Jakarta, July 17: Indonesia’s Muslims learned on Friday they have been praying in the wrong direction, after the country’s highest Islamic authority said its directive on the direction of Mecca actually had people facing Africa.
Muslims are supposed to face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during prayer and the Indonesian Ulema Council issued an edict in March stipulating westward was the correct direction from the world’s most populous Muslim country.
“But it has been decided that actually the mosques are facing Somalia or Kenya, so we are now
suggesting people shift the direction slightly to the north-west,” the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council, Cholil Ridwan, said.
“There’s no need to knock down mosques, just shift your direction slightly during prayer.” Ridwan said Muslims need not fear that their prayers have been wasted because they were facing the wrong way.
“Their prayers will still be heard by Allah,” he said.
Mr Agil Siradj, head of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, told an English language newspaper the Jakarta Globe that the confusion showed the council issued edicts too fast and that this was a lesson for them.
The Ulema council has, in the past, issued controversial edicts banning Muslims from chanting during yoga, and from smoking. Indonesia is a majority Muslim but officially secular country.