The Kaaba faces several terrestrial and heavenly bodies. This led to the Arabs' use of astronomical phenomenon such as sunrise or sunset during equinoxes, solstices, Pole star, Canopus etc to direct the mosques towards the kaaba. It was in fact the favorite way adopted by religious authorities in medieval times to use astronomical alignments, particularly cardinal and solstitial directions and the rising point of the star Canopus to determine the correct qibla. These astronomical alignments were used by the early Muslims because they were so familiar with the Kaaba that they knew that when they stood in front of the edifice, they were facing a particular astronomical direction. So in order to face the appropriate part of the Kaaba which was associated with their geographical location, they used the same astronomically-defined direction for the qibla as they would have been standing directly in front of that particular segment of Kaaba.
During the course of history, these Ishmaelites who were supposed to be the custodians of Ibrahim's legacy and the kaaba began worshipping these phenomenons and associating them to the supreme God. Among them Canopus which a minority worshipped, while the vast majority were idol worshipers who recognized the superiority of the One God above the idols they placed as intercessors with Him. The Temple wasnt dedicated to anyone but Allah, much less to canopus, sirius and other astral bodies which were far from being the greatest deities of the Kaaba. The first Temple in Jerusalem faced east. It was built by the prophet Solomon who prayed God to listen to the people's prayers that are in direction of this qibla 1kings8. The prophet David's supplications Ps5:8,138:2 or Daniel's 3 daily prayers were directed to it Dan6:11. This does not mean it was originally intended for sun worship because of later generations of Jews having strayed into the adoration of the rising sun, moon, stars and other idols whose representations they brought inside the Temple itself 2Kings23,Ezek8. Its nonsense.
And besides, Arabs even before Islam did not face Canopus during prayer and rituals, but the Kaaba, wherever they were. Similarly, Jewish prayers were and are still directed at the Temple despite the tabernacle made to face the east. The Quran since its earliest verses used the argument that these celestial objects were, among other entities they worshipped like the sun or the moon 41:37 besides Allah who was a different entity altogether and the supreme God of their pantheon 29:60-65,31:25,39:3 nothing but stars created by Allah who is their sustainer and maintainer 53:49,86:1-3. How can these heavenly bodies that will eventually scatter, darken and be destroyed on the day of resurrection, have any will of their own and divine attributes? In the HB, the prophet Amos, a herdsman who had observed the celestial bodies and adored their maker contrary to his contemporaries who had forsaken Him, uses similar reasoning when addressing the idolaters
Amos5:8"He Who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns darkness into morning, and day He darkens as night; He Who calls the water of the sea and pours it out on the face of the earth, the Lord is His Name".By further alluding to the punctual, predictable, cyclical appearing and disappearing of those celestial entities, the Quran gives clear evidence to their subservience to some higher authority who regulates them according to his own decree. The foolish have only given importance to the rising of these heavenly bodies and have made them their deities whereas they should also have witnessed their setting which is a very clear evidence of their subservience to a superior being
52:49"And in the night, give Him glory too, and at the setting of the stars".
They have therefore no powers per se of effecting earthly events as the soothsayers deceptively claimed 81:15-16. The same argument that was once inspired to Ibrahim's polytheistic nation 6:75-83 was here inspired to his descendant Muhammad following in his upright footsteps.
It would be worthwile noting here the speculations as regards Allah being a "Moon-god" from pre-Islamic times. The proponents of this idea, abandonned by many inside both Christian and anti-Muslim missionary circles, find inspiration from Robert Morey's writings. Morey, known for his misquotes of previous scholars, if not fabrication and supression of evidence so as to enforce his liberal conclusions, has himself based his ideas on the now discarded speculations of Ditlef Nielsen. In the early 1900's Nielsen divided the Semitic deities of Arabia into a triad of Father-Moon, Mother-Sun and Son-Venus. He proposed similar theories as regards the lunar origins of the Biblical Yahweh, actually being a Moon-god and part of the triad of Yahweh - Baal - Ashtart. The last 2 deities are known to have been constantly reintroduced into the religion of the Israelites, and in their worship sites as related throughout the Hebrew Bible. The same was the case with other competing cosmic deities like those inspired from the sun Ezek6:4.
As archaeological evidence, Morey uses the figurine of a seated man wearing a crescent/disc necklace, found at Hazor in Upper Gallilee, as evidence of his Allah/moon-god association. No scholar of the field, including those that made the findings ever identified that statue with a "Moon-god", let alone Allah. Nobody concluded that the inscriptions found on the site indicated moon-god worship. Neither were there "smaller statues" found at the site, supposedly depicting the moon-god's daughters.
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