Note 328 — Chapter XX · CONQUEST OF PALESTINE. A.H. XV. A.D. 636.

The heavenly journey is thus referred to in the Corân: ‘Praise be to Him, who carried His servant by night to the Farther Temple (Masjid al Acksa), the environs of which we have made blessed.’ Sura xvii. (The ‘Farther Temple,’ in opposition to the Nearer Temple, the Kaaba.) See the tale, Life of Mahomet, p. 126. Jerusalem was the Kibla of Mahomet and his followers all the time he worshipped at Mecca. In the second year after his flight to Medîna, the Prophet was suddenly instructed to turn instead to Mecca, to which ever since, the Moslems have turned at prayer. (Ibid. p. 198.)