The First Matter
Your fair mind knows that the investigative scholars of Islam have agreed on the sphericity of the earth, if only tacitly.
If you have any doubts, go to the Maqāṣid and Mawāqif, study them and become acquainted with their purpose, and you will see that Sa‘d and the Sayyid hold the globe in their hands like a ball and are looking at every side of it.
If that door does not open to you, enter upon Imam Razi’s extensive commentary, Mafātiḥ al‑Ghayb, and join his study circle as he teaches, and listen to him.
If you are not assured by him and you still have not grasped the idea of sphericity, follow İbrahim Hakkı, approach Imam Ghazali, the Hujjat al‑Islam, and request a fatwa. Ask him if there is any dispute over the earth’s sphericity, he is bound to reply: “If you don’t accept it, there’ll be a dispute!” For even at that time he issued such a fatwa: “If anyone denies a definitely proven and established matter like the earth’s sphericity on the pretext of defending religion, he perpetrates a serious crime. To do so is betrayal of religion, not loyalty towards it.”
If you are illiterate and can’t read his fatwa, listen to what Husayn Jisr has to say, since he is our contemporary and holds similar ideas to us. For he both loudly threatened those who deny that the earth is round, and with the power of truth declared fearlessly: “Whoever denies the earth’s sphericity citing religion and to defend it is a foolish friend and more harmful than a fierce enemy.”
If his resounding voice does not rouse your idea of the truth from its slumbers and your eyes do not open, take the hand of people like Ibn Humam and Fakhr al‑Islam. Go to Imam Shafi‘i and ask for a fatwa. Ask him:
“It is included in the Shari‘a that all five of the daily ṣalāt may be performed in a single period between two of the ṣalāt. Moreover, there is a people for whom there are times they cannot perform the ‘Ishā’ ṣalāt, and there is another people for whom the sun never sets for days and for many nights the sun never rises, so how can they perform the fast?” And ask that since according to the Shari‘a a matter is stipulated in accordance with its connection (mukârin) with other principal matters, how should the direction of the qibla be fixed, which is obligatory for the ṣalāt? For there is a connection (mukârenet) only in those parts of the ṣalāt performed while standing and half‑sitting?
You may be certain that Imam Shafi‘i would solve the first matter by depicting a curved sphere stretching from east to west, while the second and third matters he would solve by describing a curve stretching from south to north. He would reply as though with a rational demonstration (bürhan‑ı aklî).
Concerning the qibla he would say that the qibla and Ka‘ba form a column of light so luminous it fastens the heavens to the divine throne in regular order, and piercing all the levels of the globe to the innermost, has become a luminous pillar of the universe. If the veil were to be lifted, following a perpendicular line the beam of your eye would meet and salute the Ka‘ba’s eye at every action of the ṣalāt.
Brother! If you are the man I think you are, the strange fancies you have, have found nowhere other than the world of imagination to settle and lack any value that they should enter your heart. You don’t believe them yourself even and you can’t convince your soul, but you’ve gone astray. If the globe, which is many times smaller than your imagination, cannot be situated in your heart, which is open to those fancies and closed to the truth, broaden your horizons and expand your mind! Behold the dwellers on the earth, who have become like the members of a council, and ask them. For the landowner knows his house. Basing it on observation and consensus, they will tell you unanimously: “Our globe, our cradle and railway through space, is not so crazy as to make itself an unbridled exception to the divine laws in force in the lofty bodies.” And they would proffer some relief maps.
Indication The Divine Shari‘a of Creation, called the order of the world’s creation, has made it obligatory that the travelling globe, in ecstasy like a Mevlevi, joins the row of the orderly stars and complies with it. For together with its partner, the earth declared: We do come [together] in willing obedience. Worshipful obedience is preferable and more meritorious in congregation.
In Short: The world’s Maker created the earth as He wished and as His wisdom required, not as your appetites wanted, you fond imaginers! He didn’t appoint your intelligences as the world’s engineers!
Reminder Another matter that indicates weakness of belief, or a tendency towards the Sophists’ way, or a perusing customer, is the idiotic statement: “This fact is opposed to religion.” For the person who deems it possible that something established by decisive proof to be true and right is opposed to religion, and is frightened of such contraiety, either has a Sophist hidden in his brain who is confusing it, or a whispering devil has pierced his heart and being concealed there is inciting a revolution, or he is again thinking of taking up religion and is examining it critically.