Skywalker, I have seen those Christian presentations on early mosque qiblas. My sense is that their basic point is roughly correct, it is true that the earliest mosque qiblas seem to point towards Jordan (Crone made a version of this argument), but they seem awfully credulous and uncritical about the dating of the specific mosques they are talking about. This is actually pretty characteristic of Christian polemic against Islam, it is very critical when it helps them and remarkably credulous whenever it helps. There is no consistency. Islamic Awareness actually has a pretty good discussion of these issues, attempting to rebut Crone on the early qibla.
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Dome_Of_The_Rock/qibla.htmlThey admit that the qibla of the early mosques did not point towards Mecca. Their explanation for this strikes me as painfully contrived.
"But still a lingering question exists. Why did the Muslims chose the winter sunset for the mosques in Iraq and winter sunrise for the mosque in Egypt for their respective qiblas? What was the relationship of this astronomical phenomena with respect to Kʿabah? The answers to this is in the astronomical orientation of Kʿabah."
They then give a very complicated argument for why this would somehow relate to the Kaba. But it doesn't work, because you can't explain why mosques to the East would have their qibla pointing West, while those in the West would have their qibla facing East. The qibla was clearly geographical, directed at a specific point on earth, not astronomical. And saying that all of these were mistakes of some sort requires imputing a rather incredible degree of geographical incompetence to early Muslims across the globe.
Btw, I have to enjoy the rhetoric: "The notion that early mosques were oriented toward northern Arabia/Jerusalem insidiously suggests the possibilities that the earliest Muslims did not pray toward Makkah and that the Islamic traditon of a qibla facing Kʿabah was a later development, hidden from history by some sort of a conspiracy." Hmm, it's almost as though that exact scenario is discussed in the Qur'an itself! So is this the insidious conspiracy they speak of? Q 2:142-145:
"We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qiblah with which you will be pleased. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer]. Indeed, those who have been given the Scripture well know that it is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do.
The foolish among the people will say, "What has turned them away from their qiblah, which they used to face?" Say, "To Allah belongs the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path."
And thus we have made you a just community that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you. And We did not make the qiblah which you used to face except that We might make evident who would follow the Messenger from who would turn back on his heels. And indeed, it is difficult except for those whom Allah has guided. And never would Allah have caused you to lose your faith. Indeed Allah is, to the people, Kind and Merciful.
We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qiblah with which you will be pleased. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer]. Indeed, those who have been given the Scripture well know that it is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do.
And if you brought to those who were given the Scripture every sign, they would not follow your qiblah. Nor will you be a follower of their qiblah. Nor would they be followers of one another's qiblah. So if you were to follow their desires after what has come to you of knowledge, indeed, you would then be among the wrongdoers."
I don't think conspiracy is quite the right word for a change of qibla that the Qur'an itself is so explicit about! Yet again, the change of qibla is explained as a 'test' for how obedient you are to the prophet, which the surah acknowledges is 'difficult.'
Topic: Findings of Critical Scholarship vis-a-vis the Traditional Islamic Understanding