NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Mecca, Bahji, etc.
From: Peter Smith
Date: 2000 Aug 25, 11:55 AM
From: Peter Smith
Date: 2000 Aug 25, 11:55 AM
Re. Robert's question about finding the location (and thence the direction) of the Ka'ba in Mecca... Years ago, when looking for a gazetteer on the web, I found a site that calculates the direction of Bahji (the Baha'i Qiblih). Before that, I hadn't realized that anyone but Muslims prayed facing a particular geographic point. Are there any others? [Obligatory nautical/navigational content] In Peter Maas's book _SUPERSHIP_ he noted that one of the third officer's nightly duties was to calculate the approximate bearing of Mecca for the coming day, translate it into a relative bearing based on the ship's course (i.e., "just ahead of the starboard beam") and post it before first light for the benefit of the Muslim crewmembers. -- Peter