His saying, Glorified and Exalted be He: (So turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque, and wherever you are, turn your faces toward it) Al-Baqarah: 144, and the mention of the Sacred Mosque in the Quran without the Kaaba is evidence that it is obligatory to consider the direction rather than the physical location. And from Ali ibn Yahya al-Zurqi from his father from his uncle, he said: ((We were with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, when a man entered the mosque and prayed while the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, was watching him without him realizing it. Then he turned and came to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and greeted him. The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, returned his greeting and then said: Go back and pray, for you did not pray. He said: I do not know if it was in the second or third (rak'ah). He said: By the One who sent down the Book to you, I exerted myself, so teach me and show me. He said: When you want to pray, perform ablution well, then stand and face the Qibla, then say Allahu Akbar, then recite, then bow until you are at ease in bowing, then rise until you are standing upright, then prostrate until you are at ease in prostration, then raise your head until you are at ease sitting, then prostrate until you are at ease in prostration. If you do that, you have completed your prayer, and whatever you have missed from that, you have only missed from your prayer)), in Sunan al-Nasa'i al-Kubra 1: 220, and from Abu Huraira in Sunan Ibn Majah 1: 336. When the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, taught the Bedouin the pillars of prayer, he commanded him to face the Qibla in that, and the scholars have derived from this hadith the obligation of what is mentioned in it, whether it is something done in prayer or outside of it; because it is commanded, and the command implies obligation, and the non-obligation of what is not mentioned in it during prayer; because the context is one of teaching prayer and defining its pillars, which necessitates that the obligations are limited to what is mentioned in it; so that there is no delay in clarification beyond the time of need, for that is not permissible. See: Maraqi al-Falah p. 212-213.