BBC: Mecca Mosques Wrongly Aligned

[stopbush]

Mecca mosques 'wrongly aligned'

Some 200 mosques in Islam's holiest city, Mecca, point the wrong way for prayers, reports from Saudi Arabia say.

All mosques have a niche showing the direction of the most sacred Islamic site, the Kaaba, an ancient cube-like building in Mecca's Grand Mosque.

But people looking down from recently built high-rises in Mecca found the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the Kaaba.

Some worshipers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.

There have been suggestions that laser beams could be used to make an exact measurement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7984556.stm

[YOY]

1. OH NO! OH SHIT! OH NO! OH SHIT!!!

Now all those prayers have been in vain!!!

:sarcasm:

[Sultana]

2. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

:D

[Occam Bandage]

3. I really should start selling GPS-enabled devices

that enable Muslims to ensure that their prayers are aimed directly at the Kaaba. God simply won't listen to prayers that miss their target.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Dude

You could make a fortune if this isn't already on the market.

[roughsatori]

7. That is an excellent idea for making money. With the right design,

And respectful salesperson attitude....you would make a mint. A cheaper version could be made from a compass.

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. I've seen prayer rugs with compasses

Prayer rugs with built-in GPS devices are the next logical step.

[DeSwiss]

18. Too late...

http://www.qiblasat.com/

[Occam Bandage]

24. I'd buy one if I were Muslim. nt

[maxsolomon]

5. no wonder all those prayers went unanswered!

note to islam: if god is omnipresent, any direction works.

[Neo Atheist]

6. since when has Islam or any other middle eastern faith used logic

in their thinking?

[maxsolomon]

8. the zoroastrians were utterly logical.

wait, that's the vulcans.

[YOY]

9. or any faith period.

n.t.

[Neo Atheist]

12. I'll give Jainism credit for being logical

from the little bit of the faith I learned about in my freshman year Asian history course they're simply about not harming anything. Seems like an entirely logical way to live.

[YOY]

13. Still not logical.

Friendly and nice yes.

Logical, no.

[Occam Bandage]

19. I will highlight the illogical parts of the first Wiki sentence about Jainism.

Jainism differs from other religions in its concept of God. Jainism regards every living soul as potentially divine. When the soul sheds its karmic bonds completely, it attains God-consciousness.

[roughsatori]

10. Western Religion is supremely logical - unlike those illogical followers of Islam.

The common sense displayed by American Southern Baptists discussing their eschatological beliefs could really help those crazy Middle-Easterners. :sarcasm:

[Neo Atheist]

11. Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion

just like Judaism. I wasn't leaving those two criminals against reason out.

edit to add: and its protestant and catholic offshoots are simply the children of middle eastern religious thinking. I think for an actual religion that could be considered western in terms of its geographical origins, it'd be the pagan faiths of various indigenous peoples.

[rrneck]

15. Wonder if we should mention

the need to calculate the Parallax?

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Parallax?

Doesn't that require moving objects?

[rrneck]

17. Not quite, but close.

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

Parallax is an apparent displacement or difference of orientation of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines

Parallax depends on your point of view. Come to think of it, anything having to do with a differing point of view may be inappropriate in this case... :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. OK, 2 different viewpoints

whether from a moving object, or from 2 different objects.

What has that to do with mosque alignment?

[rrneck]

21. There seemed to be

a humorous correlation between the need to be perfectly aligned with a particular physical point and the actual physics of alignment in three dimensional space within the context of many fundamentalist faiths which do not leave much room for differing points of view.

[Nihil]

22. There are so many ways to take this ...

> But people looking down from recently built high-rises in Mecca found
> the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the
> Kaaba.
>
> Some worshipers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.
>
> There have been suggestions that laser beams could be used to make an
> exact measurement.

1) It's a miracle! (cf. mountain moving rather than prophet moving)

2) It's the equivalent of putting someone on hold on one line whilst taking
the call on the other.

3) It shows the lack of respect when high-rises in Mecca are allowed to
be taller than mosques.

4) The "anxious worshippers" are lacking in faith if such a small thing
introduces doubts.

5) This is an example (along with the GPS option upthread) where modern
technology can be allied to ancient custom.

6) There is a risk that beautiful old buildings will be damaged for the
sake of some misdirected pedant's desire for a "more accurate" bearing
marker.

7) Some people are so desperate to stir the shit that they deliberately
mix up "not pointing directly towards" with "the wrong way".

8) If it is in the nature of Allah to hear prayers, surely it is the
direction of the supplicant's heart that is important (i.e., the inner
motives rather than the precision of the external position)?

:shrug:

(FWIW, it's only comparatively recently that buildings were allowed to
be higher than the cathedrals/churches in London and - purely from an
aesthetic point of view - I wish that this hadn't changed.)

[MorningGlow]

23. DIY, baby

When witches plan a circle, we bring a compass to find exactly where east is. :evilgrin:

Seriously, I feel bad for these people. They trusted that the mosques were going to be aligned with the Kaaba, which is important to them. I don't feel like laughing at them--this is something they feel strongly about, and they were let down. They just need to be reassured that it doesn't really play a part in how effective their prayers have been, and it's the job of the highest members of the Muslim faith to communicate that.