to his left, his prayer remains valid; for God has only commanded us to face the general direction (shiṭr) of the Sacred Mosque. The ḥadith states: “The Mosque is the qiblah for Mecca, Mecca is the qiblah for the Ḥaram, and the Ḥaram is the qiblah for the entire earth.” Accordingly, nothing has been reported from the Companions that would oblige people, when praying, to consult the star al-Jady.

Considering al-Jady to locate the qiblah is an innovation.
For that reason Imām Aḥmad and other scholars censured anyone who compelled the public to rely on al-Jady—let alone on a city’s precise longitude and latitude. In the very mosques where the Companions themselves prayed, such as the Great Mosque of Damascus, there is a slight deviation from perfect alignment with the exact point of the Kaʿbah, and the same is true elsewhere. Wisdom dictated that the consensus of the Companions and their righteous followers be made clear: the worshipper is not required to face the precise line of the Kaʿbah; it is sufficient for him to face the general direction that constitutes the side of the earth containing the Sacred Mosque.

Among the innovations of the speculative theologians is their rejection of sound philosophy.
What is established by direct observation and correct mathematical calculation concerning the heavenly bodies is sound knowledge that cannot be dismissed. The celestial spheres are round, not polygonal; whoever claims—or even allows—that they might be polygonal, among the mutakallimūn, belongs to those who reject from the philosophers and others knowledge that is true, rational, and fully in accord with the revealed law. This is one of the innovations of the speculative theologians for which the early Muslims censured them: they debated the philosophers about divine matters—such as the origination of the world, the proof of the Maker, the realities of the Hereafter, prophethood, and so forth—by faulty methods that diverged from both revelation and sound reason.

This became one of the causes of many people’s going astray, for they imagined that what those innovators were saying constituted the sharīʿah transmitted from the Messenger. Yet that is not the case: whatever is known by clear reason will always find, in the Messenger’s teachings, only what confirms and validates it.

The Muslims’ consensus that the celestial sphere is round.
Our present discussion of the spherical, rounded nature of the heavens belongs to this very category; indeed, it is something upon which all