the Kaaba; such a person prays toward whatever direction he can, according to his ability. They also mentioned that the verse’s allowance of facing Jerusalem—as was practiced before its abrogation—was abrogated.

If this applies to the established qiblah for prayer, which must be faced in obligatory prayers and in voluntary prayers when not traveling, then it should apply all the more to the qiblah of supplication. For the Muslims unanimously agree that supplication does not require facing any particular direction. Neither facing the established qiblah nor raising one’s hands is obligatory, whether according to those who say that the sky and the Throne are the qiblah of supplication or those who do not.

If this necessarily follows, it entails that one may gesture in a direction other than upward when supplicating. It must therefore be permissible to gesture with one’s hands toward the earth, to the right, or to the left during supplication. Yet we have already cited the statement of one who reported the Muslims’ consensus to the contrary, and on the error of anyone who permits