Submitted without comment: how to pray facing Mecca from low-Earth orbit. An excerpt from “The Determination of Prayer Times and Direction of the Qiblah in Space,” by Dr. Zainol Abidin Abdul Rashid, translated from Malay by Jessica Ramakrishnan, published in the November issue of Harper’s, and also here. Presented at a conference on Islam and Life in Space.
As trips to space become commonplace, human civilization will no longer be tied to the surface of the Earth. But Muslims, wherever they are- whether on Earth or in space – are bound by duty to perform the obligations of worship.
A Muslim who wants to travel must study the techniques of determining prayer times and the direction of the Qibla ahead of travel in order to achieve complete worship. I will elaborate the method of determining prayer times and the Qiblah direction in space, primarily on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is more than 200 miles from the earth’s surface and orbits the earth every ninety-two minutes, or roughly sixteen times a day. Do we have to worship eighty times a day (sixteen orbits a day multiplied by five prayer times?) This seems unlikely, since it is compulsory for a Muslim to pray five times a day according to an Earth day, as determined by Allah during the creation of Heaven and Earth – no matter where in space the Muslim is located.
As for the Qiblah, for Muslims there is only one the Kaaba, located in Mecca. A Qiblah that changes in references to a specific system is not in order! It must be remembered that Allah’s creation is ordered.
A user-friendly, portable Muslims in Space calculator , could determine the direction of the Qiblah and prayer times on the ISS. Its essential feature would be the use of the Projected Earth and Qiblah Pole concepts. These are based on the interpretation of the holy house of angels in the sky above Mecca. The place is always rich with angels worshipping. As many as 70,000 angels circumambulate it every day. Thus, one virtual Qiblah pole can be taken as a universal reference to determine the direction of the Qiblah. When Earth is projected to the height of the ISS, every point on its surface is projected also, including the Qiblah point, which can be projected upwards and downwards along the Qiblah Pole. This allows the direction of the Qiblah to be determined in space and in the bowels of the Earth.
There are more complications than only determining prayer times and directions as for example the rules for Ramadan (feast during hours of daylight, which?). That’s already pretty complicated on earth and is discussed with great scientific accuracy in this excellent book.
Fascinating… my naive thought would have been that you’d want to figure out the direction to the Kaaba itself, not to some notional projected Kaaba.
This particular approach looks like it would get increasingly awkward the further from Earth you get. A devout Muslim astronaut out at, say, Saturn would have to keep track of a “Qibla point” which wandered back and forth across almost 180 degrees of the sky every day. Much simpler to keep track of where Earth itself is.
But, hey, I’m not an Islamic theologian, so what do I know…
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In reading up what a “loxodrome” is, I found the comment that while most Muslims use the great circle to figure out the Qibla, some use the loxodrome. So even on the surface of the earth, there are complications.
There is the story of the Prophet’s ascent to heaven, a description of which can be found here: http://answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Vol1/3d.html
The part relevant to this thread is:
After seeing prophets and angels,
“…Muhammad went on to the presence of Allah where he was commanded to order the Muslims to pray fifty times a day:
Then Allah enjoined fifty prayers on my followers. When I returned with this order of Allah, I passed by Moses who asked me, “What has Allah enjoined on your followers?” I replied, “He has enjoined fifty prayers on them”. Moses said “Go back to your Lord (and appeal for reduction) for your followers will not be able to bear it”. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 1, p. 213).
Muhammad allegedly went back and forth between Allah and Moses till the prayers were reduced to five per day. Moses then told him to seek yet a further reduction but Muhammad stopped at this point and answered Moses:
I replied that I had been back to my Lord and asked him to reduce the number until I was ashamed, and I would not do it again. (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasulullah, p. 187).
Allah then said whoever observed the five times of prayer daily would receive the reward of fifty prayers.”
The number of prayers is determined by hard bargaining with Allah.
Thinking more about this over lunch I realised that there are things to consider for followers of other religions. For example, what about orthodox jewish astronauts? What are the exact rules to observe sabbath in orbit (when?)? How do you survive without making fire on sabbath and is there kosher astronaut food?
Eh, Commander Sinclair figured out a good answer to this sort of question in the Babylon 5 episode “By Any Means Necessary.”
-Rob
Have you, people, heard of sleep?
I understand that the topic is of most fascinating nature yet hardly does it deserve the awarded attention at such an awe hour of the day…But maybe Sean was projecting…no pun in ten did…
Concept of Sleep — have you heard of time zones? 😉
I realize my post has a “7:16am” timestamp, but it was rather later in the day in Germany when I wrote that!
(Now, why Sean’s post has a 4:58am timestamp… well, that is somewhat worrying.)
In heaven as on Earth, middle management is overstaffed and kiss-ass. Looks like LRon Hubbard went to the well for a cheap drink of thetans.
Haha! I actually know this guy rather well personally from my old spacecraft building days!
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Why does the number of angels (and specifically 70,000) floating above the Qiblah Pole have anything to do with its projection into space? Also, what methods determined the daily 70,000 count? How do they know it’s not closer to 80k or 100k?
I am surprised that numbers like the density of angels, number of virgins, Number of the Beast, etc. don’t ever come with error bars. I suspect that the authors are significantly under-estimating their systematic errors.
“Both the contemplation of and the creative skill in making patterns lead in their own way to an understanding of Universal Nature as it moves the elements”
Islamic geometry and floral patterns
But, which direction one must face when one is on “The Dark Side of The Moon”? – perhaps One could ask Pink Floyd
Dr Zainol used to be my boss when I worked for the Malaysian Ministry of Science and Technology.
I still can’t stop laughing at the circularity of the whole thing blasting back to haunt me. I hate to crap on my own home country, but in a sad sad way, that’s why science back home never progress beyond the superficial. This paper is all the rage back in Malaysia when it came out.
Quickly, I thought of Gravity Probe B, so there will be no mistakes about “orientation” from earth’s point of view?
Q9,
If one did not appreciate the tessellations of Penrose’s early work and Escher, what value would one of found in early Islamic Geometry and Floral Patterns?
Omar Khayyám
Even the question of where to face when praying on earth must be re-evaluated in light of modern science. When scripture dictates that we pray “facing” Mecca, does Allah mean that we are to point along the most “natural” choice of the geodesic connecting us and Mecca, or that we are to point according to the man-made (but pole-inspired) guidelines of latitude (and longitude) lines? We certainly should organize a conference to debate this point. Sean, would you like to Chair?
I was told by my GR professor that once he was consulted regarding the direction of Mecca for some mosque in north america. I do not remember exactly, the description of directions, but story goes something like that the first inclination of the people building the mosque was to chose south east as the direction to mecca (inspired by the usual maps), but the professor convinced them that this is not actually the geodesic to the mecca ( i guess the geodesic was north west or north east which is completely counter intuitive, but apparently they litsned to him)
The simplest answer seems to me to create Muhammad Version2.0, and renegotiate with Allah to exempt the space travellers. If that is not possible, then go virtual. If Allah allows ‘one virtual Qiblah pole’, why not take a virtual Kaaba into ISS. Solved, if someone can figure out how to keep it stationary – and facing Mecca at all times – in the ISS.
According to the recent Lancet’s estimate, there is a spike in demand for angels – 72 for each jihadist? As a result, the welcoming angels may be dwindling in number presto. If Allah can tinker with the supply of angels at will, might as well upgrade the whole creation OS to the space age.
What do they offer a female astronaut? 72 jihadists?
Deceased jihadists are not offered angels.
If the ISS completes an orbit every 92 minutes, then the direction to Mecca, wherever it may lie, would be changing fairly rapidly during the course of a single prayer. Perhaps the answer is to install a sort of rotating prayer mat, similar to what you might find on a table in a Chinese restaurant. But motorised I guess.
Hmm… I see all of you are very sure about 72 virgins. Can any of you kindly help me locate the verse that promise it?
Science owes a lot to Muhammad. A critical look at history will perhaps convince you. Had there been no Muhammad, the Greek philosophy might be lost for ever. Astronomy, Mathematics, Surgery, Medicine and Chemistry will perhaps not reach where it has.
The number of the Beast is sort of approximate. The most popular version is 666, but some texts give 616.
“Here is wisdom, for it is the number of a man, and the number of the beast is 641, plus or minus 25.”
And that Qiblah projection thing kind of makes sense if your cosmology is geocentric. Too bad they coupled the Ptolemaic model to their theology.
You’re gonna need a laser guided prayer system also, because if your prayer hits any of those angels and kills one of them, then that’s it for you – you’re definitely not getting into heaven.
I think you might be overstating things a bit. Assuming that you are familiar with the Koran, would you say this is made up?
And yes it is true that in the great merry-go-round of human civilization the Arab world was instrumental in the survival of the Greek tradition while in Europe the light was out. (Unfortunately, most of the Arab world is now in the dark.)
I wouldn’t attribute this enlightened period to Islam, though. It probably had more to do with the trade wealth and contact with other cultures at the time.