A line drawn between a city on the map and the city of Mecca is called “Qibla line”. This line indicates the qibla direction. When the sun comes over this line, it becomes “Qibla hour time”. If a person turns towards the Sun at the Qibla hour time, he or she will have turned towards the qibla.
The World Qibla Day
To correct the mistakes made on determination of qibla direction, every year 28th May and 16th July days are celebrated as World Qibla Days. The Sun stays exactly on the Kâ’be-i Sherif twice every year; at 09:18 Greenwich time on 28th May and at 09:26 Greenwich time on 16th July. At these two times if any person at any place over the world turns towards the sun, he or she will have turned towards the Kâ’be-i Sherif at the same time. With this way, the qibla direction of any place can easily be determined.
The Qibla is not the building of the Kâ’ba, but its land. In other words, the empty place from the earth up to the Arsh is the qibla. For this reason, salat can be performed toward that direction from under [the sea] and over the high mountains [in airplanes]. [In order to be a Hadji, people go to that land, not to the building of Kâ’be. People who go to other places cannot be hadjis.]
