When you search for a mosque on a map app in Japan, you may not find one nearby.
Besides mosques, there are prayer rooms in stations, shopping complexes, hotels and other places, which you can use while getting around or sightseeing.
This article shows how to find the mosques and prayer spaces listed on Halal Gourmet Japan, either near where you are right now or by prefecture.
Mosques and prayer spaces
Halal Gourmet Japan lists mosques and prayer spaces separately.
A mosque is a place built for prayer. If you want to join the Friday congregational prayer (Jumu’ah), look for a mosque first. Whether a mosque holds Jumu’ah, and when it starts, varies from place to place, so please check the listing or the mosque’s own notices.
A prayer space is a room set aside in a station, airport, shopping complex, hotel or visitor attraction. The rules differ from place to place. At some you ask at a reception desk before going in, and some are only for people using that facility.
Find places near you
On the Prayer Spaces & Mosques page, choose “Near current location” in the location field and search. Results are listed with the closest first. If your browser asks for your location, allow it.
You can also see the results on a map.
Find places by prefecture
If you already know where you are going, the prefecture lists are handy. These are the prefectures with mosques listed. Tokyo, Ibaraki, Saitama and Aichi have the most.
- Hokkaido and Tohoku: Hokkaido, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima
- Kanto: Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa
- Chubu: Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi
- Kinki: Mie, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara
- Chugoku and Shikoku: Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, Tokushima, Ehime
- Kyushu and Okinawa: Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Oita, Kagoshima, Okinawa
The prayer space list for each prefecture is under “Search Prayer Spaces by Area” near the bottom of the Prayer Spaces & Mosques page.
For Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, we also have articles that group prayer spaces by area.
- Prayer Spaces and Muslim-Friendly Restaurants in Tokyo, Area by Area
- Prayer Spaces and Muslim-Friendly Restaurants in Kyoto and Osaka, Area by Area
Restaurants with a prayer space
If you would like to pray where you eat, see the list of restaurants with a prayer space.
Before you go
Details can change, so please check opening hours, conditions of use, wudu facilities and whether there is a space for women, both on the listing and on signs at the place itself.
Each restaurant’s listing shows its halal details (certification, ingredients, kitchen practices and so on). Please read the listing and decide whether it meets your own standards.
To wrap up
We keep adding mosques and prayer spaces. Bookmark the Prayer Spaces & Mosques page while you are in Japan, and you can find a place close by wherever your plans take you.
If you know a place that is not listed yet, please tell us through “Request a prayer space” on the prayer space list pages. It will help the next person who comes looking.
Image credits
- Featured image (Kobe Masjid): 663highland / CC BY 2.5 / Wikimedia Commons
This article was written by the Halal Gourmet Japan team. On Halal Gourmet Japan, you can search for halal-friendly restaurants and prayer spaces all over Japan. The service is also available as an app (iOS / Android).
After seeing his Muslim friends struggle to dine out in Japan, he founded Halal Gourmet Japan, a restaurant search service for Muslims, and has been running it for more than a decade since its launch in 2014. He also co-founded Food Diversity Inc. (formerly Halal Media Japan; he has since stepped down), and has deep expertise in halal support for restaurants and Muslim-oriented inbound tourism. Halal Gourmet Japan is one of Japan’s largest halal-friendly restaurant search services, used in more than 140 countries, introducing halal-friendly restaurants and prayer spaces across Japan in multiple languages.
