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.
PK
What I find most interesting is: In order to calculate the tilting angle, you have to be sure about earth being round and it rotating around the sun. These are the conclusions that Galeleo and Coparnicus drew (most likely independently) and faced the wrath of the Church.
I am amazed to know that Arabs knew all these before them.
If that is true, then Galeleo and Coparnicus were not the first to draw these conclusions, (rather they were the first to convince the Europeans about it).
What do you think?
Apart from that, the discovery of pin-hole camera has fascinated me.
One may want to look at this:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Aryabhata_I.html
And this:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Nilakantha.html
And this:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Madhava.html
Manas, I am pretty sure you can account for the tilted axis of the Earth in the Ptolemaic system (though they wouldn’t call it a tilt; moreover, we tend to reinterpret ancient findings within present-day scientific context), so that in itself is not proof either way. Nevertheless, the story of Aryabhata is compelling, and should probably be mentioned every time we speak of Copernicus.
Of course, there is still the problem that this insight by Aryabhata has not influenced modern thought at all, because nobody knew about it when it could have made a difference. Even his contemporaries thought he was wrong there. I would therefore still credit Copernicus and Galileo with overturning the Ptolemaic system (in the absence of further evidence, of course).
Yup! You are perhaps right about both being compatible.
Nevertheless it stands that they did a good job in ‘philosophae naturalis’. 🙂
Aryabhatta was a genius. India has sent up a satellite in his name.
I realize that by responding to Manas in greater detail here, I’m straying from the topic at hand, but since this site regularly has posts on religion, I hope you all will indulge me.
Of course Islam is what Muslims do. That’s as true for Islam as for any other religion. There is no other practical way to evaluate the precepts of a religion then by observing it in action, since there is no way to get followers of the religion to agree on its precepts. Ismailis and Salafis aren’t going to agree on much, even if they think they follow the same religion. (Interestingly, there is a fair amount of doctrinal support for this position within Islam itself.) I would be very careful of considering Muslims in the past to be paragons and the Muslims of today to be “in the dark”. From there it is far too easy to become a takfiri. The Muslims of history are worse then you think and the Muslims of today not as bad, simply because of human nature.
As per your forced conversion statement: a large number of Muslim countries are close to or wholly Muslim now that weren’t in the recent past. See, e.g. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey. It is a historical fact that many (though not all) Muslim countries are hostile to religious minorites, even ones of long standing – like Bahai in Iran or Christians in Egypt. There are essentially no Muslim countries that wholly respect freedom of religion – in most Muslim-dominated countries there are legal barriers to the practice of non-Muslim religions. God help you if you belong to a Muslim sect viewed as heretical by most Muslims, see e..g the Ahmadis in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Yes, the Crusades were bloody and horrific, but I assure you the Muslim leaders involved were not blameless. The proximate cause for the First Crusade was a call for help from the Byzantine Empire to fend off invading Muslim armies, attempting to conquer regions that had never been Muslim. Another rallying cry was the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by the Fatimid Al-Hakim, an event that could be compared to destroying the Dome of the Rock.
It’s a natural reaction to attempt to cut off disreputable or horrific actions from oneself and declare the people involved “not true Muslims”, but it is not going to fly. Aurangzeb, for example, did exhibit many admirable qualities, like humility and charity, while being a bloodthirsty bastard, and people to this day honor him for that. You need to accept the bad with the good: Aurangzeb and Akbar, the Taliban fighters who executes teachers of girls and the teachers who risk their lives to teach Afghani girls, Dawood Ibrahim and Shah Rukh Khan, the janjaweed fighter who burns Darfuri villagers and the Darfuri refugee who flees them. All are Islam.
Really none of this is on-topic. No more comments about whose religion is more awesome, or who was oppressed by whom.
PK even though you can describe the solar system with earth at centre. But in that case everything gets too complex. Apparently the ’tilt’ will be something very different, the motion of the orbit of the sun 🙂
can you throw some light as to what the arabs thought about it?
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Hey Maynard Handley Mr.Santa in red flannels was the invention of the Church of Coca Cola.
I came to this blog when somebody joked that an absolute frame of reference was found by a ‘great’ scientist.
This insanely idiotic article gave me such a great laugh.
Hey did anybody account for the time dilation in outerspace. The 5 prayers would never reach Mr.Allah if they they are not directed to the precise point at the precise time.
Maybe we need DHL.
On a more serious note algebra as well as the decimal system of numerals and a whole of geometry was learnt by the arabs from the indians . The europeans borrowed it from the arabs. The ancient greeks anyway knew a lot of this geometry to begin with. But Europe I suppose was suffering from amnesia and needed a knock on the head ( the crusades ).
I think investigating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin would be similiarly fruitful. Perhaps I am too cynical, but if you really need to be facing Mecca in order to worship properly, perhaps it’s time for the worshippee to send some new instructions. Let me know when they arrive.
Why does no islamic country have a space program?
Coz the pious scientists were afraid their prayers wouldnt reach their God from outer space. Not for the lack of any other technological capability. But now thanks to the genius Zainol they can start their galactic exploration programs and still send their prayers to the right place.
Recently i had been reading a wonderful book by Muhammad Assad, who was the envoy of Pakistan to the UN.
He states in his book (in chapter ‘midway’ (or something like that) that the Arab astronomers proposed a heliocentric world.
That should settle the confusion.