Sirah
The Turning of the Qibla
The prayer direction shifts from Jerusalem to Makkah, Madinah, 2 AH
2 AH / 624 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
The mosque later known as Masjid al-Qiblatayn, northern Madinah
24.4843, 39.5786 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
For roughly the first sixteen or seventeen months after the Hijrah, the Muslim community at Madinah prayed facing Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem). In the second year after the Hijrah, 624 CE, the qibla, the direction of prayer, was changed to the Ka'ba at Makkah by Qur'anic revelation: 'We have seen the turning of your face toward heaven; so We shall surely turn you to a qibla that will please you. So turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque; and wherever you are, turn your faces toward it' (al-Baqara, Q 2:144; the surrounding passage runs Q 2:142-150). The Sunni hadith collections record that the command reached a congregation while they were already in prayer, and the ranks turned from the northern direction to the southern in mid-prayer (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). One Madinan mosque preserved the memory of the event in its very name, Masjid al-Qiblatayn, 'the mosque of the two qiblas', because the prayer there turned within the building from Jerusalem to Makkah; for centuries the building kept two prayer-niches, one in each direction, until a modern rebuilding removed the northern one. The change of qibla is treated in the tradition as a defining assertion of the community's distinct identity and its orientation toward the sanctuary of Ibrahim (peace be upon him), and the Qur'an frames it as a trial distinguishing those who followed the Messenger from those who turned on their heels (Q 2:143). This scene depicts the moment within the plain early mosque: the two marked directions and the congregation wheeling about. In keeping with the strictest visual ethics, no individual is identifiable and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is not depicted.
What you see
A small early Madinan prayer-hall of mud-brick walls and a flat roof carried on rough palm-trunk pillars, a plain congregational space of the first Islamic decade, not a monumental mosque with stone arcades or minarets.
Two prayer-directions are marked in the one building: a niche or marked wall toward the north (toward Jerusalem) and another toward the south (toward Makkah). The single hall facing two ways is the defining feature.
The ranks of worshippers are caught mid-prayer in the act of turning: the front of the congregation pivoting from the northern wall to the southern, the whole body of rows wheeling about within the hall.
Mud-brick houses and date-palm gardens of the oasis surround the mosque on the northern edge of Madinah, the settled agricultural town, not open desert.
The subject is a change of orientation, given architectural form: a single mosque remembered as 'the mosque of the two qiblas' because the prayer turned within it from one sacred direction to the other.
The change answers the Qur'anic command revealed at Madinah: 'So turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque; and wherever you are, turn your faces toward it' (al-Baqara, Q 2:144).
The dating is the second year after the Hijrah, 624 CE, the sources place the change of qibla about midway through that year, shortly before the fighting at Badr.
Primary sources
The Qur'an, al-Baqara (Q 2:142-150): The revelation commanding the change of qibla toward the Sacred Mosque. The foundational text; cited inline.
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim (3rd c. AH): The canonical narrations that the command reached worshippers mid-prayer and that they turned in their ranks (e.g. Sahih al-Bukhari 403, 4486-4494; Sahih Muslim 525-527). The basis for the depicted moment.
al-Tabari, Jami' al-Bayan (tafsir) and Tarikh (10th c.): The standard Sunni exposition of the qibla verses and the placement of the change in the second year after the Hijrah, shortly before Badr.
Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Azim (14th c.): Sunni interpretive consensus on the passage and the duration (~16-17 months) of prayer toward Jerusalem.
Further reading & cross-references
al-Samhudi, Wafa' al-Wafa bi-Akhbar Dar al-Mustafa (15th c.): The standard Sunni topography of Madinah; used for the identification and history of Masjid al-Qiblatayn and its two niches.
Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, al-Rahiq al-Makhtum (20th c.): Modern Sunni synthesis for the clean chronology placing the change in mid-2 AH.
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