Mecca mosques 'wrongly aligned'

[ediblenapalm]

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 worshippers 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.

Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

"There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques," he said.

"In any case, it does not affect the prayers."

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

 

[Whisperelmwood]

corrections have been made for some old mosques,

Soooo... are people who prayed at the old ones, before the changes were made, going to sit back and think 'if I was praying in the wrong direction, I can't have been praying right - so why did my prayers come true?' or 'THATS why my prayers didn't come true' etc

The pitfalls of all praying towards one object, I suppose.

And does it seem a little bit silly to anyone else? Or is that just me?

 

[PuppetXeno]

"In any case, it does not affect the prayers."

I'm not surprised, does anything affect prayers? Do prayers affect anything? :lol:

 

[FreeFragSGS]

"There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques," he said.

Personally I found this amusing. :lol: They'll believe in medieval fairy tales about divine beings and reject science where it crosses their religion, but for this, that's ok.

 

[Deleted member 587]

Personally I found this amusing. :lol: They'll believe in medieval fairy tales about divine beings and reject science where it crosses their religion, but for this, that's ok.

I suppose it goes in line with their using free speech to promote their religious views, but denying everyone else the free speech to counter those same views.

Hypocrisy at its best.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

What a bunch of moronic douche-nozzles.

 

[Saladin]

I read the thread about this on Fark when the link was posted there a few days ago and I'm sorry to say that you guys aren't even coming close to the level of stupidity and disingenuousness that the Farkers achieved.