The BBC has re****ted a meeting of Muslim scientists and clerics in Qatar,
who have called for Greenwich Mean Time to be replaced by Mecca time,
since
Mecca is the true centre of the Earth. The re****t can be found at the
following link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7359258.stm
"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."
One wonders how a purely conventional meridian can have been forced on
the
world, when a convention depends upon general acceptation.
"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."
But the centre of the Earth is internal to the earth, and as to its
surface,
no point is centre.
"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."
All this is vivid evidence of the desperately low level of intellctual
life
and culture under Islam.
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