As a devout Muslim, Junaid never misses the five daily prayers, no matter where he is. The owner of a car rental business in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, he occasionally needs to drive passengers out of the city for days on end. It is not uncommon for him to drive for 12 hours straight per day, stopping only to eat or to pray at mosques.
But on trips that take him to remote areas in Sulawesi, Junaid finds it challenging to determine not only the time for prayers but also the qibla — the direction of the Kaaba, the sacred building in Mecca, to which Muslims turn to pray.
“It’s like you’ll never know what’s ahead,” he told Rest of World. “I always try to conduct prayer immediately whenever I hear the call. So it’s challenging when I’m traveling.”
Some time ago, Junaid found an app — Miqat — that helps him find the qibla easily. Created by Dubai-based technologist Samer Joudi, the app harnesses a phone’s magnetic field sensor to ensure accuracy and uses augmented reality to overlay the qibla’s direction against the user’s surroundings.
One of the most popular qibla apps in Indonesia, with more than 5 million downloads on Google Play, Miqat has its roots in Joudi’s keen interest in astronomy. As a university student majoring in urban planning in the 1980s, he taught himself astronomy on the side, solving formulas to calculate the distance between two celestial objects, which would become the basis of his app.
Joudi developed Miqat over a period of two years, while working a full-time government job at the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai, and launched it in early 2015. He told Rest of World he used his own savings to create the app and considers it a nonprofit venture.
“I am the programmer, I am the astronomer, I am the geographic information systems specialist, and I am the tester,” Joudi said. “And I have to pay for the translation services, too, because I wanted this app to be used in other parts of the globe. Miqat is now available in 12 languages, and more will come.”
Joudi said Miqat does not save or sell user data. It also offers features that competitors do not, he said, such as a highly precise qibla and eclipse prayers. Users can also use the app to calculate the first visibility of the crescent moon to determine the dates for Eid and the new year in the Islamic calendar.
Joudi plans to continue working on Miqat and has ideas for more features in the pipeline.
“If you have the ability, the power, or the resources to do something for the benefit of others, it is a very good thing,” he said. “I receive a lot of emails — people are thanking me, sending me prayers. So I want to continue to do this.”