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مشاهدة النسخة كاملة : A Muslim Astronaut's Dilemma: How to Face Mecca From Space



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10-02-2007, 06:51 PM
A Muslim Astronaut's Dilemma: How to Face Mecca From Space

By Patrick Di Justo


http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2007/09/mecca_in_orbit/ (http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2007/09/mecca_in_orbit/)


Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor has a problem. Two problems. The first is
that Mecca keeps moving.


Well, not really. It's Shukor who'll be moving. As Malaysia's first
astronaut, he's scheduled to lift off October 10 in a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft for a nine-day visit during the holy month of Ramadan to
the International Space Station.


He's a devout Muslim and when he says his daily prayers he wants to
face Mecca, specifically the Ka'aba, the holiest place in Islam
("Turn then thy face towards the Sacred Mosque: wherever ye are, turn
your faces towards it .... " The Quran, Al-Baqarah, 2:149).


That's where the trouble comes in. From ISS, orbiting 220 miles above
the surface of the Earth, the qibla (an Arabic word meaning the
direction a Muslim should pray toward Mecca) changes from second to
second. During some parts of the space station's orbit, the qibla can
move nearly 180 degrees during the course of a single prayer. What's
a devout Muslim to do?


"As a Muslim, I do hope to do my responsibilities," Shukor says. "I
do hope to fast in space."


Malaysia's space agency, Angkasa, convened a conference of 150
Islamic scientists and scholars last year to wrestle with these and
other questions. The resulting document (.doc), "A Guideline of
Performing Ibadah (worship) at the International Space Station
(ISS)", was approved by Malaysia's National Fatwa Council earlier
this year. According to the report, determining the qibla should
be "based on what is possible" for the astronaut, and can be
prioritized this way: 1) the Ka'aba, 2) the projection of Ka'aba, 3)
the Earth, 4) wherever.


This leads to Shukor's second problem. There are two distinct schools
of thought for determining the qibla: the commonly used Great Circle
method, and the less common rhumb-line method. Looking at a flat map
using any standard projection shows that a rhumb line (a line that
cuts equal angles across all lines of longitude) drawn from, say, the
Johnson Space Center in Houston to Mecca runs east-southeast. The
numbers also bear this out -- the space center is to the north and
west of the Ka'aba, so any travel to the holy city should naturally
be to the southeast.


Lay a string across a globe, however, and everything changes. A great
circle -- the shortest distance between two points on a sphere --
between Houston and Mecca initially arcs to the northeast, then
curves southward to the Saudi peninsula. Islamic scientists knew as
early as the ninth century CE that the great circle route provided
the shortest path to Mecca from anywhere in the world, even though it
may in some places seem counterintuitive (Muslims in Alaska, for
example, pray facing almost due north). Great circle formulae are at
the root of nearly every online qibla compass.


Dr. Kamal Abdali, a cartographer who is also Muslim and who has
written (.pdf) extensively on determining the qibla, favors the great
circle route, but adds, "Prayer is not supposed to be a gymnastic
exercise. One is supposed to concentrate on the prayer rather the
exact orientation." He points out that in a train or plane, it's
customary to start in the qibla direction but then continue the
prayer without worrying about possible changes in position.


But how does that work in space? Mathematically, Shukor would need to
place both ISS and Mecca on the same imaginary sphere -- by either
comparing the place on Earth directly beneath ISS with the real
Ka'aba, or by projecting the Ka'aba into space (the option
recommended by the Fatwa Council).


Yet the option to pray while facing a point in space brings up
another problem. Muslims face the ground to pray, in part to avoid
any hint of pagan sun or moon worship ("Prostrate yourselves not to
the sun nor to the moon, but prostrate yourselves to Allah Who
created them, if you (really) worship Him" (The Quran, Fussilat
41:37). If the Ka'aba projection happens to line up with the sun or
moon, purists might believe the prayer invalid.


For now, Shukor is keeping the details of his plans fluid until he is
actually on board ISS, a point with which Dr. Khaleel Mohammed,
assistant professor of religion at San Diego State University,
concurs. "In space," Mohammed points out, "the ritual prayer might be
offset for more of a prayer that is allowed when on jihad ... for the
lack of gravity and directional accuracy makes it legitimate to do as
one sees fit. God does not take a person to task for that which is
beyond his/her ability to work with."


Questions like these will continue as more and more religious
astronauts travel into space. When is sunset in low Earth orbit if
you're experiencing a dozen sunrises and sunsets in every 24-hour
period? When does Sabbath begin on the moon, where the sun sets once
a month? When is the first sighting of the crescent moon if you're on
Mars? Religious councils of all faiths will have plenty to keep them
busy for years.