﴿ ۞ سَيَقُولُ ٱلسُّفَهَآءُ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَا وَلَّىٰهُمْ عَن قِبْلَتِهِمُ ٱلَّتِى كَانُوا۟ عَلَيْهَا ۚ قُل لِّلَّهِ ٱلْمَشْرِقُ وَٱلْمَغْرِبُ ۚ يَهْدِى مَن يَشَآءُ إِلَىٰ صِرَٰطٍۢ مُّسْتَقِيمٍۢ ﴾

“THE WEAK-MINDED among people will say, "What has turned them away from the direction of prayer which they have hitherto observed?" Say: "God's is the east and the west; He guides whom He wills onto a straight way."”

The qiblah is the direction which Muslims face when praying. This direction has to do with the form, rather than the reality, of worship. A qiblah is appointed so that prayer may assume an organized pattern. God can change it as He pleases, for in whichever direction one turns, one faces Him. The direction that He lays down is the one that we should face in our prayer, irrespective of what direction it may be. Before the coming of Islam people had prayed towards Jerusalem. This old qiblah had come to be thought of as sacred and inviolable. In the second year after the Prophet’s emigration to Madinah, he was commanded to alter the direction of prayer, and face Makkah instead of Jerusalem. Some people found this change difficult to accept. How, they thought, could another place be the qiblah when Jerusalem had held this position for time immemorial? The opponents of Islam used the change of the qiblah as an excuse to spread all sorts of rumours about the Prophet. ‘Previous prophets have always faced Jerusalem in their prayer,’ they said. ‘How is it that this prophet has gone against them? This goes to show that the only purpose of his mission is to spite the Jews.’ Some poured scorn on Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. ‘He seems to be in two minds about his own mission,’ they said. ‘Sometimes he faces Jerusalem, sometimes Makkah.’ Others said, ‘Well, if the Ka‘bah in Makkah is the real qiblah, then all the prayers which Muslims have made facing towards Jerusalem have been wasted.’ These were the sort of objections that the Prophet’s opponents made. True believers, those who were not caught up in the externals of religion, did not let such things disturb them. They realized that it was not the direction of prayer that really mattered, but God’s commandment. God could lay down any qiblah, whenever He liked. Whatever He prescribed should be followed. The commandment regarding the change of qiblah was revealed seventeen months after the Prophet’s emigration to Madinah. The Prophet was praying with a group of his companions at the time. As soon as God’s commandment was revealed, all of them turned, still praying, from Jerusalem to Makkah—a 160 degree turn from north-west to south.