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Cartographic Methods for Determining the Qibla

A. Jon Kimerling
Published online: 16 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: A. Jon Kimerling (2002) Cartographic Methods for Determining the Qibla, Journal of Geography, 101:1,
20-26, DOI: 10.1080/00221340208978463

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 Cartographic Methods for Determining the Qibla
ABSTRACT
Islam is an important topic in
human and regional geography instruc-
tion, and major textbooks include maps
showing Islam’s core and rapid expansion
Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 17:22 15 October 2014
diffusion, along with the number of pil-
grims to Mecca from different countries.
Determining the qibla, the sacred direc-
tion for daily prayer, and the distance to
Mecca are additional topics that link
human geography, Islamic mathematical
geography, and modern geographic infor-
mation science. Recently discovered
Persian instruments used a retro-
azimuthal map projection devised by
medieval Muslim mathematicians to com-
pute the qibla and distance to Mecca from
anywhere within the seventeenth century
realm of Islam. Modern global maps that
allow the qibla and distance to Mecca to
be determined from all populated areas on
earth are added to the Persian instru-
ments.
Key Words: geography of religion, Islam,
qibla, pilgrimage to Mecca, mosque alignment
A. Jon Kimerling is professor ofgeography in
the Department of Geosciences, Oregon State
University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331 USA.
Journal of Geography 101:20-26
02002 National Council for Geographic Education
A. Jon Kimerling
The geography of the world’s major religions is an important compo-
nent of courses in human and world regional geography. A review of leading
textbooks (e.g., de Blij and Muller 1999, Knox and Marston 2000, Rubenstein
1999) reveals authors concentrating on common themes including basic tenets,
the early history and geographical diffusion of a religion from its starting point,
current geographical areas dominated by major religions and sects thereof, and
religious practices like pilgrimages that have a strong geographical movement
component.
Islam is a religion of particular importance in geographic education for
several reasons, including its rapid expansion diffusion from its Mecca
(Makkah)-Medina core in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. and its large
geographical sphere of influence from Senegal to Indonesia. Students learn that
”today the diffusion of Islam continues in many areas, including North America,
where it arrived by relocation diffusion and now spreads by expansion diffu-
sion” (de Blij and Muller 1999, 289). Textbook maps dealing with Islam typically
show its core area and historical areas of expansion through conquest, its cur-
rent areas of dominance along with those of other major religions, and the num-
bers of pilgrims from major Moslem countries making the required pilgrimage
to the Kabah in Mecca during a single year.’
Another tenet of Islam, the requirement for prayer while facing Mecca, is
often mentioned in passing. This is unfortunate, because determining the qibla,
the sacred direction of prayer, along with finding the distance to Mecca are fun-
damental problems of Islamic mathematical geography that would be interesting
additions to current discussions of Islam. This article is devoted to a careful
explanation of the qibla, followed by a discussion of directly computing the
qibla and distance to Mecca by medieval and modern formulae. Medieval and
modern maps that allow these same quantities to be measured from special map
projections are next described, along with examples of their potential use in
geographic education.
THEQIBLA
In all Islamic languages the sacred direction for prayer toward the Kabah
(Ka’ba) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is called the qibla.* The qibla depends on one’s
proximity to the sacred Kabah, for as Ibn al-Qass (ca. A.D. 975 ) notes (in King
1999,47): “The Ka’ba is the qibla for the Sacred Mosque [Masjid A1 Haram], the
Sacred Mosque is the qibla for the sacred precincts [of Mecca], and the sacred
precincts are the qibla for the inhabitants of the whole world from where the
sun rises to where it sets” (Figure 1).The third, more global qibla is the focus of
this article.
From the eighth century A.D. onward, Muslim astronomers treated finding
the qibla for a locality as a key problem in mathematical geography (King 1992).
The mathematically determined “qibla at any locality was defined as the direc-
tion to Mecca along the great-circle on the terrestrial sphere. It is invariably
measured from the local meridian and called inhiraf al-qibla, literally ’the incli-
 Determinating the Qibla
Figure 1. Masjid A1 Haram Mosque, Mecca, with the Kabah
(Ka'ba) at its center. Notice the circular pattern of prayer facing
the Kabah. Photograph courtesy lslamCity in Cyberspace
(wzow.islam. org).
Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 17:22 15 October 2014
nation of the qibla [to the meridian]"' (King 1999,56).3The
qibla for London, England (approx. 51 "30'N, 0 " ) is illustrat-
ed in Figure 2, which shows the Greenwich Prime Meridian
and great circle route to Mecca (21"27'N, 39"45'E). In
London the qibla is 119" east of true north (119" true
azimuth4).If one were to fly along the great circle to Mecca,
the qibla would increase steadily to an azimuth of 150"
when Mecca comes into view, after which the direction to
the Sacred Mosque becomes the qibla.
Figure 2. The qibla for London, England.
DIRECTLY COMPUTING THE QIBLA
The problem of computing the direction and distance
to Mecca stimulated many of the advances the Muslim
world made in geography, science, and mathematics. From
the ninth century onward, Muslim astronomers faced with
finding the qiblas at various localities and other problems
in spherical astronomy developed the formulas for spheri-
cal trigonometry that form the foundation for modern geo-
graphic distance and direction calculations (Kennedy
1956). A qibla formula derived by an anonymous ninth
century astronomer in Baghdad is mathematically equiva-
lent to the modern equation in King (1986):
21
- cos(&)*tan(@,))/
qibla (deg.) = cot-'((cos(Ah)*sin(@k)
sin(Ah)*180/n
+
where is the latitude of locality x, $M is the latitude of
Mecca, and Ah is the difference in longitude between local-
ity x and Mecca, all in radians.
The distance from locality x to Mecca was also impor-
tant to calculate for pilgrimage planning purposes. In the
early centuries of Islamic mathematical geography a great
circle distance equation was derived that is equivalent to
the modern formula:
du = sin.'((sin(Ah)*sin(~LI)
/sin(qibla)*circum/(2n)
where circum is the earth's circumference either in kilome-
ters (40,030), statute miles (24,879), or nautical miles
(21,619).This equation works for differences in longtude
less than 90 which encompasses all localities within the
O,
medieval Islamic realm. To extend distance calculation to
the entire earth, however, a modern equation based on the
spherical trigonometry law of cosines must be used:
du = cos-'((sin((+)*sin(@)+ c o s ( ~ x ) * c o s ( ~ ~ ~ ) * c o s ( A h ) )
*circum/(2n)
A C language computer program for computing the qibla
and distance to Mecca from any location on earth is found
in Appendix A.
FINDINGTHE QIBLA AND DISTANCE TO MECCA BY USE
It is generally agreed that early Islamic astronomers
and mathematicans knew of Ptolemy's Geographia (Tooley
1952), a treatise on cartography that included instructions
for creating several map projections and a list of geograph-
ic coordinates for some 8,000 localities throughout the
known world. The geometrical distortion characteristics of
the Ptolemaic projections made them unsuitable for accu-
rate and easy measurement of the qibla and distance to
Mecca. However, two qibla maps based on a different pro-
jection have very recently come to light. These were
engraved on a brass circular astrolabe-like instrument, the
first of which is shown in Figure 3. The advanced level of
Islamic mathematical geography by the end of the seven-
teenth century is apparent in the engraved maps and
instrument design, for one can easily find the qibla and
distance from Mecca for any locality from Morocco to India
within a north-south zone from southern England to
Ethiopia.
The maps are annotated in Persian, with a few Arabic
inscriptions. In the Ptolemaic tradition, city locations
appear to originate from a table of latitudes, longitudes,
qiblas, and distances to Mecca that can be traced to
Timurid (fifteenth-century) central Asia (King 1999, p. 149).
In Figure 3, engraved dots for localities familiar to the
Western reader have been darkened and annotated by the
 22 Kimerling
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Figure 3. One of tzuo surviving Mecca-centered maps of the Islamic world, projected so the qibla can be read from the outer circle
and the distance to Mecca can be measured on the scale bar. The map has been annotated b y the author to show the latitude and lon-
gitude (Canary lsland prime meridian) graticule numbering and the locations of selected cities. (Pkotograplz courtesy Christie's of
London and tke private owner. Taken from King 1999).
~~~ ~~

author so that their proximity to their actual locations by
modern measurements may be assessed. The author has
added latitude and longitude (from the Canary Islands
prime meridian) numbers to the graticule lines to assist in
positional accuracy assessment.
Tobler (2000) examined the nearly equally spaced ver-
tical meridians (spaced according to the trigonometric sine
of the difference in longitude from Mecca so that the spac-
ing slightly decreases with increasing longtudinal dis-
tance) and downward curving parallels that form the 2"
graticule across the map. He concluded that what we now
call a retro-azimuthal projection had been devised more
than three centuries ago. The defining property of retro-
azimuthal projections is that the great circle direction from
the centerpoint (Mecca) to any other point on the map is
correct. The great circle direction is found by measuring
the azimuth that a straight line from the centerpoint to the
point of interest makes with a straight north-south refer-
ence line, usually drawn vertically upward from the center-
point. This property allowed the instrument maker to
 Determinuting the Qiblu
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Figure 4. Modern version of Craig's retro-azimuthal map projec-
tion of the Islamic world, including an azimuth circle to easy
determination of the qibla at any point on the map. The map
without the azimuth circle can be dozunloaded from
wol$its.ilstu.edu/inicrocam/images/ Craig.pdf.
attach a thin brass rotatiIig measurement bar at the projec-
tion center directly over Mecca. The instrument user would
rotate the bar until its edge was aligned with the location
of interest, and then would read the qibla direction
azimuth at the spot on the outer graduated circle where the
opposite end of the bar pointed.
The further ingenuity shown by this projection is that
all points are equidistant from the Mecca centerpoint, but
in the sense that the trigonometric sines of the angular dis-
tances from Mecca are correct for all localities at the same
map distance radially outward from Mecca. The conse-
quent systematic reduction in scale is apparent, as the ticks
marking equally spaced ground distances on the metal bar
are spaced more closely with increasing distance from
Mecca.
The geometrical nature of this instrument may be fur-
ther clarified by examining a similar more recent Mecca-
centered retro-azimuthal projection developed by Craig
(1910) that faithfully shows directions, but not distances, to
Mecca. Figure 4 is a modern computer produced version of
the Craig projection created by Paul B. Anderson, with the
outer azimuth circle added by the author.
Figure 5 is a modern version of the instrument pic-
tured in Figure 3. To make this map the author has
enhanced a computer produced 2 retro-azimuthal projec-
tion graticule created by Francois Charette (published in
King 1999, p. 251) that very closely matches the graticule
on the three-century-old instrument. In the spirit of the
original instrument, dots are placed at the modern loca-
23
N
CHART USE
mamwtb-!mmmrm)
10 ~ - . , l b m d h r lin m
hrogoflbr *lo 6od brow
YardiroDehomk*mis hr laph
dymrwmhlrrrrmmt=di
S
Figure 5. Modern version of the late seventeenth-century qibla
map of the Islamic world. Tke retro-azirnuthnl map projection
graticule zuas constructed b y Francois Charette and is found in
King 1999.
tions of major cities within the map area and cities are
named. A straight line drawn from a city or any other loca-
tion on the map to Mecca and then continued to the oppo-
site edge of the circle gives the true compass azimuth of
the qibla. It is also easy to see that the distance ruler is
graduated by the sine of the distance from Mecca, as the
ticks of equal ground distance are spaced ever more
closely.
Scaling the radial distances from Mecca by their sines
means that the maximum angular distance that could be
shown on this projection is 90 degrees from Mecca, at
which the spacing between distance ticks would be zero. A
global qibla map as easy to use as the two instruments
requires a different map projection and mapping approach.
GLOBAL QIBLA MAPS
Tobler (2000) suggests that it is also possible to draw
the retro-azimuthal directions (great circle directions to
Mecca) on a map projection as isolines, preferably on a
conformal projection. The author did just this in 1994 in
response to qibla questions posed by the Islamic Academy
for Scientific Research. The Global Qibla Map (Figure 6) is
a normal aspect Mercator projection with the central
meridian at Mecca. The Mercator projection, of course,
cannot cover the entire earth and the map only ranges
from 80"N to 80"S, but this covers all inhabited places
except polar research stations.
Great circle routes radiating outward from Mecca at
10" azimuth increments form a set of curving lines that
 24
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1MW lWW 8OW BOW 40W 2wV 0 20E
@A.kmKlmer(lng 2Mx)
Figure 6. Global qibla map made by plotting a great circle lines at ten degree increments outward from Mecca on a Mecca-centered
Mercator map projection.
converge at the antipodal point to Mecca, where prayer in
any direction is the qibla. Everywhere along a great circle
line, the angle that the line makes with the local meridian
(vertical line) is the qibla. This, of course, is easiest to mea-
sure where a great circle line crosses one of the meridians
drawn on the map. However, for the vast majority of locali-
ties not on one of the great circle lines, the qibla must be
determined by interpolation from the nearest two great cir-
cles.
Great circle distances outward from Mecca on this
Mercator projection are not correct, so a second, distance-
preserving map projection is required for pilgrimage plan-
ning. The obvious choice is an azimuthal equidistant5 cen-
tered on Mecca. Hariwara (1984) created such a projection,
and included outward radiating straight line great circle
routes. This makes it possible to estimate the qibla from
the intersection angle the great circle line with a curved
meridian in the vicinity. The author’s version (Figure 7)
does not include the great circle lines, but has concentric
Kinzerling
40E 6OE BOE 1WE 120E 140E ?WE 180 1M)W
circular range rings centered on Mecca, thus allowing dis-
tances from Mecca (in nautical miles) to be estimated easily
by linear interpolation between the two bounding range
rings.
INSTRUCTIONAL APPLICATIONS
Since the observance of the qibla in daily prayer con-
tinues to be of prime importance to hundreds of millions of
Muslims living throughout the world, using the maps in
this paper or the program in Appendix A to determine the
qibla at distant locations is far from a meaningless exer-
cise. The distance to Mecca is also still a factor in planning
the religious pilgrimage, the Hajj, to Mecca, although it is
not nearly as important as in previous centuries.
Mosques are built with the prayer wall facing the
Kabah, and with perpendicular side walls aligned with the
qibla. This explains the east of north alignment of mosques
in the United States that stands out clearly in areas of the
public land survey where north-south oriented buildings
 25

NOTES
1. The Kabah is a religious site of exceptional significance
as the place of worship which Allah (God) commanded
the Prophet Ibraheem (Abraham) and his son Ismail
(Ishmael) to build. Each year around two million
pilgrims visit Mecca during the twelfth month of the
lunar-based Islamic calendar to participate in the Hajj,
which is essentially a re-enactment of the story of
Ibraham, Hajar, and Ismail in the wadi of Mecca more
than 2000 years before the birth of the Prophet
Muhammad in Mecca in 570 AD.
2. The Quranic (Koran) injunction that made facing the
Kabah a religious obligation is: "We see the turning of
your face [for guidance] to the heavens. Now we shall
turn you to the Qibla that shall please you. Turn then
your face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque [Kabah],
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and wherever you are, turn your faces in that direction"

[Quran 2(144)]. This injunction encouraged the
development of the astrolabe during the early centuries
of Islam as a tool for determining daily prayer times and
the direction to Mecca.
3. There is a recent controversy among American Muslims
concerning the geometrical basis for computing the
Figure Z Azimuthal equidistant map projection centered on Qibla in North America. While most mosques in North
Mecca, with 1000-nautical-mile range rings overprinted.
America are aligned based on the northeast great circle
direction as the Qibla, some have been aligned based on
are the rule. An exercise involving inventorying mosque
the southeast rhumb line direction to Mecca as the Qibla.
alignments from Seattle to Miami should uncover a pro-
Arguments for the rhumb line Qibla direction are
gressive northwest to southeast shift in alignment from
presented in Nachef and Kadi (1995).
about 18" in Seattle to nearly 60" in Miami. Poorly aligned
4.An azimuth is the direction of a line at its starting point,
mosques should stand out clearly in the data.
normally measured as the clockwise angle it makes from
A final application of potential interest is the posi-
a north-south baseline.
tional accuracy of medieval Islamic geography as reflected
5. The azimuthal equidistant map projection has the useful
in the locations of still-existing places on the Persian
properties that the map scale is constant radially away
instruments relative to their current highly accurate posi-
from the map centerpoint, and that straight lines radially
tion. One finds, for example, that Athens is significantly
outward from the centerpoint are great circle routes.
misplaced on the instruments, probably the result of a
transcription error in the table of places used to make the
map. It is also possible to compare certain of the Islamic
positions with locations from Ptolemy's Geographia, from
which the overall degree of agreement could be ascer-
tained. Such exercises, made possible by the maps in this
paper and the various Islamic coordinate tables in King
(1999), also shed light on the problem of accurate longitude
determination prior to the invention of a highly accurate
chronometer by Harrison in late eighteenth-century
England. Examining the medieval position data also will
reinforce the admonishment to always check data sources
carefully for accuracy, particularly when data and maps
made from the data will be used by future generations.
 26 Kiinerlirig

APPENDIX
A REFERENCES

/ * C language program to compute the qibla and distance de Blij, H. J., and P.O. Muller. 1999. Geography: R e a l m ,
to */ Regions and Concepts 2000,9th ed. New York: John
/* Mecca (in nautical miles) from any location on earth */ Wiley.

#include <stdio.h> Craig, J. L. 1910. Map Projections. Cairo: Ministry of

#include <math.h> Finance.

main() Hariwara, Y. 1984. A retro-azimuthal projection of the

{ whole sphere, Technical Papers, Vol. 2, 12th
double pi,rad,deg,lat,lon,latm,lonm,dlon,x,q,dist; International Cartographic Conference, Perth,
Australia, pp. 840-842.
/* constants */
Kennedy, E. S. 1956. A survey of Islamic astronomical
pi = 3.1415926536; tables, Transactions of the American Philosophical
rad = pi/180.0; deg = l.O/rad; Society 42 (2):123-217
Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 17:22 15 October 2014

latm = 21.45*rad; lonm = 39.75*rad;

King, D. A. 1986. The earliest Islamic mathematical
/* input latitude and longitude of location x in degrees *//* methods and tables for finding the direction of
south latitude and west longitude is negative */ Mecca. Zeitschrift fur Gesckichte der arabisch-islamis-
chen Wissenschaften 3: 82-149.
printf("Enter latitude and longitude: ");
scanf("%lf %If",&lat,&lon); King, D. A. 1992. Qibla charts, qibla maps, and related
lat = lat*rad; lon=lon*rad; instruments. In History of Cartography, Vol. 2,l:
189-205.
/* adjustment for out of range longitude */
King, D. A. 1999. World Maps for Finding the Direction and
dlon = lon - lonm; Distance to Mecca. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
if (dlon < -pi) dlon = dlon + 2.0"pi;
Knox, P. L., and S. A. Marston. 2000. Huinan Geography,
/ * computations */ 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

x = (cos(dlon)*sin(lat)- cos(lat)*tan(latm))/sin(dlon); Nachef, R., and S. Kadi. 1995. The Substantiation of the
q = atan2(1.0,x); People of Truth that the Direction of Al-Qiblah in the
United States and Canada is to the Southeast.
if (dlon > 0.0) q = q + pi; /* quadrant adjustment */ Philadelphia: Association of Islamic Charitable
Projects.
/* dist = asin(sin(d1on)*cos(latm)/sin(q));Islamic equation
*/ Rubenstein, J. M. 1999. A n lntroduction to Human
Geography, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
dist = acos(sin(lat)*sin(latm)+ Hall.
cos(lat)*cos(latm)*cos(dlon));
Tobler, W. R. 2000. A new qibla map. (forthcoming). Also
/* print out results */ see Tobler's "Qibla Maps" Microsoft PowerPoint
presentation at www.ncga.ucsb.edu/projects/tobler/
printf("Qib1a azimuth from true north: %4.01f Qibla/index.htm.
deg.\nDistance from Mecca: %5.01f
nm\n",q *deg,dist * 10809.5/pi); Tooley, R.V. 1952. Maps and Map-Makers, 2nd ed. London:
} / * main */ B.T. Batsford.