The one prayer ritual which is universal to all Muslims is that the five-daily prayer is offered in the direction of the Ka’bah which is in Mecca, Arabia. In this regard, since the 8th century CE, determining the direction of the qibla became an issue of mathematical accuracy towards a sacred geography. This lacquered wooden qibla-indicator bears the signature of the court’s chief astrologer, Husayn Quli and was made in the Hijrah year1282 (which corresponds to 1865-66 CE). The accuracy of the direction of the qibla is especially important in establishing the prayer halls of mosques as well the orienting the direction of graves in a Muslim cemetery. The scientific calculation of the qibla and prayer times would have been shared by the earliest Muslim missionaries who arrived in the Malay Archipelago to spread Islamic teachings and orthopraxis.
