Islamic Compass privacy policy
Last updated: 10 November 2026
Islamic Compass is a free Islamic companion app for iPhone and Android: prayer times, the Qibla, the Quran with recitations, the adhkar of Hisn al-Muslim and live Quran radio. It is made by Zakaria Harrane ("we"). This policy explains what the app does with your data. The short version: no account, no ads, no tracking, no selling of data, and your location is never sent to our servers. If the weather is on, the app asks a weather service for your area, rounded to about 10 km (see section 3).
1. What stays on your device
These are stored only on your phone and are never sent to us:
- Your location or chosen city. Prayer times and the Qibla direction are calculated on the device. If you allow location access, the app reads your position while you use it (never in the background) and keeps the coordinates and the city name on the device. You can instead pick a city by hand from a built-in offline list, and the app works the same.
- Your settings (calculation method, alerts, language, theme), bookmarks, reading progress, khatma plan, tasbih counts, favourite radio stations and downloaded recitations.
- Prayer alerts. They are local notifications scheduled by the phone itself.
City name lookup. To show the name of the place where you are (for example "Algiers"), the app asks the phone's built-in geocoding service: Apple on iPhone, Google on Android. This request contains your coordinates and is handled by Apple or Google under their own privacy policies. We never receive it. If you search for a place that is not in the offline list, the search text goes to the same service.
Weather. The Today screen can show the current weather. To get it, the app sends your place rounded to 0.1° (about 10 km), and whether you use Celsius or Fahrenheit, directly to Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com), at most every 30 minutes while the app is open. Weather is on by default; turn it off in More › Weather on Today and nothing is sent. We never receive this request.
2. What we receive, and why
The app talks to one server we run, api.islamic-compass.com, hosted on Cloudflare.
Install record.
- What: a random install ID and a secret that proves later requests come from the same install (we store only a hash of the secret), with the platform (iOS or Android), app language, time zone, app version and your notification switches.
- When: each time the app syncs, at launch and from time to time. The push token (below) is sent only while Push notifications or Background refresh is on; Background refresh is on by default and can be turned off in More › Background refresh.
- Why: to send news in your language and time zone and to remember which notifications you want. It is not linked to your name, your email, your Apple ID or Google account, or any advertising ID.
- Kept: until you ask us to delete it.
Push token.
- What: the push token from Apple or Google (via Expo).
- When: only while Push notifications or Background refresh is on.
- Why: to send announcements, the verse of the day at 8:00 and the Friday reminder at 10:00 in your own time zone, and silent refresh signals.
- Kept: removed at the next sync after you turn both off, or when Apple or Google report that it is no longer valid.
Contact us reports.
- What: your message, the topic you chose, what it is about (for example a verse number), language, platform and app version. Your email address only if you type it.
- When: only when you send a report from Contact us.
- Why: to read and fix the issue, and to reply if you left an email.
- Kept: as long as needed to handle the report. Ask us and we delete it.
We do not collect your name, contacts, photos, precise or coarse location, browsing history, advertising ID or any health or financial data.
3. Services that receive technical data
When you use these features, your device connects directly to these services, which see your IP address like any website does:
- Recitations: audio streams and downloads come from EveryAyah.com.
- Live radio: streams come from mp3quran.net.
- Weather: Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) receives your rounded area as described in section 1, and your IP address.
- Adhan downloads: if you download an adhan from the list in More › Adhans, the list comes from our website and the file from Wikimedia Commons (upload.wikimedia.org). If you import an adhan from a link, your device downloads it from the address you entered.
- Map picker: if you choose your city on a map, the map is drawn by Apple Maps on iPhone and Google Maps on Android. They load map tiles for the area you look at, and Google's Maps SDK may collect usage and diagnostic data under Google's privacy policy. The point you pick stays on your device, apart from the city-name lookup described above.
- Push notifications: Expo (expo.dev) passes notifications to Apple Push Notification service or Firebase Cloud Messaging. Expo receives the push token and the notification text.
- App updates: Expo (EAS Update) delivers fixes to the app's content and code. The app sends its version and update channel.
- Hosting: Cloudflare runs our server and may keep standard request logs (IP address, time) for security, for a short time.
The web version
Islamic Compass also runs in a browser at islamic-compass.com/app. There:
- Location is asked through your browser's own permission prompt, only when you choose "Use current location". You can also pick a city without sharing it.
- Settings and progress (place, method, bookmarks, adhkar counts, theme) are saved in your browser's local storage on your device. Clearing the site's data in your browser deletes them.
- "Search online" for a place sends what you typed to OpenStreetMap Nominatim, only when you tap it. The built-in city list works without it.
- The map picker on the web loads map tiles from OpenStreetMap (tile.openstreetmap.org), which sees your IP address and the area you look at. The point you pick stays in your browser.
- Install record: like the phone app, the web version registers a random install ID with our server (with your language, time zone, app version and notification switches), stored in your browser's local storage. It has no push token.
- Weather works the same way as in the phone app: your area, rounded to about 10 km, goes directly from your browser to Open-Meteo, and you can turn it off in More › Weather on Today.
- The website sets no cookies and has no analytics or ads.
- Android downloads (the APK) are served from GitHub Releases, which sees your IP address like any website.
None of these services receive data from us for advertising, and we have no analytics or crash-reporting SDK in the app.
4. No tracking, no ads, no sale
Islamic Compass contains no advertising, no third-party analytics and no tracking SDKs. We do not track you across apps or websites, we do not build profiles, and we never sell or share your data with data brokers. On iPhone the app never asks for App Tracking Transparency permission because it does not track.
5. Your choices
- Location: you can deny location access and choose a city by hand. You can change this any time in the system settings.
- Notifications: prayer alerts, push notifications and each push topic can be switched off in More › Settings. Turning off both push notifications and background refresh deletes the push token from our server at the next sync.
- Background refresh: can be switched off in More › Settings.
- Weather: can be switched off in More › Weather on Today. Nothing is then sent to Open-Meteo.
- Deletion: uninstalling the app removes everything stored on the device. To delete the install record or a report you sent, write to us (section 8) and, if you can, include the text of your report. We delete it within 30 days.
6. Children
Islamic Compass is suitable for all ages and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. The Contact us form is optional. If a child sent us an email address, contact us and we will delete it.
7. Security and where data is stored
All connections use HTTPS. Our server and database run on Cloudflare (database region: Western Europe). Access to the database is limited to the developer.
8. Contact
Questions or deletion requests: zakariaharrane2@gmail.com, or More › Contact us in the app.
9. Changes
If this policy changes, we update the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app.
Sources and licences
Islamic Compass's content comes from free sources, credited in the app under More › About & Sources: the Quran text from the Noble Qur'an Encyclopedia (quranenc.com) and translations from Tanzil (tanzil.net) via quran-json (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hisn al-Muslim from hisnmuslim.com; recitations from EveryAyah.com; live radio from mp3quran.net; the city list from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); weather data from Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0); prayer times from the Adhan library (MIT).