Kamal F. Ishak

Orientation of Muslims during prayer

according to the book “Qur’anic Geography”.

 

Introduction: The QIBLA of Arabs between Jerusalem and Mecca.

 

 

Orientation during prayer in history.

Jerusalem is the most important and the holiest place for the people of Israel from the tenth century BC. On its Sacred Mount MORAYA, known as Temple Mount, King Solomon (tenth century BC), built the sacred structure that contains the "holy of holies" and the cornerstone of which is known in Hebrew as the "Evin Hachtaah."

(I Kings, 6) (1) In the four hundred and eightieth[a] year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord. (2) The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord ...

(I Kings, 8) (1)Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. … (6) The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. … (9) There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt… (12) Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; ... (21) I have provided a place there for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our ancestors when he brought them out of Egypt”. (22) Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven (23) and said: … (38) and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— 39 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. … (44) “When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the Lord toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, (45) then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

 

Arabs and Muslims.

There is no evidence on the existence of a specific QIBLA observed by the Arabs before Islam. The idolators faced their fetiches during invocation of their divinities. In Mecca, there were 360 ​​different fetish gods, so it is natural to face the Ka’ba when worshiping the idols. Therefore it was not a QIBLA as a concept, also because the Arabs from outside Mecca had never prayed towards it before Islam. Muhammad was a pagan, and like the rest of the inhabitants of Mecca worshiped the divinity Uzza nearby the Ka’ba.

 

In Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad started his religious with the teachings received from WARAQA Ibn NAWFAL, a pseudo-Christian priest of Ebionite creed, which is more closer to Judaism; and others, as the renegaded monk BAHIRA. Then, inspired by his real mentor, ZAYD ibn AMRO ibn NAFIL, he embraced the monotheists doctrine of the HINIFS who claim affiliation to Ibrahim, father of all prophets, .

That is why the Qur’an of Mecca mentioned the Jewish faith with benevolence.

 

(Sura VII, v. 137) “137. And We made the people who were considered weak to inherit the eastern parts of the land and the western parts thereof which We have blessed. And the fair Word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel, because of their endurance.”.

(Sura XXVI, v. 196) “And verily, it (the Qur'an, and its revelation to Prophet Muhammad) is (announced) in the Scriptures of former people [i.e. the Torah and the Gospel].

 

(Sura X, v. 94) “So if you (O Muhammad) are in doubt concerning that which We have revealed unto you, [i.e. that your name is written in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)] then ask those who are reading the Book [the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)] before you. Verily, the truth has come to you from your Lord. So be not of those who doubt (it) .”.

(Sura XLV, v. 16-17) “And indeed We gave the Children of Israel the Scripture, and the understanding of the Scripture and its laws, and the Prophethood; and provided them with good things, and preferred them above the Two Species ['ALAMIN, i.e. mankind and jinn]. And gave them clear proofs in matters [by revealing to them the Torah. And they differed not until after the knowledge came to them, through envy among themselves. Verily, Your Lord will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection about that wherein they used to differ.

 

 

Towards the end of his stay in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad adopted many rituals derived from the Jewish civilization: he adopted the QIBLA  of the Jews in his prayers, his Qur’an determined the same three obligatory prayers approved by the Jews (dawn, noon "offering", and sunset). Furthermore, he agreed with the Jewish rules like "HALAL" slaughtering of animals and prohibition of eating pork.

The pagan Arab tribes refused his call derided him, accusing him of insanity.

Moving to Yathrib, he tried to attract Jews to his new religion, as the adherence of the children of Israel, the sons of the prophets, would have supported the faith in his religion.

In the first period, he continued to adulate the Jews of Medina.

 

(Sura II, v. 113 & 121-122) “The Jews said that the Christians follow nothing (i.e. are not on the right religion); and the Christians said that the Jews follow nothing (i.e. are not on the right religion); though they both recite the Scripture. Like unto their word, said (the pagans) who know not. Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection about that wherein they have been differing.  …. Those to whom We gave the Book [the Torah] recite it as it should be recited, they are the ones that believe therein. And whoso disbelieves in it, those are they who are the losers. Oh Children of Israel! Remember My Favor which I bestowed upon you and that I preferred you to the Two Species ['ALAMIN, i.e. mankind and jinn].

 

 

Muhammad ordered to fast "Yom Kippur", the forgiveness day of the Jews, known in Islam as the "fast of Ashura". It felt in the tenth day of the arabic month of Muharram, the first month of the Arabic calendar, which was corresponding to the tenth day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar.

Jews were not convinced by the credibility of the words of Muhammad, due to his lack of knowledge of the Torah and the holy traditions of the Prophets of Israel, which led them to reject his attempts to include them in the new religion which he founded.

When the Prophet realized that the Jews would not accept his call, he started attacking them, claiming that they corrupted the scriptures. The behavior of the Prophet Muhammad became very hostile toward Jews, and he started to change everything of Jewish source.

* He changed the direction of Muslim’s QIBLA to be towards the Ka’ba in Mecca instead of being towards the Holy Site in Jerusalem.

* He added two more prayers to the three prayers that he had already imposed similar to the Jews.

* He Imposed to fast during Ramadan, such as Sabean and HANIF’s, making fasting Ashura (corresponding to fasting on Yom Kippur) as optional and no longer mandatory.

The Prophet of the new religion tried to evade the questions raised about these changes, through his Qur’an he radicalized them to prevent discovering the truth. When the Jews mocked him, he described them in his Qur’an as foolish.

(Sura 2, v. 142) The foolish among the people will say: What has turned them away from their qibla, which they used to face? Say: To Allah belongs the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path.

 

 

Recently, a new book entitled

"َQur’anic Geography" by the historian and writer Dan Gibson.

Dan Gibson is the author of an excellent article dealing with the determination of the exact location of “Macoraba” mentioned in Ptolemy’s Geography. The essay is entitled: “The Location of Mecca in Ptolemy’s Geography”. It is a very excellent research. It settled that matter definitely.

Dan Gibson keeps also the best site about Nabateans, which is :

http://nabataea.net/nab6.html .

The "Qur'anic Geography" includes a fully featured documented research, try to prove that for first Muslims, the QIBLA, i.e. orientation during islamic prayer, was the city of Petra point, capital of the Nabataeans.

I disagree completely with him in this thesis.

 

Dan Gibson illustrated intelligibly in his book that the QIBLA’s of the mosques and buildings during the first decades of islamic era were oriented towards Petra.

 

But I think that orientation was towards Jerusalem.

 

I quote some paragraphs of the book, giving my comments. 

 

Essentially, we read in pages 252 & 253:

(Quote)… Several people have argued with me that the Arabs of 7th and 8th century AD would not have had the technology needed to accurately determine the qibla direction. This argument is often based on reasoning that goes like this: “Today we are much more advanced than the Arabs, and since I could never determine the direction of the qibla without a GPS then I doubt that they could do it accurately”. Another argument goes: “The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula were land-bound, using camel caravans. Using the stars as a method of finding direction was something sailors did. So how could the Arabs of Arabia know with accuracy how to determine the qibla?” (unquote).

 

I personally agree that “the Arabs of 7th and 8th century AD would not have had the technology needed to accurately determine the qibla direction”.

 

The Author argued:

(Quote)… Arabs had traveled to China during the height of the Nabatean merchant empire. (Unquote).

It is not proven. It may be an individual case.

We know that Greek, then Romans navigated in the “Eritrean Sea” (The Red sea). Navigation in Red sea was inherited by Byzantium and by the Ethiopians.

 

(Quote) The Nabatean Arabs on the other hand had a need for navigating by the stars. In order to avoid taxes and confrontation with people, they deliberately took their camel caravans into the vast deserts of Arabia. 

That is true.

Specially during the florescence of the “Incense Route”, during the fifth and sixth centuries. 

 

(Quote)…  It was Arab ships that plied the ports of India and China, and not the other way around. When Ferdinand Magellan made his famous journey around the world, he relied on an Arab navigator and Arab charts to guide him. (Unquote).

It is not quite right.

Ships that plied the ports of India and China were of southern Arabs.

Navigation was more or less parallel to sea shores, as ancient ships were very rudimentary. 

Furthermore:

The sentence “When Ferdinand Magellan made his famous journey around the world, he relied on an Arab navigator and Arab charts to guide him” is deceiving, as expedition to the East Indies, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, occurred the years from 1519 to 1522, after development of many navigation instruments. The said “Arab navigator” was an exceptionally skilled sailor, acquainted with astrological and other data of that time, so he had nothing to do with the Bedouins of 7th and 8th century AD.

 

(Quote) Celestial navigation is really quite simple when one puts their mind to it. It includes three aspects: 1) finding latitude 2) using a constant measurement of either distance or time, 3) determining longitude. 

Using these, the Arab merchants could accurately navigate across the featureless landscapes of the Arabian deserts and find their hidden water supplies. They could also accurately determine exactly where cities lay over the horizon, and ultimately they could accurately determine the qibla direction for their mosques. Using qiyās to find latitude Before the invention of the compass, watch and sextant, the Arab’s main guide was latitude. To obtain their latitude, Nabataean merchants measured the height of a known star above the horizon. Often this was the Pole star (North Star), since the Pole Star was the one star that did not move in the sky. They simply had to identify this star, and then directly measure its height above the horizon. This was the simplest method, and was known as the science of qiyās (measurement).  (Unquote).

 

Let’s see these allegations.

The Arabs never used the latitude and longitude coordinates in there travels.

It is true that Arabs used to identify the Pole star (North Star), since the Pole Star was the one star that did not move in the sky. That was only to decide where is the north, consequently east, west and south simply. They travelled in a very limited net of routs, indicated in “A map of major trade routes during the Nabatean Empire”, page 157 of the book.

They had no need to “accurately determine exactly where cities lay over the horizon” during their travels “across the featureless landscapes of the Arabian deserts”.

I see that the sentence “and ultimately they could accurately determine the qibla direction for their mosques” is incorrectly inserted in this passage, as pre-islamic Arabs had no QIBLA’s, and the first islamic arabs were ignorant bedouins.

 

In conclusion:

 

* It is true that first islamic Arabs were ignorants (and I add, they still so).

 

* It is true that that the QIBLA’s of the mosques and buildings during the first decades of islamic era were oriented towards somewhere northern of Arabia.

We have to remember that the first Caliphs of the Umayyad Dynasty were not really Muslims. They never lived in Yathrib during Muhammad’s lifetime. Islamic “faith” started in Medina, which became the center of the Muslim empire until the Umayyad caliphs established their rule from Damascus. A coin of time of Caliph MU’AWIYA illustrate him holding a cross, another coin of same time bears the word Jesus. One of early Greek Historians called them “Christians”. The real islamization of Arabs started during the reign of Abdel-MALEK ibn MARWAN. 

So, by effect of the “People of the Book” in Mecca, and the Christians in Syria, their building were oriented roughly towards Jerusalem!

As said upwards, the Arabs of 7th and 8th century AD would not have had the technology needed to accurately determine the qibla direction. 

 

Emblematic is the case of the Dom of the Rock. it is in Jerusalem, so any point within it was QIBLA. 

 

* It is not true that the Muslim sacred city was Petra.

The proof is Masjid al-Qiblatain (Mosque of the two qiblas), built the year 5 of Hejira (626 AD) 

(Quote) Masjid al-Qiblatain (Mosque of the two Qiblas) is a mosque in Medina that is historically important for Muslims, as it is remembered as the place where a companion leading the prayer was told of the change of qibla. He did a 180 degree turn and he is said to have been commanded to change the direction of prayer (qibla) from Jerusalem to Mecca. Thus this mosque uniquely contained two prayer niches (miḥrabs). This is an important mosque for our  study as the original structure was built around 626 AD and further renovations maintained the original two Qiblas. In 1987 the mosque was completely renovated, removing the old prayer niche that faced north, but maintaining the one facing Mecca. The mosque has undergone several major reconstructions, the latest being in 1987. Nothing remains of the original mosque, but ’Abdel Wahed el Wakil, an architect, made excellent drawings of the earlier structures before the mosque was torn down and replaced with the new building. A report of his work can be found on the internet at:

http://www.archnet. org/library/files/one-file.jsp?file_id=946. 

When the old mosque was torn down, the foundation stones of the earlier mosque revealed that the original building faced north towards both Petra and Jerusalem which were in almost exactly the same direction. (unquote).

The so-called authentic Hadith’s tell that the people “turned themselves” towards the Ka'ba.

The case was very easy: just turning to to face roughly to south instead of facing the northern direction. So the matter was really approximately done, not on a base of scientific calculation.  

 

* It is true that the QIBLA direction was changed towards Mecca many years after the advent of Islam.

Year 707: Reconstruction of the mosque of the prophet in Medina. Foundations relaid. The qibla wall is changed. (Ṭabarī)

Year 708: The niche (MIHRAB)  is introduced to re-orient mosques towards Mecca.

Year 709: Al Aqṣa Mosque in Jerusalem built facing south Petra. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is built facing south.

Year 710: Khālid al-Qaṣri appointed as governor of Mecca. He is very strict and enforces unpopular views. Khālid insists only the caliph’s interpretation of history and religion are correct.

Year 711: Mosque in Fusṭāṭ, Egypt, is renovated with a concave prayer niche. ... there is literary evidence the orientation of the mosque had to be changed to point further south.

And so on.

Starting in 750 AD Abbāside rule was established, and all mosques built after this pointed to Mecca with the exception of the Umayyad mosques in Spain and North Africa which only followed suit after 822 AD.