Find the exact start and end time of tonight's last third of the night — the period many scholars consider the most beloved to Allah for Tahajjud, dua, and seeking forgiveness — for your exact location and date.
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Islamic scholars divide the night, the interval between Maghrib (sunset) and Fajr (true dawn), into three equal parts, measured by the actual length of that night rather than by clock hours. The final of these three parts, the last third of the night, holds a distinguished place in worship. A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, narrated by Abu Hurairah, describes Allah drawing near to the lowest heaven every night once the last third begins, responding to whoever calls upon Him, asks for forgiveness, or asks for provision. Many scholars, drawing on this and related hadiths, regard the last third as the most favored time for the optional night prayer known as Tahajjud, for personal supplication (dua), and for seeking forgiveness (Istighfar). Because sunset and dawn shift with the seasons and with your exact location, the clock time of the last third changes every single night, which is why this calculator divides tonight's actual Maghrib-to-Fajr interval into three equal parts instead of assuming a fixed hour such as three in the morning.
Ask most Muslims when the best time for night prayer is, and many will say around three in the morning without much more precision than that. In reality, the last third of the night is not a fixed clock time at all; it is a moving target that depends on exactly when the sun sets and rises at your specific location and on that specific date, which is precisely why a calculator like this one exists.
The reasoning behind dividing the night into thirds comes from how classical scholars described the Prophet Muhammad's own practice of optional night prayer, sometimes sleeping through part of the night and praying during another part, at times the middle third and at other times the last third specifically. The hadith recorded by Abu Hurairah in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim gives the clearest reason the last third stands out among the three: it describes Allah drawing near to the lowest heaven in that final portion of every single night, asking who will call upon Him so that He may answer, who will ask forgiveness so that He may forgive, and who will ask for something so that He may give it.
Because the interval from Maghrib to Fajr changes length with the seasons, a long summer night in a temperate climate looks nothing like a short winter night, and both look different again near the equator, dividing that interval into three mathematically equal parts is the only way to locate the last third accurately for any date and any place on Earth. A calculator that simply subtracted three hours from a fixed Fajr time, or assumed the last third always starts at one in the morning, would be wrong for most of the year in most locations.
This tool solves that by working directly from tonight's actual Maghrib time and tomorrow's actual Fajr time, whether you fetch them automatically from your coordinates or type them in yourself from a printed prayer timetable. It then does the simple but easily miscalculated arithmetic for you: finding the full length of the night, dividing it by three, and marking exactly where the final third begins and ends.
Knowing the precise start time matters in practice, not just in theory. Waking five minutes after the last third has already begun still gives you the rest of that window, but waking an hour early simply means resting a little longer before the real start time arrives, while waking after Fajr has already begun means the window has closed entirely for that night. Whether the goal is Tahajjud, a few quiet minutes of dua, or simply sitting in reflection before the day begins, having the actual boundary in front of you, recalculated for tonight specifically, removes the guesswork that a generic three-a.m. rule of thumb can never quite get right.
The last third of the night is the final one-third portion of the period between Maghrib (sunset) and Fajr (dawn), found by dividing that whole interval into three equal parts. It begins after the first two-thirds of the night have passed and ends exactly at Fajr.
A hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim describes Allah drawing near to the lowest heaven every night during this time, responding to those who pray, ask forgiveness, or ask for provision. Many scholars consider it the most favored time for Tahajjud and dua.
This calculator takes tonight's Maghrib time and tomorrow morning's Fajr time, measures the full length of the night between them, and divides that length into three equal parts. The last third begins two-thirds of the way through the night and ends at Fajr.
Yes. Because sunset and dawn shift with the seasons, the length of the night itself grows and shrinks throughout the year, so the clock time when the last third begins moves earlier or later from one season to the next.
Yes. You can type tonight's Maghrib time and tomorrow's Fajr time directly into the two time fields and press Calculate, entirely offline. The automatic lookup by location is an optional convenience that requires an internet connection.