Praying Not Facing The Qiblah

**Razor** · 26th November 2011

An adult muslim of sound mind and health prays an obligatory prayer NOT facing the qiblah on purpose out of his own choice. He has not forgotten the direction and he faces a direction other than what he believes to be the qiblah. His prayer is accepted.

How?

**cBox** · 26th November 2011

Is this a riddle?

**Razor** · 26th November 2011

Too many muslims are very simple minded and can not see beyond the "halal-haram". This is a riddle in which you need a certain degree of knowledge of the shariah but also imagination and deep thinking in which you would formulate a scenario in which the above criteria would be met.

Time to flex those cerebral muscles!

**cBox** · 26th November 2011

Uuhm... use mirrors maybe?

**Bint Mahmood** · 27th November 2011

Care to "enlighten" us?

**akhook** · 27th November 2011

It's a fiqh riddle. The man is praying inside the kaabah facing Jerusalem, Jerusalem is not the Qiblah but when you pray inside the kaabah you are to face Jerusalem according to the scholars.

**Razor** · 27th November 2011

IF you pray inside the kabah, are you not kind of facing the kabah because you are facing one of the walls?

Anyway, imagine this: two men on a journey and prayer time comes. They do not know which way the kabah is and no-one to ask. They make ijtihaad. One says "It's to our left" and the other says "No, it's to our right". They fall into dispute. We can have one of 3 scenarios from here:

1) They both pray individually facing their own directions.

2) They pray in jama'ah but with the imam facing left and ma'mum facing right! A crazy case and probably a riddle in itself.

3) The ma'mum gives in and prays in the direction of the imam. He believes it to be the wrong direction as he believes that his imam's ijtihaad is wrong. His prayer is correct as it is in following with the imam. The imam believes his own prayer to be correct.

We can compare this to a similar case. Firstly, it is not permissible to pray behind an imam who is not in wudu. This is well known. However, what if they both have eaten camel meat and the imam is of the opinion that it does not break the wudu but the ma'mum says that it does break the wudu. The ma'mum would be praying behind an imam whom he believes that his (imam's) prayer is not correct as the imam needs to redo his wudu. The prayer of the ma'mum is correct as it is in following with the imam's prayer which is correct as far as the imam is concerned.

Well, I hope I did not confuse anyone with that!