Text copied Link copied

Al-Fatawa – home

﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

Scholar
Search mode

What is the ruling on determining the qiblah using the modern compass that has numbers indicating the number of each country or region, by which the qiblah is determined?

Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : What is the ruling on determining the qiblah using the modern compass that has numbers indicating the number of each country or region, by which the qiblah is determined?

The Shaykh : This means... of course, it is permissible to rely on it. It is a precise scientific instrument for determining the four directions first, and then they performed precise calculations that enabled Muslims to know the qiblah from any country in the world. Of course, this is a determination as close to reality as possible, not a determination that hits the exact eye of the Ka'bah. And if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
What is between the east and the west is Qiblah. ما بين المشرق والمغرب قبلة
Jami` at-Tirmidhi 342Sahih (Darussalam)
then in that is a concession for those absent from the eye of the Ka'bah, and there is no greater concession than that. So this compass brings the determination of the Ka'bah close to what is almost as if one is seeing it, though it is not so. Therefore, I see that relying on it is one of the scientific means.
Recently, I was here gifted a new device for determining the qiblah, but I found that despite its precision, it is not suitable. Therefore, I want to add to the previous point about the validity of relying on the compass that modern devices may be produced as means to determine the qiblah; one should not rely on them until they have been tested multiple times until their indication is like the indication of the compass that has been in use for many years and does not deviate or contradict. This is all I have.
Source www.al-albany.com

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

Similar fatwas