The Accuracy of the Qibla Axis (Inhiraf al-Qibla): A Legal Debate

The Maliki madhhab remains an indispensable component of the study of the social, cultural and urban history of medieval Maghrib. The habitat of the Maghrib, a large geographic foci, has always been germane to custom (' urf), legal practice (' amal) , and the valued opinion (iftä) of the jurist ( mufti ) . The key aspect of this paper is a legal discourse among Mäliki jurists; it concerns the formulae inherent in the mufti's reasoning and the manner in which his opinion sanctions the accuracy of the qibla. Using the debate, I explore the mufti's interpretation of what is understood by the term the inclination of the direction of the qibla (inhiraf al-qibla). The opinion of a mufti is therefore instructive in this regard, since it can be taken as basis for understanding the legal and religious dynamics of habitat. Since legal reasoning is often transferred to religious practice, the debate also deals with a general disagreement among the Mäliki jurists in medieval Maghrib con cerning the accuracy of the direction of the qibla and the lawful placement of the miḥrab of a mosque. Owing to the importance and the necessity of calculating the direction of the qibla when the site of a mosque is established, various methods were firmly incorporated to determine its accuracy of the mihrab. However, since there was no singular accepted method of calculation we find that a jurist was free to exercise partiality to a particular method. In medieval Maghrib a collective debate soon gave rise to a controversy concerning the correctness of the direction of the qibla and the position of mihrab.