Makkah and of the Ka‘bah, notwithstanding the fact that pilgrimage to Makkah had been ordained as a duty of the Muslims towards the close of the Holy Prophet’s stay at Makkah, as shown later, notwithstanding even the fact that it was the Holy Prophet’s own desire that the Ka‘bah should be made his qiblah (Bu. 2:30; 8:31; 65, sura 2, ch. 18), he continued to follow the qiblah of the last prophet that had passed away before him, that is, Jerusalem, and awaited the Divine direction. The Holy Qur’ān recognized the truth of all the prophets, including the prophets of Israel, and as Jesus was the last of those prophets and his qiblah the same as that of the Israelite prophets,2 namely, the temple at Jerusalem, which place was honoured by the Holy Qur’ān (17 :1) as al-Masjid al-Aqṣā (lit., the Remote Mosque), he retained it as his qiblah until he received an express revelation to turn towards the Sacred Mosque. Moreover, he did not receive that commandment when he was at Makkah among the polytheists when it might have been said that he was scheming to win over the Arabs; but it was after his coming to Madīnah, at a time when relations with the Jews were still friendly, when the prospects of winning over the Arabs were as distant as ever, and when war with the Quraish at Makkah had become inevitable, that the Holy Prophet received a revelation to turn to the Ka‘bah as the future qiblah of the Muslim world. For sixteen long months at Madīnah, he had continued to pray with his back to Makkah, the avowedly sacred territory, because he would not do anything of his own desire. As soon as he came to Madīnah, he felt the difficulty that he could no more, as at Makkah, turn his face to both places, to the Holy temple at Jerusalem and to the Sacred Mosque at Makkah; he realized that in turning his face to one he must turn his back on the other; and however much he desired that the Sacred Mosque at Makkah should be his qiblah, still he would not turn his back to the qiblah of the last prophet before him, until he received a Divine commandment to that effect.

When was pilgrimage first instituted

The ḥajj was a recognized institution in the first and second years of Hijrah before the commencement of the war with the Quraish. The second chapter which was, in the main, revealed in the first and second years of Hijrah, is full of directions relating to ḥajj, the context