asr shadow ratio explicitly.
	      Default value is 1.

     -a	angle Specifies	Sun's angle of depression at Fajr in degrees.  Common
	      values are 18 (for Fajr to be the	same as	the astronomical
	      twilight)	or 15 (a bit later).  Default value is 18, which many
	      hold to be the correct value and which is	also the value
	      adopted by most Islamic countries	today.	In North America, the
	      practice has been	to use a depression angle of 15.  However, in
	      general, extreme care should be employed in this regard and
	      very reliable observational date should be required to accept
	      any value	which is less than 18 degrees, since the morning
	      twilight also marks the beginning	of the fasting period in
	      RamaDHaan	and as such using smaller values may even nullify the
	      Fast.

     -t	time  Specifies	the time interval from Fajr to sunrise in minutes.  A
	      common value used	is 90 minutes.	This method is sometimes used
	      in high-latitude locations where times for the usual values of
	      Sun's depression are either undefined or are impractical.

     Note: 'Isha is computed symmetrically with	respect	to Fajr, with which-
     ever method is chosen and whatever	parameter value	is specified. It is
     an	error to specify both -a and -t	or both	-f and -r at the same time.

     To	generate schedules for locations other than the	default	(configured)
     location, the following command line option should	be indicated.


									    1






   PRAYTIME(1L)					       (Praytime Version 1.0)


     -i	      reads name and geographical data for the location	from the
	      standard input, instead of using the default (configured)	loca-
	      tion.  If	standard input is a terminal, praytime prompts the
	      user for the values.

   INPUT DATA
     Data on standard input must contain (in given order):

	  Name of location (upto 40 characters)

	  Latitude degrees and minutes,	and N or S to specify north or south.

	  Longitude degrees and	minutes, and E or W to specify east or west.

	  Time Zone in hours (Decimal for fractional hour zones, negative if
	  West of Greenwich).

	  Y or 1 if Daylight Saving Time adjustment needed.  N or 0, other-
	  wise.

     Data items	should be separated by whitespace, but the name	must be	on a
     separate line by itself because it	may contain spaces or punctuation.
     Input may contain data for	more than one location;	the tables will	be
     concatenated on the output.

   EXAMPLES
     The following example produces a prayer time schedule for November	1992.

	  praytime 11 1992

     The following command sequence on a Unix system produces a	perpetual
     prayer schedule for Washington, DC, using the Sun's depression angle of
     15	degrees	to define Fajr and a shadow ratio of 2 to define 'Asr.	The
     schedule includes adjustment for Daylight Saving Time.

	  cat >	dc.dta
	  Washington, DC
	  38 54	N 77 2 W -5 Y
	  ^D
	  praytime -i -a15 -r 2	0 < dc.dta


   AUTHORS
     Original program, called `praytimer', produced time schedules in TeX and
     was derived by Kamal Abdali from his Minaret program for the Macintosh.
     Waleed Muhanna (wmuhanna@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) modified the program
     to	remove all TeX related code, to	improve	input checking,	to allow a
     default location to be easily configured in, and to permit	the user to
     print a schedule for the current date or a	specified month	and year.







   2



