The change of the qibla

In Sha'ban of 2 AH (February 624 CE) — sixteen or seventeen months after the Hijra to Medina — the divine command came down turning the qibla of prayer from Jerusalem to the honoured Ka'ba in Mecca. ¹

The Prophet loved to be turned toward Abraham's qibla and would turn his face to the horizons of the sky awaiting revelation, until the verse of the qibla's turning came down: al-Baqara 144. ^{1 2}

The turning of the qibla was a decisive test: it marked off the true believers from the wavering, exposed the hypocrites among the doubters, proclaimed the independence and doctrinal and spiritual distinctness of the Muslim community, and announced the start of a new stage in which the Muslims looked toward cleansing the Sacred Mosque of idols. ¹