Since Allah is everywhere, what is the reason why we turn toward the Kaaba while worshipping?
A Brief Description of the Question:
Since Allah is everywhere, what is the reason why we turn toward the Kaaba while worshipping?
The Answer:
"To Allah belongs the East and the West; whithersoever ye turn, there is Allah's countenance. For Allah is All-Embracing All-Knowing." (al-Baqara, 2/115)
The phrase, "Allah's countenance” is a figurative expression meaning "Allah’s mercy, consent and bounty".
When a person attempts a kind of worshipping or deed in any part of the world, he will find Allah’s grace and mercy there.
The Kaaba does not consist of the stone building only. The Kaaba is like a luminous pole extending from the underground to the sky. The intention of those who turn to the Kaaba is not worshipping the stone but obeying the order of Allah that they worship and turning to the direction that they are ordered because the one that orders us to turn to the direction of the Kaaba when we perform prayers is Allah.
Interpreters agree on the fact that the deeds of Allah cannot be attributed to a certain reason but they also argue about the existence of a certain qiblah and some wisdoms behind the change of the qiblah.
The most important wisdom about determining a certain qiblah is regarded to be the realization of the unity and harmony among Muslims. Accordingly, Allah determined a certain direction and ordered the believers to turn to that direction in order to rule out the delusion that there is a conflict among Muslims, and to enable them to worship in unity and harmony. The fact that Bayt al-Maqdis (Masjid al-Aqsa) was chosen as the qiblah in Makkah was based on the wisdom of discriminating believers from polytheists and the fact that the direction of the Kaaba was changed as it is stated in the following verse: "and We appointed the Qiblah to which thou wast used, only to test those who followed the Messenger from those who would turn on their heels (from the faith). " (al-Baqara, 2/143) was based on the wisdom of discriminating believers from Jews.
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