Issue M975 of 1 Dec. 1997

Orientation of Mosques

From bcatlos@chass.utoronto.ca Wed Nov 12 07:45:03 1997
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 19:18:36 +0100
From: Brian Catlos 
Reply-To: Medieval History 
To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L 
Subject: Re: Orientation of Mosques

Lynn,
When Muhammad arrived in Yathrib (Medina) he and the Muslims prayed towards Jerusalem. It has been suggested that this was consonant with his hope to win the sizeable Jewish community over to Islam. This for the most part failed and at just about that time it was revealed to Muhammad that the qibla (the point towards which Muslims pray) should be the kaaba in Mecca. In Sura II 142-145ff the change of qibla is explained by God. "The Fools among the people will say: "What hath turned them from the Qibla to which They were used?" Say: To God Belong both East and West: He guideth whom he will To a Way that is straight..." (trans. Yusuf Ali)

Now (more or less off the top of my head) as Islam initially expanded in a general northern direction from Arabia, and seeing as the political centre was at Damascus (more or less due N), the qibla became oriented tothe south of mosques. Now, as geography was an imperfect science at the time, as Islam spread East and West, the spherical shape of the earth was not taken into consideration and so early mosques even in the far west had a southern oriented Qibla. Check out the great mosque in Cordoba, which I recall has a s. IX South oriented qibla, and contrast it to the mosque of the nearby ruins of Abd al-Rahman III's palace complex Madinat az-Zahara. The latter has a east-south-east oriented (ie "true") qibla built in the s. X.

On the visigothic churches my guess would be that it is tough to say, given that no visigothic church cum mosque has survived. I believe they were generally rebuilt as soon as resources allowed (much as mosque cum churches were replaced asap in the wake of the so-called reconquista). Generally in the early years, the few muslims who lived in a conquered city often made arrangements to share the main church (as, it is said happened in Damascus and, I believe, Cordoba). Eventually the churches were bought out and rebuilt by the Muslims, according to their tastes.

Now, given that the idea is for the worshippers to fill up the mosque and the courtyard on Fridays (incidentally open air courtyards seem to have been neglected in favor of roofed peristyle halls in al-Andalus) the courtyard would need to be constructed so that it faced the qibla (therefore generally to the north or west, depending on how you figured the qibla).

Minarets are completely optional. Most mosques have one, perhaps orignally in emulatio of church steeples, but more likely an aid to the muezzin's who would otherwise stand on the roof. The fancy models have one gigantic one or lots of regular sized ones. Islam, being the eminently sensible religion that it is, makes the only requirement for a masjid (a place of prostration or prayer) to be that it have worshippers praying together in the prescribed manner. Minarets, walls, and roof are all fundamentally unnecessary extras.

PS - and again off the top of my head, I believe it was an Andalusi savant who first figured out that Mecca should be to the ESE rather than S of al-Andalus. Can't recall his name but he developed a reputation as something of a crank for obstinately praying in the new direction. Eventually, everyone caught on.

Forgive any unintentional misinformation.
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Brian Catlos
Centre for Medieval Studies             30 Charles St. W. #603
University of Toronto                   Toronto ON
39 Queen's Park Cr. E.                  M4Y 1R5
Toronto ON M5S 2C3                      Canada
tel.: (416) 960-3746
"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies."
=A7
"Beer does more than Milton can to justify God's Ways to Man"
- Samuel Johnson
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