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observe Sunday, and a sect among them (the Seventh Day Adventists) disagree, and observe Saturday. So there is
disagreement among the People of the Book. Let them dispute among themselves. Their dispute will not be settled till
the Day of Judgment. Meanwhile, Muslims are emancipated from such stringent restrictions. For them there is
certainly the Day of United Prayer on Friday, but it is in no sense like the Jewish or the Scotch Sabbath! (16.124)
62:9 - O ye who believe! when the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday (the Day of Assembly)
hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah and leave off business (and traffic): that is best
for you if ye but knew! 546154625463
5462 The idea behind the Muslim weekly "Day of Assembly" is different from that behind the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) or
the Christian Sunday. The Jewish Sabbath is primarily a commemoration of Allah's ending His work and resting on the
seventh day (Gen. ii. 2; Exod. xx. 11): we are taught that Allah needs no rest, nor does He feel fatigue (ii. 255). The
Jewish command forbids work on that day but says nothing about worship or prayer (Exod. xx. 10); our ordinance lays
chief stress on the remembrance of Allah. Jewish formalism went so far as to kill the spirit of the sabbath, and call
forth the protest of Jesus: "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark. ii. 27). But the
Christian Church, although it has changed the day from Saturday to Sunday, has inherited the Jewish spirit: witness
the Scottish Sabbath; except in so far as it has been secularised. Our teaching says: 'When the time for Jumua Prayer
comes, close your business and answer the summons loyally and earnestly, meet earnestly, pray, consult and learn
by social contact; when the meeting is over, scatter and go about your business'. (62.9)
SACRED MOSQUE:
2:144 - We see the turning of thy face (for guidance) to the heavens; now shall We turn thee to a
Qiblah that shall please thee. Turn then thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque; wherever ye
are turn your faces in that direction. The people of the book know well that that is the truth from their
Lord nor is Allah unmindful of what they do. 147148149
147 This shows the sincere desire of Mustafa to seek light from above in the matter of the Qibla. Until the organisation of
his own People into a well-knit community, with its distinctive laws and ordinances, he followed a practice based on
the fact that the Jews and Christians looked upon Jerusalem as a sacred city. But there was no universal Qibla
among them. Some Jews turned towards Jerusalem, especially during the Captivity, as we shall see later. At the
time of our Prophet, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Byzantine Empire, which was Christian. But the Christians
oriented their churches to the East (hence the word "orientation") which is a point of the compass, and not the
direction of any sacred place. The fact of the altar being in the East does not mean that every worshipper has his face
to the east; for, according at least to modern practice, the seats in a church are so placed that different worshippers
may face in different directions. The Preacher of Unity naturally wanted, in this as in other matters, a symbol of
complete unity, and his heart was naturally delighted when the Qibla towards the Ka'ba was settled. Its connection
with Abraham gave it great antiquity; its character of being an Arab centre made it appropriate when the Message
came in Arabic, and was preached through the union of the Arabs; at the time it was adopted, the little Muslim
community was shut out of it, being exiles in Medina, but it became a symbol of hope and eventual triumph, of which
Muhammad lived to see the fulfilment; and it also became the centre and gathering ground of all peoples in the
universal pilgrimage, which was instituted with it. (2.144)
148 The sacred Mosque: The Ka'ba in the sacred city of Mecca. It is not correct to suggest that the command making the
Ka'ba the Qibla abrogates ii. 115, where it is stated that East and West belong to God, and He is everywhere. This is
perfectly true at all times, before and after the institution of the Qibla. As if to emphasise this, the same words about
East and West are repeated in this very passage; see ii, 142 above. Where the Itqan mentions mansukh in this
connection, I am sorry I cannot follow that opinion, unless mansukh is defined in a special way, as some of the
commentators do. (2.144)
149 Glimmerings of such a Qibla were already foreshadowed in Jewish and Christian practice but its universality was only
perfected in Islam. (2.144)
2:149 - From whencesoever thou startest forth turn thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque;
that is indeed the truth from thy Lord. And Allah is not unmindful of what ye do. 154
154 The simile of a race is continued, and so the Qibla command is repeated from that point of
view. In ii. 144 it was mentioned as the new symbol of the new nation (Muslim): now it is
shown as the symbol of Good, at which we should all aim, from whichever point we started,
e.g., as Jews or Christians, or our individual point of view; the Qibla will unite us as a symbol
of the Goal of the Future. In ii. 150 below, it is repeated: First for the individual, on the ground
of uniformity and the removal of all occasions of dispute and argument; and secondly for the
Muslim people, on the same ground, as a matter of discipline. There is another little harmony
in the matter of the repetitions. Note that the race and starting point argument begins at ii. 149
and is rounded off in the latter part of ii. 150. The latter argument includes the former, and is
more widely worded: "wheresoever ye are": which in the Arabic expression would imply three
things; in whatever circumstances ye are, or at whatever time ye are, or in whatever place ye
are. I have spoken before of a sort of musical harmony in verbal repetitions: here there is a
sort of pictorial harmony, as of a larger circle symmetrically including a smaller concentric
circle. (2.149)
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