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[johnslat]

Saudis hope giant clock will set 'Mecca Time'

Tue Aug 10, 9:15 am ET
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AFP) � 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, 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."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100810/wl_mideast_afp/saudireligionmeccaconstructiontime

Hmm, considering how slowly time seems to move in the Kingdom, I wonder if they're have to reset it every hour.

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Afraid that I don't quite get the point... they need to replace Greenwich time because??? Personally I expect that the vast majority of the world will then be able to ignore both of them...

VS

[johnslat]

Dear VS,
Well, I got the impression (perhaps mistaken) that the point was to replace the imperialistic, decadent Western (and presumably un-Islamic) Greenwich Mean Time with Makkah* Mean Time.

* Although the imperialistic, decadent, Western media continues to use the "Mecca" spelling, I, of course, am using the "Saudi-approved" one.

Regards,
John

[trapezius]

For more info and pics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraj_Al_Bait_Towers

And for those curious enough, fire up Google Earth!

[Cuffs]

What utter idiocy.

The presence of a big clock in London has nothing to do with the Greenwich Mean Time. GMT was established because, at that point in history, the British were doing a lot of sailing with unreliable navigational tools. Once a reliable and seaworthy timepiece had been introduced, it was necessary to know the correct time at the port of origin (Greenwich being a former great port, and the home of the British navy) and to cross-reference that with the time on board in order to determine one's degree of longitude, the ship's east-west bearing. Latitude was easy, but without longitude, you were pretty well screwed. It's a historical hangover, and nothing more. It wasn't imposed on anybody; the British just did it first.

When will the Khaleejis stop playing this ridiculous game of one-upmanship with each other? The new sports city in Jeddah: $4bn. How many people actually play sport seriously here? A student of mine volunteered: "Teacher, it's enough to give every Saudi man, woman & child a million riyals each! Why don't they just do that?" I'm also reminded of one of the fancy new Supreme Education Council schools in Qatar, which, in the run-up to the 2006 Asian Games, tried to impress somebody (who?) by building the largest Olympic size swimming pool in the world. One meter longer.

Anyone interested in the search for measuring longitude should read Dava Sobel's "Longitude", it's a fantastic story.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

[scot47]

This reminds me of the guys working for the airline who could not operate the Gregorian Calendar. You know,"I want to fly to London non the 12th of Shawwal please."

[svatopluk]

They'll introduce the one hour day: 59 minutes asleep or doing nothing, one minute for work.

That clock looks like Big Ben.

[wilco]

Big Ben is a bell, not a clock.

[wilco]

You have to feel sorry for the Saudis; always trying to show that they are as good as, if not better than, the rest of the world but never quite managing it. I suppose it's all the sand..................................?

[lazycomputerkids]

[cassava]