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WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca: Difference between revisions
WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca (view source)
Revision as of 20:46, 17 September 2023
, 17 September 2023Refinement of remarks on King, and the notion of the orientation of a building.
(Expansion of the Note on terminology, and elaboration of a possible objection to Gibson) |
(Refinement of remarks on King, and the notion of the orientation of a building.) |
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A point against Petra is that it is not near the Dead Sea and thus the city of Lot, or not near enough. But if Mecca is the only competition for the original shrine, it is much nearer. If Petra contained a sanctuary, it is plausible that it would have been visited by farmers from further north. In any case, the Quran is inconsistent in a number of ways. The best that can be hoped for is to get a partial match to what it suggests about its historical context. | A point against Petra is that it is not near the Dead Sea and thus the city of Lot, or not near enough. But if Mecca is the only competition for the original shrine, it is much nearer. If Petra contained a sanctuary, it is plausible that it would have been visited by farmers from further north. In any case, the Quran is inconsistent in a number of ways. The best that can be hoped for is to get a partial match to what it suggests about its historical context. | ||
Given the seriousness of the issue for both Muslims and non Muslim scholars, it is understandable that there is much hostility to Gibson’s hypothesis. Yet little has been published against it. There is a trenchant criticism from David A. King, a long time expert on mosque orientation. His main point seems to be that geographical orientation is irrelevant to understanding early mosques, because their builders had no way of determining the direction of Mecca, and did not try. Rather they orientated their buildings with the Ka’bah rather than towards it | Given the seriousness of the issue for both Muslims and non Muslim scholars, it is understandable that there is much hostility to Gibson’s hypothesis. Yet little has been published against it. There is a trenchant criticism from David A. King, a long time expert on mosque orientation. His main point seems to be that geographical orientation is irrelevant to understanding early mosques, because their builders had no way of determining the direction of Mecca, and did not try. Rather they orientated their buildings with the Ka’bah rather than towards it. There are a number of problems with this suggestion, one of which is that King never clearly explains what he means by orientation, or how it is to be measured. Another is that King does not seem to recognise that his claims are hypotheses which need to be tested by empirical evidence. | ||
Gibson claims to have established that too many of the early mosques face Petra to be due to chance. How they did this is a matter of speculation, but their success is a statistical fact. It is also a fact that after a period of uncertainty, later mosques succeed in being orientated with Mecca with a greater than random success rate. Anyone who dislikes Gibson’s Petra hypothesis needs to show either that his measurements are wrong, or the statistical analysis faulty. | |||
Another possible line of criticism is to question whether Gibson has correctly identified the prayer wall on the buildings he has included in his survey, not all of which are obviously mosques, and in any case early mosques did not have a mihrab to identify the prayer wall. However, Gibson does take care to justify his identification of prayer walls, so unless further data is obtained on site, there is no reason to question his judgement. | Another possible line of criticism is to question whether Gibson has correctly identified the prayer wall on the buildings he has included in his survey, not all of which are obviously mosques, and in any case early mosques did not have a mihrab to identify the prayer wall. However, Gibson does take care to justify his identification of prayer walls, so unless further data is obtained on site, there is no reason to question his judgement. | ||
If the early mosque builders were not trying to face Mecca, what were they trying to do? The accepted interpretation of the Quran is that Muslims must face it when praying, so it is generally assumed that mosques are built to indicate the required direction. It is an implication of King’s theory that some early builders interpreted the word translated as ‘face’ to mean ‘facing in the same direction as you would if you were at the Ka’bah’. Which is a bit of a stretch. | If the early mosque builders were not trying to face Mecca, what were they trying to do? The accepted interpretation of the Quran is that Muslims must face it when praying, so it is generally assumed that mosques are built to indicate the required direction. It is an implication of King’s theory that some early builders interpreted the word translated as ‘face’ to mean ‘facing in the same direction as you would if you were at the Ka’bah’. Which is a bit of a stretch. It is possible that at certain times and places the builders had no way of determining the direction of the Ka’bah, so they did the best they could by giving their mosques the same orientation to the fixed stars. But it is impossible to test this hypothesis without an explanation of what they understood by orientation, and how they thought it could be measured. | ||
It is also relevant to point out that modern Muslims have no doubt about how to interpret the order to face the Ka’bah. (And have accepted the need to abandon [[Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth#Direct%20references%20to%20a%20flat%20Earth%20in%20the%20Qur'an|the flat Earth geography of the Quran]], and come to terms with the complications of spherical geometry<ref><nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibla</nowiki> ‘Calculations with spherical trigonometry’ and ‘North America’.</ref>.) Why should early Muslims have interpreted the Quran any differently? | It is also relevant to point out that modern Muslims have no doubt about how to interpret the order to face the Ka’bah. (And have accepted the need to abandon [[Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth#Direct%20references%20to%20a%20flat%20Earth%20in%20the%20Qur'an|the flat Earth geography of the Quran]], and come to terms with the complications of spherical geometry<ref><nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibla</nowiki> ‘Calculations with spherical trigonometry’ and ‘North America’.</ref>.) Why should early Muslims have interpreted the Quran any differently? | ||
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In the article on the [[Ka'aba|Kaaba]] yet another definition is given. 'In this capacity, as the direction of prayer, the Ka'aba is referred to as the ''Qibla''.' | In the article on the [[Ka'aba|Kaaba]] yet another definition is given. 'In this capacity, as the direction of prayer, the Ka'aba is referred to as the ''Qibla''.' | ||
Altogether, it might be best to stop using the word 'qibla' to avoid verbal confusions about such a contentious issue. The empirical question is then | Altogether, it might be best to stop using the word 'qibla' to avoid verbal confusions about such a contentious issue. The empirical question is then about the orientation of old mosques. | ||
Not that the idea of the orientation of a building is entirely clear. What is in question is the orientation of the prayer wall, which is what the congregation faces when praying. The orientation is the direction of a straight line drawn perpendicular to this wall. It is assumed that the idea of the direction of a line on the Earth’s surface is clear enough, and can be determined by modern technology. The idea of a straight line as the shortest distance between two points would probably have been acceptable to the earliest mosque builders. The direction of a straight line can then be specified by any two places it passes through, | Not that the idea of the orientation of a building is entirely clear. What is in question is the orientation of the prayer wall, which is what the congregation faces when praying. The orientation is the direction of a straight line drawn perpendicular to this wall. It is assumed that the idea of the direction of a line on the Earth’s surface is clear enough, and can be determined by modern technology. The idea of a straight line as the shortest distance between two points would probably have been acceptable to the earliest mosque builders. The direction of a straight line can then be specified by any two places it passes through, without the need for an external frame of reference. | ||
:Thanks for the updates, it is well written. We will also do a bit of editing ourselves to the article in due course, as mentioned. If you need any help with templates when you refine the references, [[WikiIslam:Source_Editing|this page]] explains how to quote or cite verses using the Quote, Quran, and Quran-range templates, as well as the various hadith citation templates. See also [[WikiIslam:Citing,_Linking,_and_Quoting|this page]]. A useful method is to look at the source edit page for an existing article to see how templates are typically used and how different types of sources are typically cited (the Islamic views on the shape of the earth article is a good one for that purpose). [[User:Lightyears|Lightyears]] ([[User talk:Lightyears|talk]]) 22:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC) | :Thanks for the updates, it is well written. We will also do a bit of editing ourselves to the article in due course, as mentioned. If you need any help with templates when you refine the references, [[WikiIslam:Source_Editing|this page]] explains how to quote or cite verses using the Quote, Quran, and Quran-range templates, as well as the various hadith citation templates. See also [[WikiIslam:Citing,_Linking,_and_Quoting|this page]]. A useful method is to look at the source edit page for an existing article to see how templates are typically used and how different types of sources are typically cited (the Islamic views on the shape of the earth article is a good one for that purpose). [[User:Lightyears|Lightyears]] ([[User talk:Lightyears|talk]]) 22:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC) | ||
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