Quran Garden

Session 423

Chapter 3

Verse 96

The first House of worship to be established for humankind was the one at Bacca.  It is a blessed place and a source of guidance for the whole world.  (Chapter 3: Verse 96)

Abraham, peace be upon him, was the first prophet associated with the Sacred House.  He raised the foundations of the Ka'aba after it was ruined by the flood of Noah, peace be upon them. 

In the previous verse, Allah invited all the believers to look at their shared heritage in faith.  More specifically, Allah addressed the Jews and Christians who had distorted the Torah and the Gospel and asked them to return to the religion of Abraham, the religion of monotheism.  It is the same message of our beloved Muhammad and the Noble Quran:  there is no God but God. 

Faith and values are centered in the heart, and that's where Abraham's convictions resided.  But that is not enough; faith has to be reflected in physical actions to implement God's teachings.  Just as Allah directed your heart to share the faith of Abraham and Muhammad in verse 95, He also directs your body towards a shared destination, Qibla.  He says:

The first House of worship to be established for humankind was the one at Bacca.  It is a blessed place and a source of guidance for the whole world.  (Chapter 3: Verse 96)

Now, when you pray, your heart is tuned to the presence of the Lord, and your body is turned towards His Sacred House.  In other words, your entire being is one with its Creator. 

Moreover, you are now united with every believer on earth.  Your heart shares the faith of all the believers since the time of Adam, and your body turns to the same destination as Adam.  In this manner, you are in the perfect state to receive God's grants, mercy, and blessings. 

All heavenly religions before Islam required a designated place for prayers, such as a church.  In other words, meeting with God in prayer could not be achieved outside places of worship, such as churches and synagogues.  Allah blessed the Muslims by making the entire earth a place of worship.  Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, "I have been given five things which were not given to anyone else before me.  Allah made me victorious by fear after a march of one month.   The entire earth was made a place for prayer and its soil pure, so any of you can pray wherever you are.  The spoils of war are lawful for me, and they were not for anyone else before me.  I have been given the right of intercession on the Day of Resurrection.  Every prophet before me was sent to his nation, but I was sent to all humankind." 

Now, every place where God is worshiped in Islam is considered a mosque.  Even the soil of the earth is pure, so if you cannot find clean water for the wudu ablution, you can use the soil and dust as means for -purification in tayammum.  Adam was created from clay, a mix of water and soil; thus, Allah made water and soil as means to purify yourself and return to your original untainted state.  Why all this ease, you may ask?  We answer that God wants every Muslim to meet Him effortlessly, at any place and time, regardless of the circumstances.  What a great blessing and honor!

But there is a difference between a random place where you worship God and a mosque dedicated to worship.  For example, you may pray at your place of work, whether in an office or a factory, and then get back to your work.  You may pray in your classroom and then resume studying.  But when a place is dedicated as a mosque, you are prohibited from engaging in any other activity besides worship.  A mosque is not a place for business or gossip: it is a place of prayer.  A business transaction that takes place inside the mosque will not be blessed. 

A man who lost his camel entered the mosque of our beloved Prophet and loudly said, "Has anyone seen my red camel?" Prophet Muhammad replied, "May you never find it!  This is not what mosques are built for." 

Isn't it enough that you spend twenty-three hours of your day busy with worldly affairs?  Shouldn't you devote just an hour to God alone?  I advise you to leave all worldly worries at the door of the mosque just as you leave your shoes there.  It is not good manners that you occupy your heart with something other than God at the time of prayers.  In fact, it is of the etiquette of worship to avoid speaking to others in the mosque - even greeting them with "Salam."

I will let you in on a little secret to maximize your reward every time you visit a masjid.  As you enter the mosque, make an intention to observe the I'tikaaf seclusion.  As long as you follow the rules of I'tikaaf, you will earn the reward of your prayers plus the reward of I'tikaaf, even if you only spend ten minutes inside the mosque. 

Allah gave us the freedom to construct mosques wherever we like.  But all the mosques on the planet, chosen by people, have to face the one mosque chosen by God, the Sacred Haram; It is the Qibla that all mosques face. 

Some people question why a Qibla is needed if God is everywhere.  They point to verses such as the following:

The East and the West belong to God: wherever you turn, there is His Face.  God is all-encompassing and all-knowing.  (2:115)

We answer that, when you look at the Ka'aba, you find that people are lined around it in a circle, facing one another.  Some people face the Ka'aba while the east is behind them and the west in front.  Others are facing north while the south is behind, and so on.  In this way, all directions are covered, supporting the verse "The East and the West belong to God: wherever you turn, there is His Face." In other words, there is no direction specific to God and preferred over others; He is "all-encompassing and all-knowing."

Many Muslims worked on mathematics to prove that the Ka'aba is the center of the earth and tried to show that it holds a very prominent geographic or geological location.  Here, I do not want to enter into such discussions.  Planet earth is close to a sphere, so almost any point can be considered the center.  Thus, I see no need for such calculations.  I ask, "Isn't it enough that God chose it?" That is the only reason I need to know that the Ka'aba is the most extraordinary place on earth.