King's Wrong, early Arabs weren't DUMB! - Qibla Controversy EP.4

King certainly had an emotional response to Gibson’s new research on the Qiblas, whereas he should have looked at Gibson’s material and either learned from it, or at least try to find out where Gibson had erred. Instead, he either employed vitriol against Gibson, or came up with rather odd excuses concerning the mis-directions for the Qiblas.

Take for instance the Qiblas which were found in Northern Africa and Spain, which Gibson noted were all facing south, and seemed to be facing a line which was parallel to an imaginary line between Petra and Mecca. Instead of accepting this possibility, King tried desperately to create different reasons for each of the south facing Qiblas, suggesting that they either followed the sun, or certain stars, or the equinox, or the solstice lines (the 2 lines used to show where the sun sets on the longest, and on the shortest days of the year), and even in one case the Ka’aba walls.

The problem with these many excuses is that they suggest that no one living in North Africa or Spain knew where Mecca was, despite the fact that thousands regularly went on pilgrimage there from these very mosques. Furthermore, to suggest that one of the Qiblas followed the walls of the Ka’aba then assumes that they knew where that Ka’aba was, and even in which direction its walls went.

Instead of King trying desperately to find a theory to explain each of the misdirected Qiblas in northern Africa, why didn’t he just do what Gibson did; pull back a bit and simply look at the direction they all faced. He would immediately have found that they are almost all uniform, suggesting that all of these closely grouped mosques had Qiblas which were intentionally organized as a group, and that they were trying to make a statement, possibly political.

One is reminded of the parable of the 10 blind men who were asked to feel an elephant standing in front of them and describe what they were touching. They all had different answers depending on what part of the elephant they were touching (i.e. the one feeling a leg said it was a tree, another feeling the trunk said it was a rope, another feeling the stomach said it was simply round, and a 4th feeling the tusk claimed it was a sword, etc….).

Those who stood back and could see the whole animal knew what it was better than those who were right next to it, but were blind. King, along with the later medieval scholars remind me of those blind men. Yet, the later medieval scholars had an excuse, because they couldn’t see the Qiblas from afar, because they didn’t have access to Google maps, as King does today.

King continues by suggesting that the earlier Arabs, those who’s mosques had Qiblas facing Petra were mistaken because they just didn’t understand mathematics well enough to find the correct Meccan direction, unlike the later 9th – 11th century Arabs. He considered the earlier Arabs misguided, ignorant, and not near as clever as those medieval scholars who came later.

Yet, who exactly were these earlier Arabs who he considers dumb? They were the Nabateans, who were traders of the highest caliber. They were the only ones who could cross the trackless deserts without getting lost, and that was why the Nabateans could be found as far away as China and India.

Back then the great deserts didn’t have roads to follow like the rest of the world. Deserts are made up of sand, with huge sand-dunes, which changed their shape due to the strong winds. Therefore, the topography of one’s route changed all the time. So, if you didn’t know the exact direction you were going in these ever-changing sand dunes, you would miss the next oasis where the water was, and you would die. They needed to know directions accurately, in order to survive.

King wasn’t aware of any of this, just as he wasn’t even aware of just how many mosques had differing Qiblas. He only physically went to one mosque (the Samarkand mosque), and only studied another 5-6 other mosques from the writings of the 9th – 11th century scholars he so admired, without ever realizing that there were over 100 mosques who’s Qiblas were not directed towards Mecca.

King, unfortunately believed that these earlier Arabs were dumb, and that they couldn’t find their directions well, suggesting that the later medieval scholars were both cleverer, and that their Qiblas were more accurate.

In the next episode we will see if King is correct in either of these assumptions…

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Видео King's Wrong, early Arabs weren't DUMB! - Qibla Controversy EP.4 канала CIRA International