Muslim pray towards jerusalem

1. Origins: a Jerusalem qibla in the Prophet’s Medinan community

Traditional Islamic sources and modern summaries agree that during the first months to years after the Prophet Muhammad’s migration to Medina the Muslim community prayed toward Bayt al‑Maqdis (Jerusalem), a direction that reflected local Jewish practice and early Muslim orientation ^{[2] [1] [6]}. Encyclopedic treatments and articles on prayer times summarize that the shift away from Jerusalem toward the Kaʿba is anchored in Quranic verses and is placed in the second Hijri year, roughly 15–16 months after the Hijra—usually dated around 623–624 CE ^{[2] [3]}.

2. The canonical switch: why and when it’s said to have happened

The standard narrative records a specific change of qibla embedded in the Quran (noted in exegesis of Sura al‑Baqarah) that commanded Muslims to turn toward the Kaʿba in Mecca, marking the formal reorientation of ritual prayer; reference works and overviews of salah repeat that this became the defining qibla after the Medinan period ^{[2] [6] [1]}. Popular and specialist sources date the change to the second year in Medina (about 624 CE) and treat the Meccan qibla as the enduring legal and liturgical norm ^{[3] [7]}.

3. Practice today: Mecca is the qibla, but methods to find it evolved

Contemporary Muslim practice is to face the Kaʿba as the qibla for the five daily prayers, and communities, mosques, and global Muslim authorities orient buildings and timetables accordingly ^{[1] [7]}. The technical ability to determine the correct bearing has improved over time: medieval Muslim astronomers developed spherical trigonometry and tables for qibla calculation, and modern tools (compasses, apps, projections) make orientation widely accessible ^{[7] [8] [9]}.

4. Historical and scholarly debates over early precision

Historians and archaeologists debate how precisely early mosque builders and lay Muslims could align with an intended qibla from distant places; some argue significant accuracy was possible, while others contend methods, geographic knowledge, and instruments varied so that local orientations could differ markedly from a mathematically exact great‑circle bearing ^{[4] [5] [10]}. Empirical surveys of early mosque alignments and statistical studies underpin this debate and caution against assuming universal precision in the first two to three centuries of Islam ^{[5] [10]}.

5. Exceptions, polemics, and interpretive layers

The historical record also contains notable exceptions and disputes: sects such as the Qarmatians rejected the Kaʿba as qibla at times in medieval history, and polemical accounts sometimes reinterpret the qibla change for theological or political purposes ^[2]. Modern polemics and some internet sources amplify contested interpretations; scholarship warns readers that debates about early qibla accuracy and motives can be entangled with later ideological agendas ^{[10] [5]}.

6. What can be concluded and what remains outside available reporting

Clear consensus across the cited sources is that Muslims originally in Medina faced Jerusalem and that the formal, enduring qibla became Mecca following revelations in the second Hijri year; this is the basis for contemporary practice ^{[2] [3] [1]}. The extent to which individual early communities consistently faced an astronomically precise qibla varies and remains the subject of technical scholarly inquiry rooted in archaeology, historical geography, and the history of science—issues addressed but not definitively settled in the cited literature ^{[4] [5]}. The sources provided do not supply exhaustive primary documentary evidence for every locality’s early practice, so localized archaeological claims fall beyond the scope of this report ^{[5] [10]}.