Pemba Island
Mosque Qibla: 358 degrees
Nearest Qibla is the Between Qibla: 354.2 degrees which is 3.8 degrees to the east.
The Marqrizi Khitat tells us that the qibla from this island (known as Qanbaluh) was north through Jeddah. Scholars making notes on this, have commented that this is ‘utterly puzzling’. But actually, if one follows a line from Pemba island north through Jeddah, it becomes a Between Qibla.
The Marqrizi Khitat, refers to the land of the Zang. This is typically Bantu speaking east Africa. The Sea of China is the sea that separates Africa from India and later China. Arab and Chinese vessels crossed this sea, so from the African side, it was known as the sea of China.
Below is the quote from the Marqrizi Khitat:
I have been told by people who visited the land of the Zanj how they travel there on the Sea of China under the north wind and by following the eastern coastline of the Jazīrat Miṣr until they reach a place known as Raʾs Ḥafūnī (Cape Hafun), which to them marks the farthest point of the latter. They then take a fix on a star and head (south)west. Then they head again due north until they come to Qanbaluh in the land of the Zanj, which is the capital of the Zanj ruler, and their direction of prayer is now toward Jiddah.
Comment by Karl Stowasser: The term Jazīrat Miṣr ‘the Egyptian Peninsula,’ as distinguished from Jazīrat al-ʿArab ‘the Arabian Peninsula’ on the opposite side of the Red Sea, designates the northern part of the Horn of Africa, of which Cape Hafun (south of Cape Guardafui) is the easternmost projection. For the Ptolemaic concept of the Red Sea being part of the Sea of China cf. Pt. I, ch. 5. The last part of the itinerary here described is utterly puzzling (e.g., Qanbaluh is believed to be the island of Pemba, which is nowhere near a location from which the qiblah would run through Jiddah) and seems to have been miscopied.
Page 286
Al-Maqrīzī, Book of Exhortations and Useful Lessons in Dealing with Topography and Historical Remains (al-Khiṭaṭ). Part IIa, Translation and annotations by Karl Stowasser. Edited by Frédéric Bauden and Clopper Almon.
Pemba Island showing the Qibla direction towards Jeddah
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