The Culmination of Islamic Sacred Geography
Abstrak
In Islam, the sacred direction or qibla is toward the sacred Kaaba in Mecca, which edifice is astronomically aligned.Various ritual acts from prayer to burial are to be performed in the sacred direction. Muslim scholars devised two sets of solutions for finding the qibla from any locality. The first involved a sacred geography with the world divided around the Kaaba and the qibla in each sector defined by an astronomical horizon phenomenon. The second involved mathematical geography with the qibla calculated by exact or approximate mathematical procedures, albeit using medieval geographical coordinates. This dichotomy to some extent explains the orientation of medieval Islamic religious architecture. In this paper, the ultimate achievements in each tradition will be presented and compared; a serious investigation of orientations is a task for the future.
Penulis (1)
D. A. King
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2021
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 1×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.1515/9783110686159-008
- Akses
- Open Access ✓