Masjid al-Qiblatayn

Masjid al-Qiblatayn has the coolest name of any mosque in the world — it means 'The Mosque of the Two Qiblahs.' A qiblah is the direction Muslims face when they pray. And inside this one mosque, something miraculous happened that changed the direction of millions of prayers forever.

For the first 16 months after the Hijra, the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims used to pray facing north toward Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem). They loved that direction, but the Prophet ﷺ secretly hoped that one day Allah would let them face the Ka'bah in Makkah instead, because that was the house Prophet Ibrahim had built.

One afternoon, the Prophet ﷺ was leading the Dhuhr or Asr prayer right here in this mosque (it was just a simple building in the Banu Salama neighborhood back then). In the middle of the prayer, the angel Jibreel suddenly brought a brand new verse of the Qur'an: 'Turn your face toward Masjid al-Haram!'

Without breaking his prayer, the Prophet ﷺ calmly turned his whole body around to face Makkah. The men behind him turned too, and even the rows of women turned! Imagine — they were facing one direction at the start of the prayer and a completely different direction at the end. From that moment, every Muslim in the world has prayed toward the Ka'bah.

For a long time, the mosque had two mihrabs (prayer arches) — one for each old qiblah, to remind everyone of this amazing story. Today only the Makkah mihrab is used, but the mosque still has two beautiful domes side by side to remember the day the qiblah changed.