Sun to help determine accurate Kaaba direction today

Sun to help determine accurate Kaaba direction today

MAKKAH: The holy city will witness on Friday a rare astronomical phenomenon where the sun will be exactly perpendicular above the Kaaba, i.e. the sun will rise by 90 degrees vertically above the House of God.

The shadows will disappear for a slight period. This event will allow people to define the exact direction of the prayer’s direction meticulously, reported Al Arabiya website.

Moulhem bin Mohammed Hindi, astronomy researcher in the Astronomy and Space Sciences department at the King Abdulaziz University, said that the sun passes over the Kaaba twice a year; this year it will perpendicular above it on May 27 and July 15. Tomorrow, this event will coincide with the Friday prayer at the Grand Mosque.

Hindi said “this cosmic phenomenon enables people watching the sun at that exact moment, to determine the precise direction of the Kaaba through the simplest and easiest way. People should look at the sun and thus, they shall be 100 percent heading to the direction of the Qibla.”Sun to help determine accurate Kaaba direction today

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Article by: http://www.arabnews.com

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About The Kaaba

There is no place on Earth as venerated, as central or as holy to as many people as Mecca. By any objective standard, this valley in the Hijaz region of Arabia is the most celebrated place on Earth.
Thousands circle the sacred Kaaba at the center of the Haram sanctuary 24 hours a day. Millions of homes are adorned with pictures of it and over a billion face it five times a day.
The Kaaba is the epicenter of Mecca.
The cube-shaped building is at the heart of the most well-known real estate in the history of mankind; it is shrouded in black and its fair share of mystery.
Here are just a few things that most people may not know about the Kaaba:

1. It’s not supposed to be a cube shape
Yes, ladies and gentleman… the most famous cube in the world actually started out shaped like a rectangle.
I’ll give you a moment to pick your jaws off the floor.
Right, where were we?
Oh yeah, the Kaaba was never meant to be a cube. The original dimensions of The House included the semi-circular area known as the Hijr Ismail.
When the Kaaba was rebuilt just a few years before the Prophet received his first revelation, the Quraish agreed to only use income from pure sources to complete the rebuild. That meant no money from gambling, looting, prostitution, interest etc. In the ultimate sign of how deeply mired in wrongdoing the Jahili Quraish were, there was not enough untainted money in this very wealthy trading city to rebuild the Kaaba to its original size and shape!
They settled for a smaller version of the Kaaba and put a mud brick wall (called “Hijr Ismail” although it has no connection to the Prophet Ismail (A) himself) to indicate the original dimensions. Towards the end of his life, the Prophet intended to rebuild the Kaaba on its original foundations but passed away before he could fulfill his wish. Apart from a brief interlude of a few years during the reign of Caliph Abdullah ibn Zubair, the Kaaba has remained the same shape that the Prophet saw it in.
The history of the Kaaba is not just an interesting story from our past. The Kaaba is a real and present symbol that connects all Muslims together wherever they may be. It also connects us to our glorious and not-so-glorious past so that we may derive lessons and feel that we are a part of an eternal mission. In a day and age where Muslims are increasingly disconnected from our history, as well as each other, the Kabaa reminds us of our shared heritage and bonds. It is a symbol of unity in an Ummah sorely in need of it.

2. It has been reconstructed several times
The Kaaba that we see today is not exactly the same Kaaba that was constructed by Prophets Ibrahim and Ismail From time to time, it has needed rebuilding after natural and man-made disasters.
Of course, we all know of the major reconstruction that took place during the life of the Prophet before he became a Prophet. This is the occasion when the Prophet averted major bloodshed by his quick thinking on how to place the Black Stone using a cloth that every tribe could lift up.
Since then, there has been an average of one major reconstruction every few centuries. The last renovation took place in 1996 and was extremely thorough, leading to the replacement of many of the stones and re-strengthening the foundations and a new roof. This is likely to be the last reconstruction for many centuries (insha’Allah) as modern techniques mean that the building is more secure and stable than ever before.

3. It used to have two doors … and a window
The original Kaaba used to have a door for entrance and another for the exit. For a considerable period of time, it also had a window situated to one side. The current Kaaba only has one door and no window.

4. It used to be multi-colored
We are so used to the Kaaba being covered in the trademark black Kiswah with gold banding that we can’t imagine it being any other color. However, this tradition seems to have started at the time of the Abbasids (whose household color was black) and before this, the Kaaba was covered in multiple colors including green, red and even white.

5. The keys are in the hands of one family
At the time of the Prophet, each aspect to do with the rites of Hajj was in the hands of different sub-groups of the Quraish. Every one of these would eventually lose control of their guardianship of a particular rite except one. On the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet was given the keys to the Kaaba and instead of keeping it in his own possession; he returned them back to the Osman ibn Talha ® of the Bani Shaiba family. They had been the traditional key keepers of the Kaaba for centuries, and the Prophet confirmed them in that role till the end of time by these words

“Take it, O Bani Talha, eternally up to the Day of Resurrection, and it will not be taken from you unless by an unjust, oppressive tyrant.”

Whether Caliph, Sultan or King – the most powerful men in the world have all had to bow to the words of the Prophet and ask permission from this small Makkan family before they can enter the Kaaba.

6. It used to be open to everyone
Until recently, the Kaaba was opened twice a week for anyone to enter and pray. However, due to the rapid expansion in the number of pilgrims and other factors, the Kaaba is now opened only twice a year for dignitaries and exclusive guests only.
Watch the video attached here to witness the doors of the Kaaba being opened (at 50 seconds) – and the simultaneous gasps of a Million people as they cry out at this auspicious moment.

7. You used to be able to swim around it
One of the problems with having the Kaaba situated at the bottom of a valley is that when it rains – valleys tend to flood. This was not an uncommon occurrence in Mecca and the cause of a lot of trouble before the days of flood control systems and sewage. For days on end, the Kaaba would be half submerged in water. Did that stop Muslims from performing the Tawaf? Of course not. As the picture below amply shows – Muslims just started swimming around the Kaaba.
Modern adjustments to the surrounding landscape and flood prevention techniques mean we may never see such sights again. Or will we? Check out this recent video.

8. The inside contains plaques commemorating the rulers who renovated it
For years many have wondered what it looks like inside the Kaaba. Relying on second or third-hand accounts from those who were lucky enough to enter just wasn’t satisfying enough. Then one lucky person who went inside took his camera phone in with him and Millions have seen the shaky footage online.
The interior of the Kaaba is now lined with marble and a green cloth covering the upper walls. Fixed into the walls are plaques each commemorating the refurbishment or rebuilding of the House of Allah by the ruler of the day. Watch the video below of the only place on Earth that you can pray in any direction you want, the House of Allah, the first place of worship for mankind – the Kaaba.

9. There are two kababs!
Directly above the Kaaba in heaven is an exact replica. This Kaaba was mentioned in the Qur’an and by the Prophet.
The Messenger of Allah said narrating about the journey of ‘Isra Wal Miraaj

“Then I was shown Al-Bait-al-Ma’mur (i.e. Allah’s House). I asked Gabriel about it and he said, This is Al Bait-ul-Ma’mur where 70,000 angels perform prayers daily and when they leave they never return to it (but always a fresh batch comes into it daily).”

10. The Black Stone is broken
Ever wondered how the Black Stone came to be in the silver casing that surrounds it?
Some say it was broken by a stone fired by the Umayyad army laying siege to Mecca whilst it was under the control of Abdullah ibn Zubair ®.
However, most agree that it was most damaged in the middle ages by an extreme heretical Ismaili group from Bahrain called the Qarmatians who had declared that the Hajj was an act of superstition. They decided to make their point by killing tens of thousands of hujjaj and dumping their bodies in the well of Zamzam.
As if this act of treachery was not enough, these devils took the Black Stone to the East of Arabia and then Kufa in Iraq where they held it ransom until they were forced to return it by the Abbasid Caliph. When they returned it, it was in pieces and the only way to keep them together was by encasing them in a silver casing. Some historians narrate that there are still some missing pieces of the stone floating around.

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 Article by: muslimmatters

Here I am, Oh God. Here I am.

As I sat outside with a friend in glorious spring weather, squinting against the sun and the tears gathering in my eyes, I knew how true this was. “You are going to keep having this same issue until you resolve it. You are going to keep circling around it,” she informed me. And she was right. Over the years we had been friends, I had raised variations on this same theme with her many times. I was caught in the gravitational pull of this problem. There were many days when I thought about it as I went to sleep, and it was on my mind when I woke up again.
Masjid-al-Haram (Mecca)

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Many of us have that one issue we can’t stop focussing on. Work, relationships, money, status, past hurts, future fears, real or perceived injustices – we fixate on something and come back to it again and again as an old cassette stuck on a loop. And it starts to shape who we are. Mentally circling around something repetitively re-forms our inner self the same way a potter’s hands mold a lump of clay on a constantly-spinning wheel. So when I constantly focus on monetary wealth, when my thoughts are always on my bank balance and financial acquisition for personal gain, it is almost impossible not to become a greedy individual.
The light around which the moth of my soul spirals is both telling and formative. What is at our center matters.

One of the most important rituals of Hajj (the once-in-a-lifetime obligatory pilgrimage in Islam) is the rite of establishing what needs to be at a Muslim’s center. During this stage, Muslims must circumambulate a simple black cube called the Kaaba seven times. Muslims do not believe the Kaaba is God, or that God lives in there. Instead, this basic, empty box – perhaps most notable for its simplicity – is believed to be the first house built to monotheistic worship. Muslims believe Adam built it, and it was later re-built after damage, by the prophets Ibrahim and his son, and then lastly Muhammad. Thus, it is a tangible representation of the human need to worship God and God alone.

The centrifugal force of this world pushes us away from true surrender to God with all the intensity of the Gravitron ride at an amusement park. The spinning pressure flings us outward, and we are caught in a dizzy mess of the unhelpful distractions of life that pull us off our real course. This ritual of Hajj, called tawaf, reminds Muslims that only a life that circles permanently around God makes sense, that the one ethos to which we must return again and again is true love and submission to God.

As is so often the case in Islam, the worship of the body and the soul are closely intertwined. Our body bows down along with our spirit in our prayer (salat), our body taps into our spiritual starvation during our fasting (in Ramadan). And during the tawaf of Hajj, we reconnect with the central truth that our body, mind, and soul need to circle and re-circle. Our feet wear down coiling paths in the ground around the Kaaba, as Muslims have for hundreds and even thousands of years, reflects the more important track work of our souls being ingrained. Anything else we were previously looping around were just the idols of secondary concern.

The tawaf is about realigning ourselves with the gravitational pull of what our inner self needs to be orbiting: true presence with Allah, a focussed consciousness that is so often absent in the giddy spin of normal life. And so it is fitting that as Muslims first approach the Kaaba, the words they are to call to God are Labbayk Allahumma labbayk – “Here I am, Oh God. Here I am.”

Article source www.abc.net.au