The Problem of the Return to
the First Qibla
Muslims generally regard Palestine’s present problem as concerning the return to the first qibla. They point out that when Prophet Muhammad built a mosque in Madinah and laid down that five prayers had to be ritually recited in it, he followed the Jewish tradition in making al-Masjid al-Aqsa his qibla for a period of sixteen months.
However, this is a misunderstanding. When Muslims migrated to Madinah, they worshipped at the direction of the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra), the Jewish qibla, and not at the direction of Al-Masjid al-Aqsa.
At the end of these sixteen months, the Quran revealed the command to change the qibla. So, the Prophet adopted the Kabah as the permanent qibla by God’s command. Referring to this incident, Muslims claim that the problem of Palestine is one of the return to the first qibla. Thus, they point out that this problem is not a national but a religious issue for Muslims. This concept is based entirely on a misunderstanding. The first qibla has nothing to do with al-Masjid al-Aqsa. The name al-Masjid al-Aqsa in the following verse of the Quran has not been cited in the sense of a particular mosque.
‘Holy is He who took His servant by night from the sacred place of worship [at Makkah] to the remote house of worship [at Jerusalem]—the precincts of which We have blessed.’ (17:1 )
The above verse means a place of worship situated at a distance. It is called the farthest place of worship because it is located at a distance of 765 miles from Makkah. In this context, Al-Masjid al-Aqsa refers to the Jewish place of worship, the Haykal Synagogue.
This Jewish synagogue, built by Solomon in 957 BC, was razed to the ground in 586 BC by the king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar II. After a long period, the Jews rebuilt their place of worship. This was again reduced to ruins in AD 70 by the Romans. At present, only one wall of the building is left. This is called the ‘wailing wall’ or the ‘western wall.’ At the time of the revelation of the Quran, there was no building; it was only a vacant site. In AD 638, in the time of the second caliph, Umar Farooq, the Muslims entered Jerusalem. Caliph Umar did not have any structure erected on this site. During the Umayyad rule, Caliph Abdul Malik bin Marwan (d. 705) had the present al-Masjid al-Aqsa built in AD 688.
Another building on the campus of al-Masjid al-Aqsa is called the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra). The sacred rock of the Jews has been situated there since ancient times. Caliph Abdul Malik ibn Marwan built the dome on this sacred rock in AD 688. It was this sacred rock or Dome of the Rock, the qibla of the Jews, which was made the Muslim qibla temporarily by Prophet Muhammad after he emigrated to Madinah. This Dome of the Rock is known as al-Quds, and, by extension, this entire area of Jerusalem is called al-Quds.
Muslims regard al-Masjid al-Aqsa as the first qibla, and it has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle. But the mosque has nothing to do with the first qibla. If there is any first qibla, it is the Dome of the Rock rather than al-Masjid al-Aqsa. Furthermore, when Prophet Muhammad was in Makkah, he used to say his prayers in the direction of the Kabah. After his emigration, for about sixteen months, he said his prayers in the direction of the Dome of the Rock. Afterwards, obeying God’s command, he again started praying toward the Kabah. In this respect, the Dome of the Rock is the middle qibla, not the first.
In light of this, the expression ‘return to the first qibla’ is meaningless. If this supposed return is attributed to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, it should be noted that it never was the qibla of Prophet Muhammad. At the time of the Hijrah (AD 622), there was only a vacant site on which a Jewish synagogue had previously stood. There was no mosque in existence at the time of the Prophet. As far as the Dome of the Rock is concerned, there is no question of its return. It was the Jewish qibla earlier, and it is the Jewish qibla today. The demand for the return of the Dome of the Rock is as invalid as the demand (if there is any such demand) of the polytheists to return the Kabah to them, as at one time, it housed their deities.
