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Suppose that the direction from my location to the Qiblah is 45° from East toward North.

Now, what will 45° from West toward South points to?
It should be the same,right?

I know this is a silly question. I'm a bit confused..

Update: Yeah, turns out those directions points to the Qiblah. One is shorter in distance compared to the other.

The Question now is:
Which direction is preferable? Shortest-direction or the larger one?

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  • Why don't u use an image of compass here and mark your interesting things in red using image editors then post it, so that people can understand it a lot more better. What do you think? May 11, 2015 at 21:09

1 Answer 1

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AWW,

Allah says in the quran: . So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer]. (2:144)

Thus, we need to face the kaaba.

Since our world is a globe, technically speaking, we can face 2 directions, one closer one further. However, you would have to face the closer direction, because facing the more distant direction would be considered having your back to the kaaba.

Imagine you are in Makkah near the Kaaba. You would be expected to face it, and if you turned around and faced the other way, you would not be considered to face the kaaba.

Also, when the Prophet (Saw) migrated to Madinah, he was faced with the dilemma of whether to face masjid ul aqsa, the qibla of many prophets, or the Kaaba, the qibla of Ibrahim (as). In Makkah, he used to pray in such a direction that both were faced. In madinah, this wasnt possible as Makkah was to the south and and masjidul aqsa to the north. Thus, he faced masjidul aqsa until commanded to face kaaba.

if both directions were permitted, this would not have been an issue. since it was, that means that the shortest distance must be faced.

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