Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Set Your Watch by Mecca

This is one of the stranger stories I’ve come across recently. It’s notable that the BBC reports it with a straight face. If there’s irony here, I can’t detect it:

Muslim call to adopt Mecca time

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.


The KaabaMecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Mecca watch

A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim “qibla” — the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray.

I’d be interested to see some of the scientific “evidence” that proves Mecca is the center of the Earth. Presumably the academic journals haven’t covered it, since they are all tainted by the unbelief of the kuffar. But surely something has been published somewhere…?

The article continues:
- - - - - - - - -
The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.

So what’s the primary purpose of the watch? To tell time, or point to Mecca?

Or maybe there’s a way to perform both functions simultaneously?

I’d love to see it.

The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called “Ijaz al-Koran”, which roughly translates as the “miraculous nature of the holy text”.

The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.

This is an interesting idea. If the underlying ideas of all scientific discoveries are to be found in the Koran, then why is it that all major scientific breakthroughs and inventions can be credited to various infidels who never even looked at the Koran?

Perhaps it’s an extraordinary coincidence. Or maybe Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein were guided by secret messages beamed directly to their brains from the Koran without their even being aware of it.

Allah works in mysterious ways.

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

That sounds like dangerous heresy to me. Time to find out who said it, and then issue a fatwa.


Hat tip: TB.

21 comments:

spackle said...

"The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science."

Ah yes. When self esteem is at an all time low one must invent new truths. Very much in keeping with the cult of multiculturism. The muslims have learned much from our self destructive behavior. Next we will be told the earth is the center of the universe. Dont sail too far in that boat. You may fall off the edge of the planet into oblivion! I believe the edge is somewhere off the coast of Somalia.

Findalis said...

Now the center of the Earth is in Mecca. How convenient! I didn't know the Earth was flat.

The center of the Earth is thousands of kilometers under the crust. Drilling a hole down to it would do wonders for Mecca.

Sodra Djavul said...

Hey, am I the only one who can see the silver lining here? We can all agree to use Mecca time, and then conveniently (wink, wink) ignore it.

Since most of us are constantly calling for less engagement with the Muslim world, wouldn't this ultimately be a good thing if it was adopted? I mean seriously, they can say show up for the meeting at 9 o'clock, and we show up at 2. They say 4 o'clock, we show up at 11. Frustrations would mount on both sides and then we'd finally give up in disgust. Win-win.

- Sodra

David Barry O'Connor said...

I can't get my watch to go back to the 7th Century.

Anonymous said...

I think there's a translation problem here. Is it possible that Arabic word for "center" could also translated as "a**hole?

evilislam said...

Excellent news for biggest IDIOT of history of mankind JIMMY CARTER and i would imagine he would volunteer to alter his watch!

Henrik R Clausen said...

Funny, there must be some kind of mistake here. During the time of Muhammad and 3/4th century after, Muslims considered Jerusalem to be the center of the Universe, as the prayer direction of all early mosques indicate.

I think the Stupid Stone is suffering from an acute case of megalomania :)

Henrik R Clausen said...

The center of the Earth is thousands of kilometers under the crust.

Waitaminute, it's flaming hot *down* there... Must be Allah feeding the fires of Hell with the bodies of the infidels, as the Quran says he does.

unaha-closp said...

The most practical problem if Mecca Mean Time was adopted is the international date line would run through the Alaskan/Yukon border and not be in the unihabited middle of the Pacific.

songdongnigh said...

Here's a humerous video of some guy trying to defend "Mecca time". The amusing thing is that he believes every word he says.
Science in Islam: Mecca Time Must Replace Greenwich MT!

Gaeidhil said...

In case there is any confusion as to why mecca is not Greenwich...

See:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison

John Harrison (24 March 1693 – 24 March 1776) was an English clockmaker who revolutionised and extended the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age of Sail by inventing a long-sought and critically-needed key piece in the problem of accurately establishing the East-West position, or longitude, of a ship at sea, a problem considered so intractable that the British Parliament offered what was at the time a huge fortune for a solution (£20,000, roughly £6 million in 2007 terms[1]).

AlexP said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AlexP said...

I can't help but feel that this is just an attack on the English speaking world. I work with time alot and know that GMT was replaced on 1st Jan 1972 with Temps Universel Coordonné (UTC - Coordinated Universal Time) which is an atomic method of time keeping which is kept in France .It compensates for the slowing of the spin of the earth. It is generally not more than 0.8 seconds off GMT (now known as UT1) I'm not sure if this is just because of the industry i work in but i thought that UTC was fairly well known now.

Sorry I deleted my previous post. It wasn't quite finished

IgnorantInfidel said...

"... Perhaps it’s an extraordinary coincidence. Or maybe Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein were guided by secret messages beamed directly to their brains from the Koran without their even being aware of it. ..." [from above]

See what happens if your forget your tin foil hat.

Zenster said...

A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth

Ah yes, Sheikh Youseff ("Beat Your Wife Lightly") Qaradawi. Last I checked he was number 13 on my Top 40 Islamic Hit List™.

As to Mecca being the earth's center, I'll go along with such a notion if that Islamic shrine assumes the same temperature as our planet's core. It'd solve a host of problems all at once.

John Sobieski said...

Next up is the Medina calendar, which starts around 632. So all those famous dates (1776, 1492) will all change. This is what you get when you pretend Islam is not a joke and do not mock it for the trash religion it obviously is.

Profitsbeard said...

The correct translation of: "Mecca [is the] center of the Earth", from the Arabic would be:

"Mecca is the rectum of the Universe."

The imams are simply the suppositories of Islamic knowledge.

X said...

Next up is the Medina calendar, which starts around 632.

Back in around 1998, when the whole Y2K thing was looming large, someone seriously suggested that we should adopt the islamic calendar in order to avoid the problem... not realising, of course, that it would only delay the problem for about 500 years, and would also wreak untold havoc with existing equipment which had to be re-adjusted anyway. Or perhaps they did realise this and just didn't care.

Mikael said...

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

Unlike the geographical pole, which is a mathematical point, the magnetic pole is quite dynamic and moves around a lot. So unless Mecca by some miracle moves along with it, this is the usual BS coming from the scholars.

And since the earth is round, any given point will be the center.

So much for Islamic Science. (Here's a contradiction in terms.)

the doctor said...

How dare the British or Saudi's claim
a mean time ! Do they not know the pre-eminent time zone is Galactic Central Time and as a Time Lord I am in charge of it .

Ron Larson said...

Wow. So many problems.
(1) They compared that LATITUDE of Greenwich and Mecca. Either they don't know the difference, or the translator screwed up. Can any one confirm what they actually said?

Greenwich is the zero a LONGITUDE. The equator is the zero LATITUDE.

(2) If UTC is moved, then it moves the IDL east or west, which will end causing some country to span two days. By geographic luck, the earth has a longitude that pretty much missed large countries and population centers. This is the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the UTC has to be 180 degrees from this, which happens to be Greenwich.

Too bad everyone else. Blame God for putting the landmasses and oceans where they were at the time man needed to created UTC and IDL.

(3) What in the hell does the magnetic north pole have to do with time keeping? Nothing.

(4) People who live at the north and south poles don't live? What an asshat. Ask all the Inuits and Eskimos, who happen to live on top of the current magnetic north pole, how alive they are.

(5) Blood circulates clockwise? Huh? Blood, like any other fluid, goes from high pressure to low pressure. In mammals, this pressure is created by a pump called THE HEART.

Can any Arab please, please tell me. Do Arabs really listen to idiots like this and believe such crap? And what the hell is up with that interviewer? Doesn't his brain explode from the stupidity coming out of this idiot's mouth?