Not 100 Qiblas, but 4 - Qibla Controversy EP.3

While both King and Gibson agree that the early 7th century Qiblas were
not facing Mecca, and that no-one knows why they weren’t, their
solutions are quite different.

The question needs to be asked concerning why the builders of the
earliest mosques didn’t write down what they were doing, or why they
chose the directions they did? They certainly could write, presenting
yet again, a common problem we find with early Islam; namely, that
nothing is written about how it began, or what they were doing, until
200 years later. Likewise, with the Qiblas, we find a complete blank
concerning why they chose to direct the Qiblas the way they did.

King’s solution to these mis-directions was to go to those who were
closest to the event, the Muslims from the 8th-10th centuries, and
ascertain what they believed was going on in the 7th and early 8th
centuries. Yet, even King admits that these medieval scholars didn’t
know what had happened, or why these earliest mosques were incorrect.

Which raises another question…why didn’t they know, since they lived
only a century or so later, and lived right where these mosques had been
built?

What King gleaned from these scholars was that there were possibly 100s
of different Qiblas, with around 7 different reasons, he believed, for
why they were wrong. And the reason they were wrong was because the
early builders were barbaric, didn’t understand mathematics very well,
and so didn’t know their directions very well either.

Gibson categorically disagrees, suggesting that there were only 4
different directions which all of these Qiblas fit into, and all of the
four can be easily explained, if one were to simply look at what was
happening politically ‘on the ground’. What’s more, he suggests that
these early builders were very accurate in ascertaining their
directions, in fact better than those who came later, who were dependent
on mathematics.

So, what were the four Qibla directions Gibson refers to? The first
Qiblas, up to 706 AD are all facing the city of Petra, with mosques as
far away as Guangzhou, in China, and Cheraman in Kerala, India, both
thousands of miles away. Yet, they were all facing directly to Petra. In
fact, they were all within less than 3% off, proving just how accurate
these early Qiblas were.

Then in 706 AD a new mosque was built by Al Hajjaj (the governor in
Kufa, in present day Iraq), which he called the Wasit Mosque. Wasit
means ‘in-between’, which is exactly where the Qibla for this mosque is
pointing, exactly halfway in-between Petra and Mecca, even though there
is nothing there to point to; it’s just sand. We do know from the
Traditions that Al Hajjaj rebeled against Abd al-Malik, and thus began
to build his own mosques, 20 of them, all facing this in-between
position. These Qiblas are the most accurate, all within 1% of error.
Ironically, once he died the in-between direction of Qiblas died with
him, and no other mosque is then built facing that direction.

The third Qibla was the Meccan Qibla, the first that we know of built in
727 AD at Banbhore, Pakistan, over 100 years after the Qibla was
supposedly canonized (in 624 AD, according to the Islamic Traditions).
Interestingly, it is not until the Abbasid caliphate is well ensconced
in power, in 876 AD, that all of the mosques then only faced Mecca, most
likely because Mecca was their sanctuary city, in contradistinction to
Petra, which was the Umayyad’s sanctuary city.

The fourth and final Qibla was coined by Gibson as the parallel Qibla,
because the mosques who used this Qibla neither faced Petra, nor Mecca,
but straight south, following a parallel line between Petra and Mecca.
All of these mosques were built in Northern Africa, and Spain.

Thus, not hundreds of directions, but only 4, and as to why these four
were chosen, that will have to wait for another episode…so, until
then…hold this space.

Follow CIRA International:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cirainternational
Website: http://www.cirainternational.com

Support Al Fadi:
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/cirainternational

Видео Not 100 Qiblas, but 4 - Qibla Controversy EP.3 канала CIRA International