Every time we stand in Prayer, Muslims may say they make a spiritual journey to the Ka’bah in Makkah, somewhat as the Prophet did during his Night Journey to Jerusalem.
And from the Ka’bah, our spirit travels upward towards Allah the Almighty just as the Prophet during his Ascension from Jerusalem. So for a pious and sincere worshiper, every Prayer he performs involves Night Journey and an Ascension, as it were.
During his Ascension, in a mystical experience of immense spiritual significance, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) led all the earlier prophets in Prayer in Al-Aqsa mosque at Jerusalem. This was a wonderful event that symbolized not only the oneness of both the houses of worship — the Ka’bah and Al-Aqsa — but also the oneness of the guidance of Allah given through all the prophets.
Because Prophet Muhammad was sent as the final prophet for the whole of humanity consisting chiefly of the children of Abraham by his eldest son Ishmael, and the second son Isaac, (peace be upon them both). Jerusalem represents the line of Isaac, as Makkah represents the line of Ishmael.
The foregoing highlights the significance of both the cities serving as the qiblah of Muslims: First Jerusalem and then Makkah. The final prophet born in the line of Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, at Makkah was commanded to turn to Jerusalem for Prayer; and then as a significant turning point in the process of the completion of the religion of Islam, God asks Prophet Muhammad to turn to the first house of God in Makkah for worship.
And God says in the Quran what means:
Thus, have We made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger a witness over yourselves; and We appointed the Qiblah to which thou was used, only to test those who followed the Messenger from those who would turn on their heels (From the Faith). Indeed it was (A change) momentous, except to those guided by Allah. And never would Allah Make your faith of no effect. For Allah is to all people Most surely full of kindness, Most Merciful. (Al-Baqarah 2:143)
A Prophet For All Humanity
In the above verse the use of the expression, “an Ummah justly balanced that ye might be witnesses over the nations” is particularly noteworthy.
Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad is not to be considered the prophet of just a region, a race or a nation any more. Rather, he is the prophet of the whole of humanity; and the community of believers will be a justly balanced middle nation with Makkah as its center.
Jerusalem, representing the earlier versions of the religion, was not the qiblah any more. Makkah, representing the patriarch of mankind Abraham and all his children, was to be recognized as the center of the completed religion of God.
This means that the change of qiblah had far more significance than most people at that time understood.
According to the Quran, Prophet Muhammad and his followers were named “the best of peoples” as well as “a justly balanced society”, deserving of leading the whole of humanity to the path of God.
That is to say, the change of the qiblah is a declaration by God of the perfection of the first religion as the final religion for mankind. Through the two mystical events in the life of the final messenger, Muhammad, God completes and perfects the religion for humanity and declares the Ka’bah in Makkah as the center of the world as well as of His religion.
And those who recognize and accept this cannot be parochial or ethnocentric; they have got to be above race, region or nation; they have to be at the center as a justly balanced middle nation serving as “witnesses over nations” as the true representatives of the whole of humanity.
(From Discovering Islam’s archive)
