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.
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.
