No Solstices or Equinoxes, just a ‘Kamal’ wooden block - Qibla Controversy EP.5

King continues his attacks against these earlier 7th-8th century
‘misdirected’ Arabs stating that their misdirected Qiblas were not
facing Mecca because they were simply following Solstice and Equinox
lines (the solstice are the longest and shortest days, while the equinox
are the two days in the year when the time was equal).
Why they needed those directions to position their Qiblas, when all of
the earlier Arabs traveled to Mecca all the time for the pilgrimage (so
we are told by the earliest traditions), he doesn’t explain.
What’s more, the Qur’an says, concerning the Qibla in Surah 2:149, “turn
your face in the direction of Al-Masjid Al-Haram”. That’s very specific.
Nowhere in this verse on the Qibla does it mention Equinox or solstice
lines.
King gets this information concerning the usage of Equinox and Solstice
directions from an 11th century scholar named Al-Bazdawi (1030-1100 AD),
who lived in the city of Samarkand (a famous silk route trading city,
located in present day Uzbekistan). King studied al-Bazdawi and wrote a
paper on him; thus, the reason he likes to quote him. Yet, this scholar
lived hundreds of miles away and hundreds of years later, suggesting
that his assertions are nothing more than mere guesses, and nothing
more.
King then claims that the more accurate Qiblas were those of the later
Arabs from the 9th - 11th centuries, because they used mathematics. But
is he correct? Let’s look and see:
The earliest Petran Qiblas have a 2.9% of accuracy, or just 1.9% of
accuracy if you take out the 2 worst examples, so that 18 of the 20
Petran Qiblas have only a 1.9% accuracy. Yet, these 18 Qiblas include
mosques as far away as Guangzhou in China, and Methala in Kerala India,
thousands of miles away. The ‘In-Between’ mosques have a mere .98%
accuracy, which is less than 1 degree! The ‘Parallel’ mosques, situated
in Northern Africa and Spain have a 3.5% accuracy, while the Meccan
mosques had an average of 4.78% accuracy! Their degree of accuracy was
the worst of the four! This proves that King was completely wrong.
So, why were these earlier Arab’s Qiblas so accurate? They were the
great Nabatean traders, the only traders capable of crossing the great
deserts of their day, all the way to China. And the reason?
In these earlier centuries there were no roads across these deserts, nor
were there good objects to follow one’s directions by (i.e. mountains or
large rock outcroppings). They only had shifting sands. Therefore, the
Nabateans used the stars to guide them.
Everywhere they went, they built temples which faced back to Petra,
their holy city, to pray towards it, and it was these temples which then
became mosques (note: the name for the mosque in the Qur’an is ‘Masjid
al Haram’, which means the forbidden place to bow down for prayer). What
did they use to find their way?
To go north and south, they used the ‘Kamal’, a rectangular block of
wood with a knotted string running through it, one end held in their
teeth, and the other pulled away from themselves until the bottom edge
touched the horizon, and the upper edge touched the northern star, which
always remained constant. They would count the number of knots which
would tell them exactly how far they needed to go north or south.
In order to not confuse the numbers they were counting, they would
recite poetry using tunes which they would chant to the beat of their
steps, knowing how many times a particular piece of poetry needed to be
repeated between each of the knots in the string. That way they never
lost count. Thus, poetry was hugely important to them, as it often saved
their lives, and is equally important even today.
To know where to go east and west they designated 32 stars which were
used on a compass. This way they knew when they needed to go east and
west from their location, in relation to the North Star.
For instance, they walked a designated number of cadences of poetry
towards the star ‘Al Naka’ in a north western direction, and then turn
towards another star, ‘Al Tir’, in an eastern direction, and so on… If
they got the number of cadences incorrect, they would miss their oasis,
and would die of thirst. This explains why they were so accurate with
their directions; it was a matter of survival.
Once roads were introduced, allowing the traders to go around the
deserts, and once maritime travel became more important, the later 9th -
11th century Arabs no longer needed the stars or any poetry to find
their directions, and that is why they turned to mathematics, a
seemingly less sophisticated and less accurate form of direction
analysis.
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[@gerrygwag]

Even before Ol' Moe people were very good at measuring. The Arabs having access to Indian, Persian, Greek and Roman books had the knowledge to make accurate measurements. As I understand it, they used the stars and mathematics to navigate the desert, a region kind of shy of stationary landmarks.

[@gerrygwag]

Also, today we still use stars for navigation but we designate 58 stars.

[@jeandevalette5483]

@born again exactly like that, either you just arrived at the next well or you were dead.

[@jamalkhan3708]

God bless you brother Al Fadi and Jay Smith❤️

[@Sp0tthed0gt]

So Arab poetry is like English sea shanties- originally for a serious purpose, now for nostalgia.

[@AMKB01]

Excellent video. Just a minor quibble; the North Star is at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, not the Big Dipper. The stars of the Little Dipper are not always visible, but you can use the Big Dipper to find the North Star, by extending an imaginary line created by the two stars at the end of the Big Dipper, which lead directly to the North Star.

[@SS-qo3nt]

Beautiful!

[@dareal575]

God Bless

[@geoffreybslater1146]

Guys; The mathematics to set the correct direction was known in Babylon etc. Not to mention the Greeks, Romans.

[@owl6218]

wow! the phrase 'ship of the desert' is now completely apt

[@moubinemoubine3277]

10.36 The north star although fixed, is not the brightest of the sky. Sirius is the brightest. The method was known for many cultures and navigators to determine latitudes (not with the reference frame of today). The longitude is far more complicated to guess

[@sarahnicholas7973]

Could the qubla direction be dictated by algebra?

[@salmonplayer6669]

Does this mean that Islam and Quran were actually from the 6th century?

[@sumayabetty2296]

Islam existed before Muhammad was born

[@telltruthfollowtruth6404]

Only my pray to living LORD GOD JESUS is: 'JESUS kindly open the inner eyes of all muslim brothers and sisters as you opened our (Br. Al Fadhi, rest ex-muslims and mine), let them too know WHO YOU are JESUS. Ex-muslim.

[@victorrodrigues5448]

@If Jesus Claimed to be God Why was he crucified, let me see if I got this clearly: the difference between you (whatever 'you' may be) and the hypocrites (whatever that may mean) is the fact that some drink some kind of water and others don't? The difference between 'sincere' (the opposite of hypocrite) people and 'non-sincere' people is the... water??? Wow, what a revelation!!!

[@victorrodrigues5448]

@If Jesus Claimed to be God Why was he crucified, there are wells of water in thousands and thousands of places in the whole world, thanks to God. Why should a specific well of water be better than thousands and thousands of others? Only because the fake prophet didn't know that there are thousands and thousands of wells of water in the world? Only because in his limited knowledge the zamzam well was one of the few he knew in the desert? And moreover, what 'divine quality' zammzam water had to have for being the delimiting mark between some kind of people and other kind of people? What kind of silly questioning is this? I'll tell you. The silly fake prophet of islam - and his followers - had nothing truly serious to give to the world (and to themselves, and to others), so they discussed upon nothings, giving too much importance to their poor sources of wealth, and convincing themselves that they were better than... whatever. Even the best! The best of nullities...

[@Endtime-dh9lk]

@If Jesus Claimed to be God Why was he crucified *After Muhammad at Mubahala brought down the curse of God on those who are on the side of falsehood, the following happened. Within a year his 18-month-old son, himself and his daughter Fatima died* kzbin.info/www/bejne/a33PdH58oKqpeKc

[@Endtime-dh9lk]

@Elisha Thanks for the sub. Do you happen to remember the title of that video? God bless you too my brother.

[@jeandevalette5483]

@@victorrodrigues5448 Great answer.

[@ordinary_deepfake]

I don't understand is this true or just a theory

[@Ghredle]

How come Dr Jay is not using a Mac? 🤪

[@majdhamdi3330]

I watched up to 5 episodes hoping for a serious analysis of this debate but am very disappointed in the superficial level of discussion, the subtle evangelical bias and the inaccuracies throughout these videos. It's a very interesting subject that deserves better...

[@derrengui]

I advise you to go to Spain and analyse where the mosques of that time are facing, none of them face Mecca

[@Godssboy]

Hey Majid, it would help if you came up with what the real issues should be and what the inconsistencies in their submissions are. Contrary to your view, many of us find these videos very helpful as they address fundamental issues in Islam and confront "theories" that had been believed (without investigation) for many centuries.

[@user-yz1dl3eu8l]

8:38 Nabateans never went to China, fame went."The fame of the Nabataean kingdom spread as far as Han-dynasty China , where Petra was known as Li-kan."

[@mohammedahamed5978]

For ur info When that mosque in china was built there was Tang Dynasty 618 BC🙄

[@sainteleora6069]

Third!

[@mitchpeter5718]

Second

[@DasCollective2.0]

It's flat