Unpacking the Controversy - Qibla Dilemma EP. 2 (Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith)
Channel: Sheikh Three Time
Date: 2020-02-27

For these series of videos which follow the debate between King and 
Gibson, most of what we (Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith) introduce are taken 
from Gibson’s own video responses to King, with our own added 
commentaries and discussions.

You will notice the differences in tone between the two protagonists. 
While King used vitriol, denouncing and ridiculing Gibson unnecessarily, 
Gibson was always polite and humble, and never scorned King. That in and 
of itself is telling.

Ironically, the work Gibson does is commonly called ‘peer review’, where 
one scholar assesses the work of another, finds errors, and then 
provides a better solution. Every scholar must be peer reviewed; yet, 
King’s response to Gibson is not only shocking, it’s embarrassing. 
Instead of replying to the ideas Dan forwards, he just attacks his 
character and credentials.

Maybe it's because he was soon to retire, with everything he had written 
and taught confronted by this ‘upstart’, Gibson, a man with no degrees, 
little notoriety, and unknown to everyone; yet, able to disprove 
everything he had written and had taught for years. One can understand 
his frustration.

His introduction in his riposte of Dan highlights his anger, calling him 
“a Canadian amateur…who contradicts everything we know about early 
Islam…[and] in fact he [Gibson] just doesn’t get it…appears to be 
singularly ill-informed…clueless…and just doesn’t know”. Yet, Gibson has 
over 10,000 books on the subject, all of which he has read.

The conflict between the two begins with their starting presuppositions 
regarding how Islam began, which informs us concerning why they came to 
such different conclusions.

Dr King believes that in order to understand Early Islam (i.e. from 550 
AD – 799 AD), you must employ the scholars closest to those events, the 
later Medieval Muslim scholars (i.e. 800 AD – 1300 AD). Because they are 
closer they should know what happened in the preceding centuries, better 
than we do today. This is a decent presupposition to begin with; namely, 
always refer to the time period closest to that which you are studying.

According to the Qur’an (Surah 2:149-150) the Qibla was redirected to 
the ‘Masjid al Haram’ (notice it doesn’t say Mecca) when the Jews in 
Medina rejected Muhammad, so around 624 AD, if the Islamic Traditions 
are correct. Thus, every mosque built after 624 AD must face the ‘Masjid 
al Haram’, which Muslims believe is Mecca.

King agrees that this has to be Mecca as well, suggesting that he hasn’t 
read Patricia Crone’s research proving that Mecca wasn’t even known 
until 741 AD.

Yet, according to the Qur’an and the later traditions, Mecca is where 
Adam and Eve were sent down to when thrown out of the Garden of Eden 
(see Surah 7:24), and where Abraham destroyed the idols in the Ka’aba 
(see Surah 21:51-71), and where all trade went through, 
north-south-east-and west.

Crone, however, proves that there is no reference to this city until the 
mid-8th century (over 100 years after Muhammad’s death), nor was it on 
any maps until around 900 AD. Either King wasn’t aware of this new 
research, or he purposely chose to disregard it.

With no references to Mecca, could this be the reason these early 7th 
century Qiblas were facing Petra and not Mecca?

Dr King thinks not, as he would rather trust the later 9th – 14th 
century scholars, especially the 12th century Al Bazdawi, on whom he 
studied and did his paper.

He preferred to trust these later Muslim scholars, rather than an 
amateur Canadian archaeologist with no degree, especially one who hadn't 
studied under him, and that was his undoing.

Yet, when you read these later Muslim scholars, they likewise didn’t 
understand why the earlier Qiblas are misdirected, believing that they 
were facing tens of different directions, and for a multitude of 
reasons. This was because there was nothing for these later scholars to 
refer to, since nothing was written by the earlier mosque builders 
concerning why they directed their Qiblas anywhere, but Mecca.

It was Gibson who finally solved the problem of the misdirected Qiblas. 
Rather than trusting the confused 9th to 14th century scholars, he 
decided to physically go to the mosques themselves (over 100) and 
decipher where their Qiblas were facing. He quickly noticed that they 
were not facing in tens of different directions, but rather in 4 
directions. What’s more, he found out why they were facing these 4 
directions, by noting what was happening at these place and at that 
time…politically.

Depending on where you begin your research, by either trusting in later 
scholars who admit themselves that they were confused (King’s approach), 
or by going physically to the earliest mosques themselves, and then 
assessing what they tell us, both architecturally and historically 
(Gibson’s approach), your conclusions will differ, as we shall soon see.