Is this a joke?

Alas, since the attitude of the BBC towards the Islamic ideology is invariably one of reverential deference, it is probably all too true. The BBC would never try to raise a laugh at Mahometan expense. Political correctness is a dour and irascible creed which knows nothing of humour.

Yes, yes, Melancholicus knows he has promised his readers to leave the saracens alone for a bit, but the attitude behind this story is so breathtakingly arrogant that he feels something ought to be said.

Muslim call to adopt Mecca time

By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab affairs analyst

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Mecca watch

A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray.

The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.

The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.

The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".

The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

So what if Mecca happens to be “in perfect alignment” with magnetic north—which claim need not necessarily be true anyway—at this point in time? The magnetic poles wander constantly, which means that sooner or later Mecca will be out of alignment altogether. Moreover, the lines of latitude and longitude are fixed with respect to the geographical north and south poles; they are nothing to do with magnetic north, so the reference to longitude makes absolutely no sense.

However, while we might be inclined to a good hearty laugh at the dotty theories of these fanatics with respect to longitude and the alignment of the poles, one thing at least is certain. Given the relentless extension of their power in Europe generally and in Britain in particular, with the dhimmified natives falling over one another to appease them in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness, there is one aspect of this pseudo-science that might actually become reality.

I refer to the proposed abolition of Greenwich Mean Time and its replacement with some other chronological standard, based on local Saudi time—with the line of zero degrees running precisely through the middle of the Ka’ba in Mecca.

Who will claim that such a thing could never happen?