The ruling on one who prays in a direction other than the qiblah and then learns the correct direction
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. I did not know the direction of the qiblah, so I prayed. After the prayer, I realized that my prayer was not facing the qiblah. Do I have to repeat the prayer, or what should I do?
The Shaykh:
If you are in a town or have people with you who know the qiblah and you did not ask them, you must repeat the prayer. However, if you are in the desert and have no one to ask about the qiblah, and you did your best to determine it, your prayer is valid. Allah the Exalted said:[At-Taghabun 64:16]. Yes.
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh.
The Shaykh:
Salim prays in a town, or has people with him who know the qiblah, and he did not ask them, or he prayed without making an effort to determine the direction. In this case, he must repeat the prayer, because he was negligent and careless. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. I did not know the direction of the qiblah, so I prayed. After the prayer, I realized that my prayer was not facing the qiblah. Do I have to repeat the prayer, or what should I do?
The Shaykh:
If you are in a town or have people with you who know the qiblah and you did not ask them, you must repeat the prayer. However, if you are in the desert and have no one to ask about the qiblah, and you did your best to determine it, your prayer is valid. Allah the Exalted said:
So fear Allah as much as you are able
فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ مَا اسْتَطَعْتُمْThe questioner:
Honorable Shaykh.
The Shaykh:
Salim prays in a town, or has people with him who know the qiblah, and he did not ask them, or he prayed without making an effort to determine the direction. In this case, he must repeat the prayer, because he was negligent and careless. Yes.
Source
الفوزان -أشرطة- شرح زاد المستقنع مع الأسئلة - 010-كتاب الصلاة -1- 2-11-20 هـ — archive.org (1:18:58)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.