Giant Mecca Clock Seeks to Call Time on Greenwich
THE TELEGRAPH: For more than a century, a point on the top of a hill in south-east London has been recognised as the centre of world time and the official starting point of each new day.

Big Ben (L) and the Mecca Clock Tower (R) are now in competition to be recognised as the centre of time. Photo: The Telegraph
But now the supremacy of Greenwich Mean Time is being challenged by a gargantuan new clock being built in Mecca, by which the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims could soon be setting their watches.

Due to start ticking on Thursday as the faithful begin fasting during the month of Ramadan, the timepiece sits atop the Royal Mecca Clock Tower which dominates Islam’s holiest city.

It is at the heart of a vast complex funded by the Saudi government that will also house hotels, shopping malls and conference halls.

Bearing a striking resemblance to both St Stephen’s Tower, which houses the bell of Big Ben, and the Empire State Building, the Saudi upstart aims to outdo its revered British rival in every way.

The clock’s four faces are 151ft in diameter and will be illuminated by 2million LED lights along with huge Arabic script reading: “In the name of Allah”. The clock will run on Arabia Standard Time which is three hours ahead of GMT.

When a glittering spire is added, topped with a crescent to symbolise Islam, the edifice will stand at nearly 2,000 ft, making it the world's second tallest building.

The clock of Big Ben, by comparison, is just 23ft in diameter, while its tower stands at a mere 316ft.

Residents of Mecca will also be reminded that it is time to pray when 21,000 green and white lights, visible at a distance of 18 miles, flash five times a day.

But Islamic scholars hope the clock’s influence will stretch far further than the sands of Saudi Arabia, as part of a plan for Mecca to eclipse the Greenwich Observatory as the “true centre of the earth”. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent, and Martin Beckford | Wednesday, August 11, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: Mecca clock: Greenwich Mean Time only recently synchronised world’s watches – Throughout the vast majority of human history, the time was calculated locally according to the rising and setting of the sun. >>> Martin Beckford | Wednesday, August 11, 2010


MAIL ONLINE asks whether we’ll soon be setting our clocks to Mecca Mean Time! >>>

Related articles here and here

Mecca to Outface Big Ben with World’s Largest Clock
THE SUNDAY TIMES: A new hotel in Mecca will be the world's second-tallest building and will feature the world's largest clock face

The Mecca Royal Clock Tower hotel will be the world's second-tallest building. Photo: The Sunday Times
The world’s largest clock will be the centrepiece of a giant hotel that will dominate the skyline of Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca when it opens this autumn.

The Mecca Royal Clock Tower hotel, an architectural amalgam of Big Ben and the Empire State Building, is part of a £3.3 billion complex which, at 1,939ft, will be the second tallest building in the world.

The four faces of the German-built clock, each 141ft high, will be visible from 10 miles away by day and more than seven miles at night.

It has been deliberately designed to dwarf London’s Big Ben, whose faces are 23ft high. Mohammed al-Arkubi, the hotel’s general manager said: “Putting Mecca time in the face of Greenwich mean time, this is the goal.”

The clock’s mechanism will be started in August before Ramadan and the opening of the seven-star, 800-room luxury hotel, which will cater for rich participants in the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

The complex, built on the site of an old Ottoman fort, consists of seven towers, two helipads and a shopping centre that will open next year. Three thousand rooms and suites will go on sale, with one-room studio flats starting at £430,000.

The building is capped by a spire topped with a golden crescent.

Many of the rooms directly overlook the Kaaba, the cube-shaped granite building covered in black silk towards which every Muslim turns in daily prayer. Continue reading and comment >>> Rosie Kinchen | Sunday, June 27, 2010

'Makkah Mean Time' Should Replace 'Greenwich Mean Time', Say Muslim Scientists and Clerics!
Photo of the Ka’aba in Makkah (Mecca) courtesy of Google Images
BBC: 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.

Mecca 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.

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.

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.

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. [Source: Muslim Call to Adopt Mecca Time]

Greenwich Mean Time

FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS:
And Now Muslims Want ‘Mecca Mean Time’ >>> By Adrian Morgan | April 25, 2008

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