149 Preface وَمِن حَيثُ خَرَجتَ فَوَلِّ وَجهَكَ شَطرَ المَسجِدِ الحَرامِ ۖ وَإِنَّهُ لَلحَقُّ مِن رَبِّكَ ۗ وَمَا اللَّهُ بِغافِلٍ عَمّا تَعمَلونَYusuf AliFrom whencesoever Thou startest forth1, turn Thy face in the direction of the sacred Mosque; that is indeed the truth from the Lord. And God is not unmindful of what ye do.The simile of a race is continued, and so the Qiblah command is repeated from that point of view In 2:144 it was mentioned as the new symbol of the new nation (Muslim); now it is shown as the symbol of Good, at which we should all aim, from whichever point we started. e.g. as Jews or Christians, or our individual point of view; the Qiblah will unite us as a symbol of the Goal of the Future. In 2:150 below, it is repeated; first for the individual, on the ground of uniformity and the removal of all occasions of dispute and argument; and secondly for the Muslim people, on the same ground, as a matter of discipline. There is another little harmony in the matter of the repetitions. Note that the race and starting point argument begins at 2:149 and is rounded off in the first part of 2:150; while the national and general argument beginning at 2:144 is rounded off in the latter part of 2:150. The latter argument includes the former, and is more widely worded: “wheresoever ye are”; which in the Arabic expression would imply three things: in whatever circumstances ye are, or at whatever time ye are, or in whatever place ye are. I have spoken before of a sort of musical harmony in verbal repetitions: here there is a sort of pictorial harmony, as of a larger circle symmetrically including a smaller concentric circle.