Indonesian Muslims turn prayers back to Mecca after 1,000-mile mistake

A man prays at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia where people have been facing Africa, not Mecca, while praying. Photograph: Irwin Fedriansyah/AP

Indonesian Muslims turn prayers back to Mecca after 1,000-mile mistake. Allah always listens, promise clerics, after cosmography corrects human error that told worshippers to face Somalia

Indonesian Muslims have been praying in the wrong direction for months, facing Somalia when they should have been facing Saudi Arabia, the country's highest religious authority said today.

A cleric from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) admitted the body made a mistake last March when calculating where Muslims should turn to when praying. He said new instructions had now been issued and that people only had to shift their position for the correct alignment.

According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was born in Mecca, and it is said to be the place where Allah's message was first revealed to him. Each day Muslims from around the world turn to Mecca to pray and, at least once in their lives if they can afford it, travel there to perform the hajj, or pilgrimage.

Ma'ruf Amin from the MUI said a "thorough study with some cosmography and astronomy experts" revealed that Indonesian Muslims had been facing southern Somalia and Kenya instead of Mecca, which is more than 1,000 miles further north.

The error did not mean their prayers would be ignored, he added. "God understands that humans make mistakes. Allah always hears their prayers."

The MUI website advises Muslims to make use of a website, Qibla Locator, to locate Mecca without a compass.

It is not the first time the MUI has played down the significance of misdirection. In January it took steps to reassure worshippers they need not be concerned by reports that thousands of Indonesian mosques displayed the incorrect kiblat, or direction toward Mecca.

Mutoha Arkanuddin, an Islamic scholar, claimed that more than more than half of the country's mosques pointed the wrong way. The chair of the MUI said that God was not in Mecca, while a government minister described Arkanuddin's work as invalid and dangerous.

Rohadi Abdul Fatah, director of sharia law and Islamic affairs at the ministry of religious affairs, said the state frequently checked the accuracy of kiblats across the country.

He told the Jakarta Globe that off-kilter kiblats were often an issue in quake-hit areas such as Yogyakarta, West Java and West Sumatra and that the government had the money for theodolites, a precision surveying instrument.

Islam is the predominant religion in Indonesia, with about 200 million followers, although its constitution gives all people the right to worship according to their own belief or religion. ( guardian.co.uk )

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