Mini Review

Contrasting Theory and Research Regarding Early Islamic Qiblas

Walter R. Schumm¹*, Dan Gibson², and Zvi Goldstein³

¹Emeritus Professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences, Kansas State University, 1700 Anderson Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-1403, USA

²Independent Researcher, Rosthern, SK Canada S0K 3R0, Canada

³Independent Consultant, Carolina, Puerto Rico 00979, USA

Submission:January 28, 2025; Published:February 4, 2025

*Corresponding author:Walter Schumm, Emeritus Professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences, Kansas State University, 1700 Anderson Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66506-1403, USA

How to cite this article:Walter R. S, Dan G, Zvi G. Contrasting Theory and Research Regarding Early Islamic Qiblas. Glob J Arch & Anthropol. 2025; 14(2): 555883.DOI: 10.19080/GJAA.2025.14.555883

Abstract

Even though many scholars have recognized that early qiblas, the direction of Islamic prayers towards their holy city, often did not appear to face Mecca geographically, Dan Gibson’s research more specifically identified Petra as the first holy city of Islam for many decades after the founding of Islam, even as late as when Islam had spread from Spain to India. Recent statistical research has supported Gibson’s theory, but his theory continues to have many critics, most notably David King, who support Mecca as the first, only, and ever holy city of Islam and who argue that early mosques often “faced” the Ka’ba in ways different than our modern sense of global geographical azimuths. If his critics own the “thesis” and Gibson the “anti-thesis”, a synthesis may be possible whereby Gibson’s theory better explains the qiblas of very early mosques while his critics’ theories better explain the qiblas of later mosques, with some overlap of both theories.

Keywords:Qibla; Islam; Gibson; King; Statistical Tests; Petra; Mecca; History

Introduction

There have been three issues relating to early Islamic history [1-3] that will be reviewed here. All three may be related to recency bias (also called presentism) – the human tendency, long recognized (2 Peter 3:4b) to think that as things are now, so they have always been or always will be. First, to what extent has the direction of prayer toward the holy city of Islam been accurate and has that accuracy changed over time? Second, was Mecca the original holy city of Islam – yes or no? Third, if it was not Mecca for a time, where was the original holy city or cities and for how long? These questions are interrelated because if early architects did not have the capability to determine directions to distant sites, then one might anticipate substantial errors in qiblas, regardless of their geographical objective; it might not even be possible to pinpoint such objectives from raw data. Also, if the time of construction of mosques cannot be determined, then it would not be possible to determine if at certain times, mosques had different qiblas. These issues are inherently controversial because anything concluded other than that Mecca was the first, only, and ever holy city of Islam might seem to undermine the accurate historicity of Islam itself, which might challenge the validity of its traditionally accepted ancient origins, if not the religion itself. Anyone who dares to disagree with the traditional historical narrative risks being classified as a heretic, vulnerable to punishment that could be justified as a defense of a true religion. Nevertheless, authentic science typically uses various methods, including the use of statistics, to test different theories, including theories about historic events [4-6] or religions such as Christianity [7,8].

Qibla Measurement

Muslims are expected to pray in the direction of the qibla, or the holy city and its Ka’ba. If their qibla is not correct, their prayers may be invalid [9]. Furthermore, slaughterhouses and cemeteries should face Mecca while beds and toilets should be perpendicular [10-13]. Hence, the question of accurate qibla measurement is very important. Several scholars have acknowledged that early Muslim qiblas seemed inaccurate [14-16]. However, some scholars have argued that such errors resulted from a technological inability to identify qibla directions with precision [17-21]. Yet, arguing from the Qur’an, Mannan [22] states that “Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia is not the birthplace of the revealed Prophet and does not require any deep study to prove that it is not prescribed for Hajj in the light of the Holy Quran” (pp. 15-16) in part because it did not meet the Quranic requirements of being a city surrounded by fertile farming lands, concluding that the original holy city was in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon. Solikin and Damanhuri [23] analyzed data for 39 qiblas of Indonesian mosques built between 1278 and 2021; our reanalysis of their data found an average of 8.39 degrees (median = 7.10 degrees, standard deviation = 7.64 degrees, range from zero to 31.9) of deviation from a correct qibla towards Mecca, with statistically significant skew (0.945, SE = 0.378) but not kurtosis. Approximately a quarter of the mosques were accurate to within two degrees, 41% within five, 48.7 within seven, 64.1 within ten, 79.5 within 15, and 94.9 within 20 degrees. Comparing the qibla errors for the earlier mosques (1278 to 1799) versus the later ones (1800 to 2021), the errors were significantly less for the earlier mosques (3.95 vs. 8.90, p < .05, Cohen’s d = -0.65) as were their standard deviations (3.11 vs. 7.86, p = .064), indicating that more recent construction did not translate into more accurate qiblas. Schumm [24] found that qibla errors were not significantly different for Gibson’s Meccan and non-Meccan orientations, in both means and standard deviations.

Comparing Qibla Theories: Mecca or Other(s)?

Five series of tests have tested Gibson’s theory vs. others [24-28], including King’s [15,19-21,29-31]. Most of the research evaluated the extent of qibla errors tested data to compare Gibson’s theory vs. King’s theory. Early qiblas were often found to be accurate to within +2 degrees, with over 80% within 5 degrees [24]. Of the 16 mosques both Gibson and King would agree faced Mecca, six were within 2 degrees of error, eleven within five, fourteen within seven degrees, indicating that early Islamic architects could determine geographical qiblas fairly accurately, with an average error of 4.6 degrees, even after including a clear outlier of 22 degrees error (without that outlier, the average error would be 3.4 degrees)[24]. King reported that Muslim astronomers could calculate geographical qiblas as far away as Egypt and Iran to within a degree or two by as early as the 8th or 9th centuries [13: 142]. Use of Gibson’s theory led to lower qibla error rates in four studies compared to King’s hypothesis that Mecca was always the holy city of Islam [24-27]. For Gibson’s theory to be correct, only one azimuth will work for each location (Petra, between, Mecca, or an azimuth of about 155 degrees for “parallel” qiblas), while King’s theory will “work” for ten different azimuths, giving Gibson’s theory an advantage in terms of parsimony. From 622 CE to 722 CE, two-thirds of mosques faced Petra, a third to “between”; from 723 to 775 CE, more faced “between” (54%) than Petra (27%) while 16% faced Mecca and 3% faced Jerusalem [25]. It was not until 775 to 900 CE that most mosques (71.4%) began to geographically face Mecca [25]; differences over time that were significant (p < .001). Focusing only on 28 Meccan mosques and 60 Petran mosques, it was found that over the three time frames of 622-722 (34 mosques), 723-772 (29), and 773-912 (25) CE, the percentages of Petrans qiblas declined from 94.1 to 65.5 and to 36.0%, p < .001 [26: 47]. Schumm [27] found that King’s theory worked better than Gibson’s about 18% of the time, especially for later mosques and those facing due south (Muhammad prayed due south at one time [13: 130], possibly using other ways to “face” Mecca as King has explained [20]. Harremoes [28], cited in Schumm [27], performed a more sophisticated global analysis, which pinpointed a concentration of qiblas centered very near Petra rather than Mecca, moreover - even identifying the exact location of Gibson’s “between” qiblas. However, Gibson’s theory has not been without its critics [29,30,31,32,33].

Conclusion

First, in contrast to the argument that early Muslims did not have the technology to determine qiblas in the modern sense [32:35], evidence indicates that most of the early qiblas were measured fairly accurately, if one accounts for Petra and a “between” location; accuracy was high even for consensus Meccan qiblas. Assuming that all early qiblas were aimed towards Mecca leads to higher qibla error rates than if Gibson’s theory is used. Harremoes’ [28] research, using a more complex mathematical and global approach, found precise support for Petra and a “between” location as early qibla targets. While King’s theories may seem to work in some cases, they lack parsimony relative to Gibson’s. Aside from statistical tests, Gibson [1-3] and others [34-38] report at least fifty corroborating explanations, other than statistical, for his theory. In addition, the early Islamic military victories [39] make more sense, from the perspective of shorter interior lines for communications, recruiting, and logistics, given holy sites (e.g., Petra, between) nearer to Jerusalem, Egypt, and Yarmuk compared to far longer distances to Mecca or Medina [24-26]. Thus, the overall evidence supports Gibson’s more parsimonious theory that Petra was the first holy city followed by a “between” location and later yet, Mecca. As Hamza [40: 537] stated that by 711 CE “the Islamic state had become an empire stretching from Spain to India, heralding the advent of a major world civilization”; as Schumm and Goldstein concluded “discovering that Islam’s empire had expanded tremendously while Petra remained its holiest city would be truly a remarkable finding, so remarkable that some may find it unacceptable, no matter the level of statistical/ scientific evidence” [25: 5]. However, we agree with Akbar et al. [41: 388] that “higher education is organized with the principle of truth-seeking by the academic community”. Yet, it may not be surprising that, King and others, assuming that Mecca was the first and only holy city of Islam, persist in ridiculing such theories, using terms such as absurd, a bunch of baloney, preposterous, and pseudo-scientific perversion, and crack-pot [42]. If we were to take King’s theory as the thesis and Gibson’s as an anti-thesis, a possible synthesis might be that Gibson’s theory works better for very early qiblas while King’s works better for later, more distant [12], especially medieval, qiblas, with some overlap (e.g. “parallel” qiblas, theories agree but have different explanations). Such continuing controversies may encourage Islamic scholars to revisit these and other aspects of early Islamic history [43].

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