The practice of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community in North America is to follow the North East qibla.

This is based on fatwas from right across the Muslim lands, from major scholars and fiqh councils, including the Islamic Fiqh Academy and al-Azhar. The latter’s fatwa states that given that this is the position of all four madhhabs, one praying to other than the North East qibla risks an invalid prayer and would have to make it up.

For a detailed explanation of this issue, and a brilliant example of how to deal with contemporary fiqh problems, see Sheikh Nuh Keller’s Port in a Storm: A Fiqh Solution to the North American Qibla.

It is available at good Islamic bookstores, including http://www.sunnipath.com/bookstore/ , and elsewhere.

Port in a Storm

Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller

The case for the east/southeast qibla is defective on a number of grounds and Shaykh Nuh Keller’s latest work, besides being one of the most outstanding works on the way that traditional Islamic law deals with contemporary problems, it also conclusively settles the issue of qibla determination in North America. The book must be read by all those engaged in this discussion as it represents an exhaustive examination of the issues at hand and presents a thorough critique of the east/southeast position. The book contains 52 illustrations and projections to aid those who have difficulties in picturing three-dimensional concrete models in their mind’s eye for the basic datum cannot be dismissed by anyone: the world is round and not flat. After all, if you were to walk on a straight line eventually you would end up in the same place.

The work is a collaborative effort par excellence for it contains 23 fatwas by leading scholars stretching from Morroco and Mauritania to Iraq and Syria.

The details of the book are as follow and it was published by Wakeel Books:

PORT IN A STORM: A FIQH SOLUTION TO THE QIBLA OF NORTH AMERICA
by Nuh Ha Mim Keller

Description: The qibla is the noblest of directions. This book settles the Question of the physical direction of Mecca from North America in the first thirty pages, after which it presents to readers for the first time the 1998 Fatwa of al-Azhar on the North American qibla.

From this point of departure, the author surveys such major contemporary issues as the relation between religion and science, the Sacred and profane, scholars and engineers, ijtihad and taqlid. Combining traditional Islamic law, a clear exposition of the complex geographical issues, and the author’s own meetings and correspondence with twenty-three contemporary scholars from seven Muslim lands, the book is a journey of discovery not only for Western Muslims, but everyone interested in Sacred Law in a modern world.

Nuh Ha Mim Keller has read Islamic jurisprudence, hadith, and other traditional sciences with sheikhs in Damascus, Syria, and in Amman, Jordan, where he has lived since 1979 and currently writes and teaches.

Available in both Hardback and Soft-back. The Hardback is a handsome cloth edition produced to the highest printing and binding standards and a must for all book lovers.

August 2001 • 292 pages • 156 mm x 234 mm • 52 illustrations

Cloth isbn 9957-23-014-x us$45.00; can$65.00; uk£30.00
Paper isbn 9957-23-004-2 us$12.95; can$18.99; uk£9.99