Building with AI Before Breakfast: A Ramadan Tracker to support your friends

Some of the people I care about most in this world follow Ramadan. And every year, around this time, I find myself doing the same thing - pulling out my phone, Googling “when does Ramadan start 2026”, then trying to figure out iftar times so I know when my friends can actually eat again, or when it’s okay to suggest grabbing dinner or a very very early breakfast.

It sounds small. It’s not.

When “Google It” Isn’t Enough

Here’s what happens when you search for Ramadan prayer times. You get a wall of results - apps built for practicing Muslims, pages dense with Islamic terminology, ad-heavy sites that want your location data to serve you carpet ads alongside Fajr times. Nothing wrong with any of that. But if you’re someone on the outside looking in - someone who just wants to understand the rhythm of the month so you can be a better friend, colleague, or neighbor - the experience is surprisingly hostile.

I wanted something different. Something I could glance at on my phone and immediately understand: when does the fast start today, when does it end, and how long is it?

So I built it.

ramadan.leemallon.com

What It Actually Does

The tracker is a single-page web app that detects your location, calculates prayer times using standard astronomical equations, and gives you everything laid out cleanly:

• Live countdown - to iftar during Ramadan, or to the start of Ramadan before it begins

• Today’s six prayer times - Fajr, Sunrise, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha - with the current one highlighted

• Suhoor and Iftar cards - when to stop eating, when to break fast, front and centre

• A fasting progress bar - so you can see at a glance how far through the day’s fast someone is

• A full 30-day schedule - every day of Ramadan with all prayer times and fasting durations

• A chart showing how fasting hours shift across the month as sunrise and sunset times change

It auto-detects your timezone and city. It lets you switch between six different calculation methods (Umm Al-Qura, Muslim World League, ISNA, and more) because - and this is something I learned building it - prayer times aren’t universal. They vary by method, by school of thought, by geography.

The same city can have slightly different iftar times depending on which authority you follow.

Try it: ramadan.leemallon.com

It works anywhere in the world. It’ll detect your location and show you local times. And if you’re observing Ramadan this year - Ramadan Mubarak.

If you’re not - maybe bookmark it anyway. It’s a small thing, knowing when your friends can eat. But small things are how you show up.

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