Direction of prayer

Prayer in a certain direction is characteristic of many world religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.

[4] In the Bible, it is written that when the prophet Daniel was in Babylon, he "went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open to Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously" (cf.

[5][3] After the destruction of the Temple of Solomon, Jews continue to pray facing Jerusalem in hope for the coming of the Messiah whom they await.

"[12] Two centuries later, Saint Basil the Great declared that one of the unwritten commandments of the Church was to pray facing east.

"[18] Throughout Christendom, believers have hung or painted a Christian cross, to which they prostrated in front of, on the eastern wall of their home in order to indicate the eastward direction of prayer, as an "expression of their undying belief in the coming again of Jesus was united to their conviction that the cross, 'the sign of the Son of Man,' would appear in the eastern heavens on his return (see Matthew 24:30).

In the 14th century, the astronomer Shams al-Din al-Khalili compiled a table containing the qibla for all latitudes and longitudes.

A Mizrah wall hanging; the word Mizrah ( Hebrew : מזרח , 'East') appears at the center.
Throughout history, believers hung a Christian cross on the eastern wall of their homes to indicate the eastward direction towards which they focused their prayers . [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ]
The mihrab of a Umayyad Mosque in Damascus ; this niche in the masjid's wall orients Muslims in prayer towards Mecca. [ 25 ]
Muslims surrounding and facing the Kaaba for prayer in Mecca , Saudi Arabia ; in Islam , the direction of prayer is referred to as qibla .