142 Preface ۞ سَيَقولُ السُّفَهاءُ مِنَ النّاسِ ما وَلّاهُم عَن قِبلَتِهِمُ الَّتي كانوا عَلَيها ۚ قُل لِلَّهِ المَشرِقُ وَالمَغرِبُ ۚ يَهدي مَن يَشاءُ إِلىٰ صِراطٍ مُستَقيمٍYusuf AliThe fools among the people1 will say: “What hath turned them from the Qiblah2 to which they were used?” Say: To God belong both east and West: He guideth whom He will to a Way that is straight.Nas = People, the unthinking multitude that sway to and fro, instead of being firm in God’s Way. The reference here is to the idolaters, the Hypocrites, and the party of Jews who were constantly seeking to “entangle in their talk.” Al Muṣṭafā and his disciples in Medīna even as the Pharisees and the Sadducees of Jesus’s day tried to entangle Jesus (Matt. 22:15, 23).Qiblah = the direction to which Muslims turn in prayer. Islam lays great stress on social prayer in order to emphasise our universal Brotherhood and mutual cooperation. For such prayer, order, punctuality, precision, symbolical postures, and a common direction are essential, so that the Imām (leader) and all his congregation may face one way and offer their supplications to God. In the early days, before they were organised as a people, they followed as a symbol for their Qjhlah the sacred city of Jerusalem, sacred both to the Jews and the Christians, the people of the Book. This symbolised their allegiance to the continuity of God’s revelation. When, despised and persecuted, they were turned out of Mecca and arrived in Medīna. Al Muṣṭafā under divine direction began to organise its people as an Ummah, an independent people, with laws and rituals of their own. At that stage the Ka‘ba was established as Qiblah, thus going back to the earliest centre, with which the name of Abraham was connected, and traditionally also the name of Adam. Jerusalem still remained (and remains) sacred in the eyes of Islam on account of its past, but Islam is a progressive religion, and its new symbolism enabled it to shake off the tradition of a dead past and usher in the era of untrammeled freedom dear to the spirit of Arabia. The change took place about 16 1/2i months after Hijrat.