Five times a day Muslims align to form concentric circles around the Kabah to which the prayers were redirected. Picture © Microsoft.Com Two momentous events in the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) bear special significance as regards the institution of Prayer (salah) in Islam: The Miraj (the Prophet’s Ascension) and the change of the qiblah from Jerusalem to Makkah.
There is general agreement among Muslim scholars that the Prophet’s Night Journey and Ascension occurred in the month of Rajab, most probably on the 27th of that month, about a year before the Hijrah (the Prophet’s emigration from Makkah to Madinah); and the change of qiblah happened in the middle of Shaban, about sixteen months after the emigration.
Muslims believe that during the Prophet’s Miraj, God instituted the five daily obligatory Prayers for believers. And it was in the middle of a congregational prayer in Madinah, that God’s command came to the Prophet about the change of qiblah.
We read about it in the Quran:
{The fools among the people will say: “What has turned them from the Qiblah to which they were used?” Say: To Allah belong both East and West; He guides whom He pleases to a Way that is straight. } (Al-Baqarah 2:142)
“The fools” in this context are those who criticize the change of qiblah, without any understanding of the matter. Before considering the meaning of the change of qiblah, we need to understand the importance of what is called the qiblah for Muslims.
For Muslims, none of the daily prayers can be done correctly without knowing the qiblah. “Qiblah” means orientation, or a sense of true direction.
Every time we stand in prayer, Muslims may say they make a spiritual journey to the Kabah in Makkah, somewhat as the Prophet did during his Night Journey to Jerusalem. And from the Kabah, our spirit travels upward towards Allah the Almighty just as the Prophet during his Ascension from Jerusalem. So for a pious and sincere worshipper, every prayer he performs involves Night Journey and an Ascension, as it were.
During his Ascension, in a mystical experience of immense spiritual significance, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) led all the earlier prophets in prayer in Al-Aqsa mosque at Jerusalem. This was a wonderful event that symbolized not only the oneness of both the houses of worship — the Kabah and Al-Aqsa — but also the oneness of the guidance of Allah given through all the prophets.
Because Prophet Muhammad was sent as the final prophet for the whole of humanity consisting chiefly of the children of Abraham by his eldest son Ishmael, and the second son Isaac, (peace be upon them both). Jerusalem represents the line of Isaac, as Makkah does the line of Ishmael.
The foregoing highlights the significance of both the cities serving as the qiblah of Muslims: First Jerusalem and then Makkah. The final prophet born in the line of Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, at Makkah was commanded to turn to Jerusalem for prayer; and then as a significant turning point in the process of the completion of the religion of Islam, God asks Prophet Muhammad to turn to the first house of God in Makkah for worship.
And God says in the Quran what means:
{Thus, have We made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger a witness over yourselves; and We appointed the Qiblah to which thou was used, only to test those who followed the Messenger from those who would turn on their heels (From the Faith). Indeed it was (A change) momentous, except to those guided by Allah. And never would Allah Make your faith of no effect. For Allah is to all people Most surely full of kindness, Most Merciful.} (Al-Baqarah 2:143)
This means that the change of qiblah had far more significance than most people at that time understood.
According to the Quran, Prophet Muhammad and his followers were named “the best of peoples” as well as “a justly balanced society”, deserving of leading the whole of humanity to the path of God.
That is to say, the change of the qiblah is a declaration by God of the perfection of the first religion as the final religion for mankind. Through the two mystical events in the life of the final messenger, Muhammad, God completes and perfects the religion for humanity and declares the Kabah in Makkah as the center of the world as well as of His religion.
And those who recognize and accept this cannot be parochial or ethnocentric; they have got to be above race, region or nation; they have to be at the center as a justly balanced middle nation serving as “witnesses over nations” as the true representatives of the whole of humanity.
-Agencies