Help and support

Open Settings with the button at the top right of Today, then Prayer times › Calculation method. Or, on the Prayer tab, tap the method line under the list of times, then tap the method shown under Calculation method.

Choose Automatic (by region), or pick a method from the list, such as ISNA, Muslim World League, Umm al-Qura or Moonsighting Committee. As the app says: “Automatic follows the country you are in. A method you choose stays the same wherever you are.”

Automatic picks a method from the country of your current place, using a table built into the app. For example, the US and Canada use ISNA 15°/15°, the UK uses Moonsighting Committee and Saudi Arabia uses Umm al-Qura. Countries not in the table use Muslim World League. If your prayer tradition is set to Ja'fari, Automatic uses the Jafari method everywhere except Iran, which uses Tehran.

The country is worked out on your phone from the nearest place in the app’s built-in list, checked against your iPhone’s time zone. If Automatic switches to a different method in a new country, a notice tells you and offers a button to keep your previous one.

Go to Settings › Prayer times › Asr and choose Standard or Hanafi; each shows today’s time. Your choice never changes automatically, even when you travel. With Show both Asr times on, which is the default, the Prayer tab also shows the other Asr time.

Prayer times in Alhams are calculations, and your masjid may use a different method or its own timetable. As the app says: “Times are calculated on your phone; your masjid’s board may differ by a few minutes.” When they differ, check with your masjid.

To match its timetable, open Settings › Prayer times › Adjustments and move any prayer by up to 60 minutes either way. Adjustments apply while you use the same method, within 50 km of where you saved them.

To add iqamah and Jumu'ah times, open Masjid times from Settings › Prayer times or from the button at the top of the Prayer tab. For each prayer, choose None, a time, or a time after the adhan, and add up to three khutbah times. They show within 50 km of where you saved them. Masjids set their own iqamah times; Alhams never scrapes them.

On the Prayer tab, tap the bell (Adhan and reminders) and scroll to Sound. You can also get there from Settings › Reminders › Adhan and reminders. Choose:

• Adhan: a short adhan with each reminder, about 16 seconds long.
• Tone: a soft chime.
• Silent: a banner without sound.

Early reminders and Ramadan reminders use the tone, or no sound when Silent is chosen. A snoozed reminder always plays the tone.

iOS plays its own default sound instead of any notification sound that is 30 seconds or longer, so reminders use the first 16 seconds of the adhan.

To hear the full adhan, about two and a half minutes, open an adhan reminder between a minute before and 30 minutes after the prayer time. Alhams opens the Prayer tab and plays it, with a Stop button. It plays even when your ringer is on silent, and stops when you leave the app. You can also play it at any time from Adhan and reminders › Sound › Play adhan.

1. Make sure notifications are allowed. If they are not, Settings › Reminders shows Allow notifications, which can open the iPhone Settings app for Alhams.
2. Check that Prayer reminders is on, and that the prayers you want are on under Remind me at in Adhan and reminders.
3. Read the status line under Settings › Reminders. It shows how far ahead reminders are scheduled, or what is missing, such as a place.
4. Open Alhams at least once a week. iOS lets an app keep only a limited number of reminders waiting, so Alhams plans about 11 days ahead (fewer with early reminders) and plans again each time you open it.
5. If you use a Focus, such as Sleep or Do Not Disturb, add Alhams to the apps it allows, or the Focus will hold reminders back.
6. Your ringer and silent settings also affect reminder sounds.

• If the compass seems off, tap Calibrate and follow the card: “Move your iPhone in a figure 8, away from metal, magnets and magnetic cases.” The card also appears by itself when accuracy is low.
• The compass accuracy shows as Good, Fair or Low. When it is too low to use, the needle stops and the screen says Compass needs calibration until the compass recovers.
• The live compass needs location access: tap Use the live compass. Without it, the direction for your chosen place still shows on a dial with north at the top.
• On an iPhone Duo, open it flat. In landscape, turn your iPhone upright.
• Very close to Makkah, an approximate location can throw the direction off, so the app asks you to turn on Precise Location for Alhams. Within 1 km of the Kaaba, the dial is replaced by a note saying so.
• To also see the rhumb-line direction, turn on Settings › Qibla › Rhumb-line direction.

When you use your current location, Alhams checks where you are each time you open it or return to it. If you have moved more than 25 km or changed time zone, it updates the place, the automatic method, your reminders and your widgets, and shows Updated for your new place.

Until you open the app, reminders and widgets keep the previous city’s times. If your iPhone changes time zone while Alhams is closed, it may pause reminders and send one notification asking you to open the app.

A city you chose, or a saved place, never moves with you. If your iPhone is in another time zone, the app shows a note suggesting Current location.

Alhams names your location after the nearest place in its built-in list, without looking anything up online. If that place is more than 25 km away, the name starts with “Near”.

Alhams calculates Hijri dates on your phone, and your masjid may follow a sighting or an announcement. As the app says: “Calculated dates; your masjid may differ by a day.”

Go to Settings › Calendar, or tap the Dates follow note on the Calendar tab. Choose what your dates follow: a calculation (FCNA in the US and Canada, Umm al-Qura elsewhere), the Saudi announcement, the IMAM-US (Shia council) announcement in the US and Canada, or a local sighting at your masjid. Then use Day offset to move dates by up to two days either way.

Alhams never looks anything up online, so it cannot fetch new announcements. Apart from the Ramadan and Shawwal dates built in for 1446 and 1447, every month follows the calculation plus your offset.

Alhams has one widget, Prayer times, in small, medium and large sizes for the Home Screen and three styles for the Lock Screen. Add it the usual iOS way:

• Home Screen: touch and hold an empty area, tap Edit, then Add Widget, search for Alhams and choose a size.
• Lock Screen: touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize, choose the Lock Screen, tap the widget area and choose Alhams.

Widgets are filled when Alhams opens, so open the app once after adding one. Settings › Reminders › Widgets shows how far ahead they are filled.

Yes. Choose a city instead: search by city name, or by ZIP code in the US. The list is built into the app and works offline, and prayer times, reminders, widgets and the Qibla direction all work from the city you choose. The live compass needs location access; without it, the Qibla shows on a dial with north at the top.

If you said no to location earlier and change your mind, the app’s location buttons open the iPhone Settings app, where you can turn it on for Alhams.

Yes. Your record is stored only on your iPhone. There is no account and no payment field: it records gifts made elsewhere. Alhams never checks or looks up an EIN. Tap the eye button on Give to hide every amount.

The only link on Give opens the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search in Safari, on iPhones set to the US region.

Deleting the app deletes the data. You can also delete things one at a time: a giving entry (Edit entry, then Delete entry), a saved place (Settings › Location › Manage saved places), your adjustments (Reset all adjustments) and your masjid times (open Masjid times, set each prayer to None, remove any khutbah times, then tap Save). Each time you mark or unmark a prayer, marks older than 14 days are removed.