Further to Dr Abd al-Baset al-Sayyed’s call for the global adoption of “Mecca Time” – and the shocking discovery that “in Mecca there is no magnetic force” – here’s another nugget. In this clip from Saudi Arabia’s al-Majd TV, first broadcast in January 2005, Dr al-Sayyed shares the extraordinary news that people living in Mecca are “less affected by gravity.” No less remarkable is the claim that NASA discovered “short wave radiation” emanating from Mecca – a discovery hastily concealed from the world at large. However, Dr al-Sayyed is sure this sacred Mecca radiation is “infinite” and extends well past the planet Mars.
Related: The Earth is flat and larger than the Sun, which is also flat. It’s Qur’anic science.
Update:
For some reason I’m reminded of this.
(h/t, The Thin Man.)
Break it down,
Stop. Mecca time.
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. Oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/u-cant-touch-this-lyrics-mc-hammer.html
It’s broken down alright.
What I’m worried about is: what if this takes off? Suppose leading Muslim figures and organizations decide to push for Mecca time, Islamic science etc. Would any scientist who refutes their claims be labeled as an islamophobe? Would multiculturalist intellectuals side with these demands?
Heh. I’m not expecting things to degenerate quite that far. Though there are some lofty beings who denounce “Western ways of knowing” and “evidence-based discourse” and who argue that epistemology is essentially a matter of lifestyle choice. Frederique Apffel Marglin, for instance, rails against smallpox vaccination as some kind of quasi-imperialist endeavour, while romanticising the Indian worship of Sitala, the goddess of smallpox. Marglin is keen to bemoan “science’s claim to be a superior form of knowledge” – as opposed to, say, superstition and credulity. Though I’m guessing she’s taken care to be a recipient of that “evidence-based” knowledge and be vaccinated herself, while she goes on telling people just how terrible it is.
The argument seems to be that by being demonstrably correct (or effective or better), “Western” knowledge makes less advanced cultures look bad, or stupid, which is terribly oppressive and unfair. So, for instance, using modern medicines to save brown-skinned babies from needless disease and suffering is an act of “negativising” or “repression” or some such claptrap. It’s not only stupid, it’s disgusting.
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2007/07/egalitarian-epi.html
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=39
“No verse in the Koran indicates that the Earth is round or that it rotates. Anything that has no indication in the Koran is false.”
So most modern medical treatments are false too? Sounds like a recipe for extinction.
“Sounds like a recipe for extinction.”
Or, quite often, parasitism – i.e. benefitting from infidel advancements while denouncing as impious the curiosity that produced them. I’m *almost* tempted to acknowledge the religious “principles” of some Jehovah’s Witnesses, who reject blood transfusions and certain medical procedures and actually allow their children to perish as a result.
There’s a long tradition of opportunist attempts to justify the authority of the Qur’an with science, generally by claiming that the Qur’an predicted such-and-such a discovery, or that it contains some structural or numerical profundity regarding how the universe works. It’s a sort of hardcore version of the self-flattering exaggerations of Islamic innovation in literature, etc. (Oddly, the examples cited are very often the work of Sufis and other heterodox Muslims – Rumi, Nuwas, Nesimi, etc – or of declared heretics and non-Muslims, and their innovation doesn’t seem to be in any obvious way inspired by Muhammad or normative Islamic teaching. Often quite the reverse.) No doubt this is what happens when a belief in preordained dominion over unbelievers doesn’t quite square with reality.
This is pretty fucking strange, but no moreso than the ranting of your average everyday Ron Paul supporter.
Let’s hope that special ‘Islamic’ version of science is used for any weapons they design and build.
I’m not exactly sure what imposing “Mecca Time” is supposed to mean.
Everyone uses local time, which is different from GMT. Although expressed sometimes as an offset from GMT (actually it is now termed Universal Time on computers), it makes little difference.
Swatch tried to create an “internet time” based on 1000 “beats” per day and zeroed on Beil, Switzerland, the theory was we all used the same time, instead of separate local times, made synchronisation across the internet easier, etc.
Is this what he is trying to say, that “Mecca Time” should be used by everyone wherever they are ? The statement about GMT being “imposed” on everyone would tally with this, even though GMT is not actually imposed anywhere, as anyone who has travelled across timezones would testify.
In fact, GMT is not even being used in Greenwich as of today.
I think we can assume the idea is appealing on a symbolic level, i.e. symbolic of pious dominance, rather than of any practical value. Again, it illustrates my earlier point about innovation and parasitism. GMT was much more than an exercise in colonial indulgence. It had real practical advantages, not least with regard to navigation and trade. “Mecca Time”, however, is an empty, farcical exercise in supremacist chest-puffing.
Check out my artistic response to this latest push for us to submit, from a world where it’s currently 1429, according to the Islamic calendar. It’s a piece called ‘1429 vs 2008: ‘Time to Clean their Clock’ which has Pigman’s pigskin leather gloves doing the honors.
This oafish imam claims that Mecca has been proven to be the ‘centre’ of the Earth. Quite how a point on a 2-sphere or any of its homeomorphisms can be said to be the centre is beyond me. Islamic topology is a perplexing business.
Dennis the Peasant regularly covers the Marcotte’s foolishness. Check out the archives for the Amanda Marcotte sentence of the week.
Dennis has purchased Marcotte’s book and promises a book review in the near future. Pure, unmitigated guts in my opinion.
http://dennisthepeasant.typepad.com/dennis_the_peasant/2008/04/amanda-steps-in.html
Here is a scientific reaerch paper proving that Makka (Mecca) is indeed the center of the earth:
Makka is the center of the earth
By: Dr. Salih Muhammad Awadh
Read the research papare here http://www.55a.net/firas/english/index.php?page=show_det&id=285
More Than ‘A Little Unhinged’
For an early Saturday morning update on the wonderful world of Islam, David Thompson takes us “out there” beyond the “Mecca Time” saga, with more of the same with Dr Abd al-Baset al-Sayyed sharing the extraordinary news that people living in Mecca are …