Around 40% of the 5,000 Muslim households surveyed in the Klang Valley have deviated from the correct direction of the qibla, partly due to errors in reading a compass.

This was discovered by the Selangor Astronomers Association (PAFNS) after verifying the qibla direction of more than 20,000 homes and premises.

The situation has resulted in some prayer spaces in these households being off by up to 180 degrees.

Out of the 5,000 homes verified, only 3,000 have used the Istiwa' A'dzam method, which is accurate in determining the qibla direction, during their verification.

PAFNS Secretary-General, Abdul Latip Ibrahim, said that the remaining 2,000 homes have used either a physical compass or an online application to indicate the direction, but the direction was still found to be incorrect.

He urged the public to use the correct method to determine the qibla direction to avoid this issue.

How can one accurately determine the qibla direction on their own?

While it's recommended to have officials check the qibla direction, sometimes it's not possible, so a qibla compass can be used.

This type of compass is used exclusively by Muslims to determine the direction to face during prayer towards the city of Mecca and the Ka'abah.

Although it operates like a regular compass and points north, the qibla compass features specific marks on its perimeter indicating the direction of prayer.

These marks correspond to different cities, or users can set a second pointer based on their location.

For accurate results, precise knowledge of both the longitude and latitude of one's location and Mecca is necessary.

Once these values are known, a spherical triangle can be used to calculate the angle from the local meridian to the required direction of Mecca.