The change of the qibla

In Sha'ban 2 AH (February 624 CE), sixteen or seventeen months after the Hijra to Medina, the divine command came down to change the qibla of prayer from Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) to the Ka'ba in Mecca ².

The Prophet loved to be turned toward the qibla of Abraham. He kept turning his face toward the horizon of the sky, awaiting revelation, until the verse on the change of the qibla came down: البقرة 144 ^{2 3}.

The change of the qibla was a decisive test. It distinguished sincere believers from the hesitant, and it exposed the hypocrites among those who doubted. It declared the independence of the Islamic community and its doctrinal and spiritual distinctiveness, and it announced a new phase in which the Muslims looked forward to cleansing the Sacred Mosque of idols ².

In Sha'ban of the second year, the qibla was changed from Bayt al-Maqdis to the Sacred Mosque. This exposed the weak Muslims and the Jewish hypocrites who had entered their ranks to stir up confusion, and the ranks of the Muslims were cleansed of people of treachery and betrayal ².

Sha'rawi holds that the change was a ruling fixed in God's knowledge for a set term, not a response to circumstances, and that the Ka'ba became the qibla because God chose it as His house, not because the place has sanctity in itself. ⁴⁵ He treats the change as an example of abrogation by an equal ruling, since the effort of facing either direction is the same, and the test lies in the command coming from God. ⁶ He also says the night journey to Jerusalem was to establish its sanctity in Islam, which is why prayer was first faced there. ⁷