مشرق ومغرب
Mashriq wa-maghrib
Topic
“To God belong the east and the west” (2:115): no direction contains God, though prayer faces the Kaaba.
What it means
“To God belong the east and the west; wherever you turn, there is the face of God” (2:115). “Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but righteousness is whoever believes in God and the Last Day…” (2:177). The Quran also speaks of “the Lord of the two easts and the two wests” (55:17), and “the Lord of the east and the west” (73:9).
What the sources say
The two easts and two wests are read as the two points of sunrise and sunset in summer and winter. The direction of prayer was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca in the second year after the hijra (2:142–150), as the entry on the qibla explains.