—peace and blessings of Allah be upon him— because he is certain of the correctness of his Qiblah, for the Prophet —peace and blessings of Allah be upon him— would not be allowed to remain in error. Usamah narrated that the Prophet —peace and blessings of Allah be upon him— prayed two rak'ahs facing the Ka'bah and said: "This is the Qiblah." The second type is the one whose obligation is based on a report (khabar); he is the person who is in Makkah but is absent from the Ka'bah and is not one of its inhabitants, and he finds someone to inform him based on certainty or direct observation, such as if he is behind a barrier and there is someone on the barrier to inform him, or if he is a stranger who settled in Makkah and the residents of the house informed him. Likewise, if he were in a city or a village, his obligation is to turn toward their mihrabs (prayer niches) and their established Qiblahs, because these Qiblahs are set up by people of expertise and knowledge, so that acts as a report and suffices instead of ijtihad. If someone who is an expert in the Qiblah informs him, whether they are from the town or otherwise, he acts according to their report and does not perform ijtihad, just as a judge accepts a statement from a reliable person and does not perform ijtihad. The third type is the one whose obligation is ijtihad; he is the one who lacks these two conditions but is knowledgeable of the evidence. The fourth type is the one whose obligation is taqlid (imitation); he is the blind person or the one who is incapable of ijtihad and lacks the previous two conditions, so his obligation is to follow the mujtahidin (those who practice ijtihad). The requirement for these two and for all those who are far from Makkah is to seek the direction of the Ka'bah, rather than hitting the exact location. Ahmad said: "Whatever is between the East and the West is a Qiblah, so if he deviates slightly from the Qiblah, he does not repeat the prayer, but he should strive for the center." Abu Hanifah stated the same. Al-Shafi'i said in one of his two opinions the same as our view, and in the other: "The obligation is to hit the exact location," due to the saying of the Almighty: "And wherever you are, turn your faces toward it," because it is incumbent upon him to turn toward the Ka'bah, so he is obligated to turn toward its exact location, just like one who is witnessing it. Our evidence is the saying of the Prophet —peace and blessings of Allah be upon him—: "What is between the East and the West is a Qiblah." It was narrated by al-Tirmidhi, who said: It is a hasan sahih hadith. Its literal meaning is that everything between them is a Qiblah. Furthermore, if the obligation were