DO MUSLIMS WORSHIP THE KAABA?
”And what, stripped of its religious and fanatical imagination, do these hundreds of millions of bowed heads (Muslims in prayer) visualize? An old house (Kaaba) crumbling into rubble. A black stone which occasionally reflects red streaks.”—Peason’s Weekly.
” It is no virtue that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, but virtue is this that you should have faith in God… and spend your wealth for His love on the near of kin, the orphans, the needy, the wayfarers, the beggars and the emancipation of slaves...”
The Quran, Al-Baqara (The Cow) 2:177
لَّيْسَ الْبِرَّ أَن تُوَلُّواْ وُجُوهَكُمْ قِبَلَ الْمَشْرِقِ وَالْمَغْرِبِ وَلَـكِنَّ الْبِرَّ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَالْمَلآئِكَةِ وَالْكِتَابِ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ وَآتَى الْمَالَ عَلَى حُبِّهِ ذَوِي الْقُرْبَى وَالْيَتَامَى وَالْمَسَاكِينَ وَابْنَ السَّبِيلِ وَالسَّآئِلِينَ وَفِي الرِّقَابِ وَأَقَامَ الصَّلاةَ وَآتَى الزَّكَاةَ وَالْمُوفُونَ بِعَهْدِهِمْ إِذَا عَاهَدُواْ وَالصَّابِرِينَ فِي الْبَأْسَاء والضَّرَّاء وَحِينَ الْبَأْسِ أُولَـئِكَ الَّذِينَ صَدَقُوا وَأُولَـئِكَ هُمُ الْمُتَّقُونَ
The allegation that the Musalmans worship the Kaaba is the greatest compliment that could be paid to the uncompromising iconoclastic attitude of Islam. It only shows that Islam has so thoroughly obliterated every vestige of polytheism that a critic, out to fish out some such weak spot in it, can find nothing firmer to stand upon.Islam is the one religion which has taken every possible precaution against the polytheistic tendency of the human nature. Divine unity is the repeated burden of its teachings and lest in their hero-worshipping zeal, the Musalmans should raise their Prophet to the pedestal of Divinity as done by followers of other faiths before, it was made an integral part of the very Kalima, the formula of faith, that the Prophet ﷺ was but an apostle of God. In the Quran the Prophetﷺ is made to proclaim: ”Surely, I am but a man like unto you.” To say of such a faith that it teaches the worship of a room of brick and mortar is either the height of ignorance or prejudice.
The Quranic verse quoted at the top should once for all nail this fib to the counter. It tells us that facing a particular direction, as such is not even an act of common virtue, much less of worship, as the writer of the Pearson’s Weekly insinuates. That a Musalman should ”visualize” a particular room and a particular stone while standing to prayer is absurd on the face of it. The Prophet’s personality occupies with him a sanctity only next to God. Even of him he does not form any mental picture in prayer. For, that would mean associating him with Divinity in some way. How could he associate a house or a stone with God in his worship? History still preserves the memorable words of Umar, the second Caliph in which he, pointing to the Black Stone, said “it was no more than just a stone”.
For the information of the Pearson’s Weekly, I may mention the exact words which every Muslim from China to Peru utters when he stands up to prayer: —
”I turn my face towards Him who created the heavens and the earth, standing upright and I am not of the polytheists.”
إِنِّي وَجَّهْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّذِي فَطَرَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ حَنِيفًا وَمَا أَنَاْ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
As if to forestall this objection of Kaaba-worship, a Muslim has been taught to proclaim that his facing the Kaaba must not be misunderstood; for the face of his soul is turned towards God. The Kaaba is nowhere in his thoughts.
The assumption in this allegation, seems to be that according to the Musalmans the Kaaba is the house of God in the sense in which each one of us has a house. From this it follows that God must be residing there and hence the facing in that direction. Nothing could be further from the Islamic conception of God. The Quran describes Him as —
”He pervades the heavens and the earth ”; ” whithersoever you turn, there shall you find the face of God.”
وَلِلّهِ الْمَشْرِقُ وَالْمَغْرِبُ فَأَيْنَمَا تُوَلُّواْ فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللّهِ إِنَّ اللّهَ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
(Al-Baqara (The Cow) 2:115)
So God is not localised to a particular house. Even at a time when the Kaaba was in the hands of polytheists and contained 360 idols, the Muslims turned their faces towards it in their prayers. If they were to worship the denizens of the Kaaba, as is presumed, they should have waited till it had been cleared of the idols; for no Muslim could worship an idol. The fact, however, is that the Kaaba has never been looked upon as the residence of God.The Kaaba is no doubt known as the house of God but not in the human sense of residing therein. It means the house for the worship of God. There is only one peculiarity which it enjoys and for which it has been chosen for the converging point of all Muslims. It was the first house built for the worship of one God and hence if facing towards it carries any significance it is its emphasis on the Unity of God for which the Kaaba stands as a monument. What was meant to emphasize the pure Unity of Godhead, has by a strange perversity, been converted into a charge of polytheism against Islam! The Quran, however, has not been content with any general refutation of such a false impression that was likely to arise. It has put it down in so many words:
“Let them worship the God of this house”. Quraish (Quraish) 106:3
فَلْيَعْبُدُوا رَبَّ هَذَا الْبَيْتِ
In other words, not the Kaaba but the One True God for whom the Kaaba stands as an ancient memorial is to be worshipped. It must further be remembered that it is not always essential to face towards the Kaaba. There are circumstances when one may not. For instance, a man on his sick-bed may keep his face any way, so a man on a conveyance—a train. a boat, a car, an aeroplane or an animal. If Kaaba were really an object of worship, no prayers should have been possible without keeping it before one’s face as the idol-worshippers keep their idols before them.
The fact, however, remains that as a rule a Muslim must face towards the Kaaba when saying his prescribed prayers. Why this insistence on it? When is God not localized to any particular place and He is everywhere, why not allow perfect freedom of choice to face whithersoever one may like? What is the good underlying this rigid uniformity all over the World of Islam? The significance, underlying the Kaaba-facing is two-fold. In the first place, as already said, it is a monument to the unity of God handed down from time immemorial and in order to emphasize this fact, it has been fitly chosen as the centre of Islam. And secondly, it is intended to serve as a centre for the unity of all Musalmans. All Muslims facing one way obviously inculcates a sense of oneness in their minds and its nation-building value is thus obvious. This, significance of Kaaba is further emphasized by a saying of the Holy Prophet ﷺ: “Do not call men of your Qibla as Kafirs ”. The idea thus is that a common centre should create a feeling of community among the Muslims. The fate of the foregoing faiths was before the Prophetﷺ. Split into sects and schisms, they presented the appearance of a house divided against itself. To save Islam from such a doom the Prophet ﷺ laid down that anyone who should just face towards the Kaaba, while in prayer, must be regarded as a Muslim.
This is the profound national significance underlying the Kaaba which uncharitable criticism has distorted into Kaaba-worship on the part of Muslims!
(M.Y.K)
THE LIGHT – MARCH 24, 1934
