Move over GMT, welcome 'Mecca Time'

Dayner

Dayner

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Dayner Camelman
Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world's largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Islam's holiest city of Mecca.

Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock, which will loom over Mecca's Grand Mosque from what is expected to be the world's second tallest building, will establish Mecca as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.

The clock is targeted to enter service with a three-month trial period in the first week of the holy month of Ramadan on or about August 12, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA.

It boasts four glimmering 46 metre-across (151 feet) faces of high-tech composite tiles, some laced with gold, sitting more than 400 metres (1,320 feet) over the Holy Haram compound.

The tower's height will reach 601 metres (1,983 feet), SPA said. On its website, Premiere Composite, which is responsible for cladding the top section, including a shimmering spire topped by a golden crescent moon, puts the planned height at 590 metres (1,947 feet).

That would make it the world's second tallest building -- ahead of Taiwan's 509 metre (1,670 feet) Taipei 101, but well behind the Burj Khalifa, the 828 metre (2,717 feet) skyscraper inaugurated in Dubai in January.

Some 250 "highly qualified Muslim workers" were completing welding work on the clock's frame, SPA said.

More than six times larger in diameter than London's famed Big Ben, the clock faces, with the Arabic words "In the Name of Allah" in huge lettering underneath and will be lit with two million LED lights.

Some 21,000 white and green coloured lights, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to as far as 30 kilometres (18.7 miles) to signal Islam's mandatory five-times daily prayers.

On special Muslim occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) up into the sky.

"Everyone is interested to see the clock, despite the lack of sufficient information about it, and its mechanism," said Mecca resident Hani al-Wajeeh.

"We in Mecca hope to be the world's central time zone, and not just have a clock to look at, to show off," he said.

The developer of the massive seven-tower Abraj al-Bait complex had kept the details of the clock a secret, but it is visibly in place now, adorned with the green crossed sword and palm symbol of the Saudi state.

Mohammed al-Arkubi, the manager of the Royal Mecca Clock Tower Hotel in the building below, said the installation of the clock, its faces made by the German-owned Dubai company, Premiere Composite Technologies, has been "a huge operation."

The clock reflects a goal by some Muslims to replace the 126-year-old Universal Time standard -- originally called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) -- with Mecca mean time.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented "scientific" arguments that Mecca time is the true global meridian. They said that Mecca is the centre of the world and that the Greenwich standard was imposed by the west in 1884.

Big does not begin to describe the Abraj al-Bait complex just across the street from the south gate of the Grand Mosque, the Muslim world's most sacred site.

Built by a government-controlled fund, the complex sits seven huge towers atop a massive podium. Six are between 42 and 48 stories, and in the middle is the clock tower, appearing nearly twice as tall as the others.

Moreover, the entire complex, with 3,000 hotel rooms and apartments, a five-story shopping centre and gigantic prayer and conference halls, will give it 1.5 million square metres (16.1 million square feet) of floor space, according to architects and construction industry reports.

At that it will tie Dubai International Airport's newest terminal three for the world's largest building by floor space.

The complex will sport three top-class hotels, the Fairmont, Raffles and Swiss Hotel. It will also have hundreds of luxury apartments, most of them designed to have a direct view of the Grand Mosque.

The project is part of the Saudi government's plan to develop Mecca to be able to receive as many as 10 million hajj Pilgrims every year, up from the current three million capacity.

That is necessary to accommodate a rapidly growing global population of Muslims, who have a duty to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes, if possible.

At the peak of the hajj, according to architect Dar al-Handasah, the complex should accommodate 65,000 people.

The clock will be the focus. Elevators will take visitors up to a huge viewing balcony just underneath the faces, and also a four-story astronomical observatory and Islamic museum.

"The construction of the biggest clock in the world in the purest spot on the earth is a dream-come-true for Muslims," said Atif Felmban, who lives in the city.

"Before, we heard and saw famous clocks in the West. But today we can as Muslims be proud of this giant project," said Ahmed Haleem, an Egyptian living in the Muslim holy city.

"I might leave Mecca before the opening ceremony for the clock. But I will be keen to follow it and set my watch to it as soon as it is working," Haleem said.

"It means an honour for a place, and time for me," he said.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraj_Al_Bait_Towers

too bad non-muslims wont be able to visit it
 
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Las macca , muslims onry !
 
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While the technical aspects are interesting, I must admit that I cannot help but view the "MMT" idea as a bad one. Really. Just one more thing to make people nervous about...
 
well you got a point but i think a lot of muslim will start using it alone side GMT but i don't expect the western to care about that
 
It might be just me, but I'm failing to see any issue at all with this. It's an architectural piece of awesome and if they want to make it a beacon for a new timezone, more power to them. It shouldn't affect us any.

Now if they demand the whole world shift their time zones so they can make this new zone, then I would have an issue. Otherwise, commend the clock and move on.
 
Alereth said:
It might be just me, but I'm failing to see any issue at all with this. It's an architectural piece of awesome and if they want to make it a beacon for a new timezone, more power to them. It shouldn't affect us any.

Now if they demand the whole world shift their time zones so they can make this new zone, then I would have an issue. Otherwise, commend the clock and move on.
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Pretty much this.

It shouldn't effect us living on the western side of the world very much at all. As for shifting a new time zone world wide, I don't see that being possible. That would be like asking for all the countries in the world to convert their measuring system to english.
 
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Reya said:
Pretty much this.

It shouldn't effect us living on the western side of the world very much at all. As for shifting a new time zone world wide, I don't see that being possible. That would be like asking for all the countries in the world to convert their measuring system to metric.
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Except the whole world is pretty much metric already :P
 
Lukas said:
Except the whole world is pretty much metric already :P
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I know @_@

The point I was making was you can't just change an established system of measurement over night.

*edit* I guess it would be better if stated the other way now that I think about it XD
 
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The only ones that iwll actually bother using it is Muslims - and even then it won't be noticable, as they'll still adjust the clock to the same time it is in the country they're in. Meaning if a Muslim family lives in Sweden and follow MST (Mecca Standart Time), they'll still adjust their clock to 12 PM Swedish time, and Sweden follow CET (Central European Time), and not MST. Reason being that neither UTC nor GMT adjust for Daylight Saving, something that's needed in Sweden.

Mecca won't adjust for Daylight Savings either I'm sure, due to their proximity to the Equator (and as such they do not use Daylight Saving), odds are they won't be nothing more than a novelty for muslims to use, and they won't ever reach their goal of "The whole world following our time". Hell, the whole world don't even use GMT anymore. Most Europeans use CET instead as GMT fucks us up during Daylight Savings (meaning half of the year Sweden is GMT+2, the other half +1), as opposed to CET, which adjust for Daylight Savings, always putting us at CET+0.
 
Uzor said:
Mecca won't adjust for Daylight Savings either I'm sure, due to their proximity to the Equator (and as such they do not use Daylight Saving), odds are they won't be nothing more than a novelty for muslims to use, and they won't ever reach their goal of "The whole world following our time". Hell, the whole world don't even use GMT anymore. Most Europeans use CET instead as GMT fucks us up during Daylight Savings (meaning half of the year Sweden is GMT+2, the other half +1), as opposed to CET, which adjust for Daylight Savings, always putting us at CET+0.
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not entirely true... i read this earlier while i was at work.
http://indyposted.com/37169/how-egypt-is-dealing-with-ramadan-prayer-times/

All and all.... clock is neat daylight savings and a new time standard are worthless... but more power to you.
 
It's like they think the whole world will change time standards if they build a bigger clock than Big Ben. I'm impressed that Muslim scholars can take the outside of a sphere and scientifically prove one point on the circumference as the center. Even funnier, because the Arabs are often touted as furthering math and "inventing" algebra. They should study it before they make such claims.
 
Muslims already use a separate Islamic calendar. Why not a separate time code as well?

We all have a good 50 years or so to adjust before the Global Caliphate enforces it.
 
anyway ... changing the subject ,

some Muslims here are against it , mostly from the zealot and fanatic saying stuff like its shape like a Cross or Star of David , or Clocks are symbol Christian Church , some are mad because its block the view of the Grand Mosque

at any rate when i want there i can clearly see it about 30km from macca

 
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Dayner said:
at any rate when i want there i can clearly see it about 30km from macca

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Wow! That's a huuuuuuuuuge clock! o.0

As for time zones, hey why not? I'm petitioning for one of my own. I call it . . .

Spoiler:
Mchammer.gif
HAMMER TIME!!!
Mchammer.gif
 
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