My Process for the Liverpool Ramadan Timetable
So yeah, figuring out prayer times for Ramadan here in Liverpool, especially with fasting start and end, always gets messy. Every year I end up scrambling, this time I thought, right, gonna sort this properly myself, write it down.
First thing I did was grab a massive mug of tea, like proper strong, and sat down with my laptop. I mean, I thought it’d be simple, right? Just hit up Google for “Liverpool Ramadan prayer times 2024”. Boom. Easy.
Except, it wasn’t. Like, not even close.
What popped up was all over the place. Different websites saying different times. One place had Suhoor like 20 minutes later than another. Which mosque? Whose calculation? And Fajr… man, that’s when the fast starts, gotta get that right.
- The Big Mosque downtown had times listed on their site, but it was buried in a PDF from last year! Confusing.
- Council website? Nada. Zilch. Forgot Ramadan even existed apparently.
- Some apps looked fancy, but then you see they use generic UK times, not Liverpool specific. Latitude matters!
- Heard from a mate about Al-Rahma mosque times being different from Al-Razaq. Seriously?
Okay, deep breaths. This was taking longer than I thought. Scrapped the Google plan.
Pulled out my phone and started actually calling people. Pinged a couple of WhatsApp groups I’m in. Asked the guys at the community centre near mine when they met last Tuesday.
Turns out, local mosques do coordinate! Mostly. They get these astronomical charts from an Islamic council based on Liverpool’s exact position. Who knew? Learnt something new.
So, I focused. Went straight to the official Liverpool Central Mosque website – their timetable was finally up, dated for 2024. Jackpot! But I double-checked with the Al-Rahma site. Yeah, slight differences for Maghrib like 2 or 3 minutes apart. Close enough for fasting, I reckon, personally.
Then came the actual writing it down bit. I opened a blank spreadsheet.
Made columns: Date, Day, Fajr (Suhoor ends), Sunrise, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib (Iftar starts), Isha.
Started punching in the dates. Manually.
First real snag: Those dates shifting slightly every day as sunrise/sunset changes. Had to increment the times slowly. Took ages! Was triple-checking against both mosque timetables I found reliable. Copy-paste errors are sneaky buggers.
Another strong brew needed around the 15-day mark, ngl. My eyes were crossing.
Big thing I almost forgot: That twilight period between Fajr and Sunrise? Important for some folks finishing Suhoor. Added a note about it.
Finally got the whole thing populated, from March 11th to April 9th-ish (pending moon sighting, obviously noted that!). Formatted it so it was actually readable. Bold headers, shaded rows for weekends. Simple.
Printed it out. Stuck it on my fridge. Sent the digital version to family WhatsApp.
Then, crucially, I actually used it for the first few days. Made a mark on the sheet when I started and broke my fast. Just to see if the times felt right in practice. They did. Felt proper organised finally.
Honestly, such a relief to have it done. Thought it was a quick Google job, turned into hours of calls, website trawling, typing, checking. Worth it though. No more guessing games or frantic searches when you’re half-asleep before Suhoor!