[Warmheart4u2007]

Originally Posted by Kona_Silat

In all honestly it does not matter what direction. Youre not praying to the kaaba but to ALLAH

Dear Kona_Silat actually determination of Qibla is must for offering Salah. You are right we don't pray to Kaaba but we have been ordered to offer Salah in the direction of Qibla so the direction is a must.

Originally Posted by Judicata

Maybe it would be like the rule that if you're on a ship, you have to pray sitting down... instead of staggering backwards and forwards with the pitching of the sea...

lol, but the case here is of a spaceship and the problem is not of staggering backwards and forwards but the determination of the direction of the Qibla.

Originally Posted by Rida

Question: If a person goes to the Moon, in which direction must he or she pray, since the Ka`bah is on Earth. I know that I m not there and do not need the answer for practicle purposes, but I would still be interested in the answer for my general knowledge.

Answered by the Scientific Research Committee - IslamToday.net

This is a simple matter. The same rulings in Islamic Law regarding the determination of the qiblah on the Earth are employed for the Moon.

The general rule of Islamic Law is that a person must pray in the general direction of the Ka`bah, not the specific point of the Ka`bah. Since the Moon is so far away from the Earth, the Earth itself would be the general direction of the Ka`bah. Since the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth (it always shows the same face to the Earth), the direction of the Earth never changes relative to any place on the Moon.

Since the Moon, like the Earth, is basically spherical, the qiblah would be determined by reference to the point on the surface on the Moon nearest to the direction of the Earth. The qiblah direction for any location on the Moon would be determined by the shortest straight-line trajectory over the surface of the moon to that point. This is the same way it is determined on Earth. On Earth, the shortest straight-line trajectory to Mecca over the Earth’s surface from any other location in the world is the Qiblah direction for that location.

And Allah knows best.

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P.s.
Also when you are in outerspace and earth is on the opposite side and the Ka'ba is on the far side of the earth, you'd find the direction by shooting a beam of light that goes from both sides of the kaabah out into space, and the shortest horizantal distance towards the beam would be the direction of the kaabah.

Thanks for this nice quotation but the question is not on moon but in a spaceship.

The ruling from IslamToday.net is illogical. We have been ordered to offer Salah in the direction of Qibla. If you act upon their ruling the direction would be quite different. i.e let us say there would be a position that the qibla would be direct on your head and you would be offering Salah sideways . That does not make any sense. Draw the drawing yourself and you would find it very strange.

The problem is what actually happened. Recently some muslim visited outer space including one pakistani woman. The space travels are going to become common in near future so it is a practical problem and require a logical and sensible solution.