2.3 Orientating the Sacred Place The example commonly...

2.3 Orientating the Sacred Place The example commonly brought to justify legal reasoning and the multiplicity of opinions among jurists is the dilemma of finding the direction of prayer – the qiblah – for believers who cannot visually locate Mecca.[^33] While the obligation of facing Mecca applies to every Muslim believer with no temporal or spatial limitations, performing this duty might involve certain practical difficulties when Mecca is beyond the believer’s sight.

In that case, the worshipper must make a special effort and use his own judgmental faculties in order to determine the correct direction.[^34] The traveler who seeks the direction of Mecca needs available signs by which he can find the proper direction.[^35] In that respect, these circumstances exemplify both the epistemological problem and its solution.

Determining the correct direction illustrates the ascertainment of the right answer, and the traveler’s predicament is analogous to the confusions that may beset the jurist who seeks the right answer for the case that confronts her.…