Recordings › A Reply to Dan Gibson: "Why The Early Qiblas Faced Petra?" | Mufti Abu Layth · 17 Dec 2019 › Segment 6 of 6
Why did the earliest mosques face Petra instead of Makkah?
kiblah kibla direction of prayer muftis dalil daleel adillah adilla proof sahabah sahaba sahabi sahabiyyah sahabiyat tabi'un tabi'in tabieen tabi'i mecca makka mekkaRight for the wrong reasons: Muslims inherited Nabataean sites aligned to Petra; Makkah as Umm al-Qura
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This segment18:21 to 21:52 · 3 min 31 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenMost likely, he says, because Muslims inherited Nabataean devotion sites already aligned to Petra's constellation, so Gibson is right about the measurements but wrong that Petra was Makkah. Makkah was called Umm al-Qura, he suggests, after Petra's name, brought by Qusayy.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth sets out his current understanding, which he says he may revise: Nabataean devotion sites already aligned to Petra's constellation would point towards Petra; the Nabataeans were pre-Islamic Shami Arabs whose empire had long dissolved when Muslims arrived, so Muslims most likely inherited and took over their sites; and since Sham lies just above the Hijaz, the Companions and their successors may have thought the direction good enough. This, he says, answers how Muslims as far away as China knew the qiblah without a compass: they inherited the sites. So Gibson may be right that the early foundations pointed to Petra, but for the wrong reasons: not because Petra was Makkah, but because these sites had been set up centuries earlier on constellation knowledge. He says he has not come across any meaningful answer to Gibson and feels this account makes everything fall into place, including why a small town like Makkah was called Umm al-Qura: Qusayy, coming from Petra, which bore that name, gave it to his new seat. He concludes that Gibson and Crone are right about the evidence but wrong in their conclusions, while admitting he does not know a great deal and is still looking into it.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the early mosque foundations that point to Petra were most likely Nabataean devotion sites aligned to Petra's constellation that Muslims inherited, so that Dan Gibson may be right about the foundations but for the wrong reasons, not because Petra was Makkah.
“I feel that they inherited the sites from the Nabataeans and so what's happened is the early foundations were maybe pointing towards Petra”
Category: historical claim
Kind: general teachingTranscript
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feel Petra was similar and it is aligned to constellations so it may have been that because the Empire had a mercantile people people that have trade that were going around that they traveled china they traveled to india they went to different places because they were trade specialists right now it may have been that they had set up certain devotion site certain temples in line with the constellation that petra is aligned to so therefore they had these devotion sites already set up to that constellation so it would be pointing
towards petra it would kind of be aligned in that way this is what I am currently understanding I'm reading up a lot of things and this is what I feel may have happened at this stage I mean I may review my this theory in time to come but if I find more information and I feel that because the Nabataeans were also Arabs they were Arabs pre-islamic Shami Arabs that when Muslims reached those places the Nabataean Empire had kind of long dissolved and dissipated so because they were Arabs and these people
were prior Arabs most likely they just inherited their sites and took him over and because they were already aligned to Petra which was sham and all companions and Taba a new way sham was it was right just above the hedges which is where my plays so they may have just thought yeah that's good enough sham let's just point it from here because one of the questions was how did Muslims know which way Qibla was because the compass did not exist so you have to understand that especially from China how did they know
which way the tickler was I feel that they inherited the sites from the Nabataeans and so what's happened is the early foundations were maybe pointing towards Petra but so people like dan gibson maybe right but for the wrong reasons it's not because Petra was my car but I feel it may have been because these devotion sites were close enough and they may have been set up centuries before based on the knowledge of the constellations that Petra is aligned to
so that's my kind of current theory so I feel that I you know to be honest I've not really come across anybody providing any meaningful answer to what Dan Gibson has said and I feel that this actually is I mean I I feel it's the truth and I feel it's actually like wow everything then starts to fall into place like you start to see that mmm that makes actually a lot of sense and if you see make sense because one of the questions is why did they used to call maka whole aura when it's not really it was only a
small to a small town it would make sense if Jose had called it an aura because Jose came from Petra which was called Amara so the mother of settlements and now that this was his new kingdom he was set to establish it that this is now the mother of settlements so it just seems to all fall into place I don't know a lot while I'm still looking for it so yes I do ensure I do feel that a lot of these people are right but for the wrong reasons so I feel that Dan Gibson is kind of right
maybe just as Patricia Crone I feel she's right I feel these people are right but for the wrong reasons that's all so yeah people I think with that
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2019-12-17-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/-jytkj9z1cw/s/6/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, December 17). Why did the earliest mosques face Petra instead of Makkah? [Video, segment 2019-12-17-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/-jytkj9z1cw/s/6/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "Why did the earliest mosques face Petra instead of Makkah?" Video, segment 2019-12-17-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded December 17, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/-jytkj9z1cw/s/6/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-12-17-S06, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why did the earliest mosques face Petra instead of Makkah?}}, year = {2019}, month = {12}, date = {2019-12-17}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/-jytkj9z1cw/s/6/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/-jytkj9z1cw/s/6/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2019-12-17-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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