Arábia Saudita quer substituir TMG por TMM (Tempo Médio de Meca)

Fazendo coincidir o evento com o início do mês do Ramadão, a Arábia Saudita inaugurou esta semana um dos maiores relógios de torre do mundo, na esperança de que, um dia, o "Tempo de Meca" venha a substituir mundialmente "o Tempo de Greenwich" e que a nova torre venha a ser tão icónica como, por exemplo, o Big Ben, de Londres.

Estação Cronográfica tem referido por várias vezes nos livros e artigos que vai produzindo a grande diferença entre o Tempo ocidental - religioso, primeiro; político, depois; económico, a seguir; e científico, finalmente - e o Tempo islâmico.

O primeiro foi ditado pelo rigor dos ritmos de oração nas comunidades religiosas, passou para o burgo, emancipou-se, mas é a grande marca do Ocidente, com as suas torres do relógio. O segundo, errático devido ao substrato religioso que não exige exactidão horária nas orações, nunca se desenvolveu do ponto de vista técnico. Não é por acaso que as igrejas quase sempre têm torres de relógio e as mesquitas, até há bem pouco tempo, não.

O Ocidente é a civilização dos sinos - normalmente ligados a mecanismos de relojoaria; o Islão é marcado nos seus ritmos quotidianos pelo chamamento do muezzin, do alto do minarete, em ocasiões mais ou menos aleatórias.

Será que a torre de Riade vai mudar alguma coisa na super-estrutura mental de um sistema que, em termos de Tempo, para já não falar noutras áreas, nunca andou "à hora certa"? desde logo, o relógio de Meca só funciona porque os sauditas recorreram à tecnologia alemã e suíça...

Deixamos-lhe aqui os despachos de algumas agências sobre o assunto:

Da espanhola EFE:

Coincidindo com o início do mês do jejum do Ramadã, a Arábia Saudita inaugura nesta quarta-feira um relógio gigante, um dos maiores do mundo (6 vezes o tamanho do Big Ben - Londres), em frente a grande mesquita da cidade muçulmana sagrada de Meca.

O relógio, que tem um diâmetro de 40 metros e foi fixado a 400 metros de altura, pode ser visto a partir de qualquer ponto de Meca até uma distância de 25 quilômetros.

Mas a atual posição não é definitiva. Está previsto que no futuro o relógio seja colocado, com as suas quatro faces, em cima de um arranha-céu a 600 metros do solo.

Os sauditas esperam hoje com ansiedade o chamado à oração ao entardecer - que anuncia o fim do jejum -, que será dado pela primeira vez pelo relógio, associado a um espetáculo de luzes no céu.

"O relógio é um atrativo a mais para Meca, além de ser um grande avanço utilizá-lo para anunciar o chamado à oração para romper o jejum do Ramadã", disse à Agência EFE um imame de uma mesquita em Riad.

O relógio fica em frente à grande mesquita de Meca, local ao qual se dirigem os muçulmanos do mundo inteiro para as cinco orações diárias.

Por enquanto, só uma das quatro faces está concluída. O relógio será feito com 98 milhões de peças de mosaicos de cristal e é uma obra de grande riqueza decorativa e ostentação.

A intenção dos criadores é que este relógio não seja só o maior do planeta, mas também se torne referência no mundo, concorrendo diretamente com o relógio de Greenwich, no Reino Unido.

Da Gulf News:

The giant clock of Makkah is all set to tick home a new time standard, as some scholars believe that it will be an ideal alternative to the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Many scholars are of the opinion that Makkah Time can provide the world an alternative to the GMT. These people have scientific arguments to back their contention, as Makkah is situated in the center of the world.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented “scientific” arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian. They said that Makkah is the center of the world.

“Putting Makkah time in the face of Greenwich Mean Time, this is the goal,” said Mohammed Al-Arkubi, general manager of Royal Makkah Tower Hotel.

The Royal Clock is sitting atop the central tower in the Abraj Al-Bait Project, 50 meters opposite the Grand Mosque in Makkah. The clock will be visible from 17 km away at night and 11 to 12 km away during the day. A German-owned company, Premiere Composite Technologies, has designed the clock.

Sources said that the world’s largest clock — six times larger than London’s Big Ben — will be launched in the first week of Ramadan but no date has yet been fixed. The trial run would be conducted on the clock facing Jeddah that is to be inaugurated first.

The tower featuring the world’s largest clock also includes a Lunar Observation Center and an Islamic Museum. While the Royal Clock will announce daily prayers, the Lunar Observation Center and Islamic Museum will serve to protect the heritage for future generations. The observatory will also be used to sight the moon during the holy months. On special occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 km up into the sky.
AP mentions that the giant clock was designed by Swiss and German engineers.

The chances of the world adopting Mecca Time is roughly the same as the chances of it adopting Jerusalem Solar Time and the (pretty complicated) Jewish lunar/solar calendar.

Da francesa 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.

Da norte-americana Associated Press:

Saudi Arabia will test what it is billing as the world's largest clock in the holy city of Mecca during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the official news agency reported Tuesday.

The four-faced clock tower will top a massive skyscraper that, when completed, will be about 1,970 feet tall, the second tallest in the world after Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

The clock will dwarf London's Big Ben, once the largest four-faced clock in the world, with dials more than five times greater in area.

The approximately 130-foot diameter Saudi clock dials are also bigger than the current world champion at the Cevahir Mall clock in Istanbul, which has a 120-foot face set in the transparent roof of the shopping complex.

The complex overlooks Mecca's famed Grand Mosque, which Muslims worldwide face during their five daily prayers and is part of Saudi efforts to develop the city visited by millions of pilgrims every year.

A three-month test run for the clock will start during the first week of Ramadan - the monthlong period of prayer, reflection and sunrise-to-sunset fasting, the report said. This year, Ramadan will begin today.

Only one of the clock's four faces has so far been completed and is covered with 98 million pieces of glass mosaics.

Each face will be inscribed with "God is greatest" in Arabic and fitted with thousands of colored lights. The clock will be visible from more than 16 miles.

An observatory deck is planned at the clock's base.

A huge golden crescent moon, 75 feet in diameter, will eventually rise above the clock on a 200 foot spire, from which some 15 beams will shoot up into the sky, the agency added. The entire clock, from the base up to the crescent, will be 820 feet high.

German and Swiss engineers designed the clock. According to the Ministry of Religious Endowments, the entire project will cost $800 million.

The seven tower complex is being built by developer Saudi Binladen Group, the press agency reported.

Também pode ver o que o correspondente do Le Monde em Londres escreveu sobre o assunto, aqui.