Sunday, September 23, 2007

Burj Al Arab- World's Largest Cross?



This comes from Mirage Studio7. Visit them for more architectural news.



This is probably an outdated news and it is all over the internet, anyway, Burj al Arab was designed by Tom Wright of WS Atkins PLC, during the designing stage, the world was told that it was built to resemble a sail, but critics are claiming that Wright designed the cross after he had a dream to have a Christian influence in a Muslim country.

Some locals claim that this was an intentional move on the part of the British architects. This issue is more ironic when one considers that the Tower of the Arabs is widely considered to be Dubai’s most important landmark. A Conspiracy indeed, but no words yet from the architect himself. The real question is, does it matter if it looks like a cross?

In the year 2001, Dubai introduced the 4th series number plate. It has the Burj al Arab symbol, due to conspiracy theories and controversies surrounding Burj Al Arab’s resemblance to the Christian cross, the Burj Al Arab symbol was removed without any explanation in the year 2004.

An interesting story is told back to back which says that apparently any cars registered in Dubai, that have one of the older license plates which have an image of the Burj Al Arab on them, aren’t allowed to drive into Saudi Arabia.

Coming from a country that the official religion is Islam, I find it hard to digest the fact that Malaysian of other faith such as Buddhist, Christian, Hindus and others are not allowed (unofficially) to built any religious structure or building that exceed the height of any mosque in their respective towns, except for a few temples and churches like the Batu Caves temple and Kek Loh Si temple. It is not a written law, don’t believe me? Ask any senior draftsperson or architects.

Bias it may be but when the British disapproved the Mega-Mosque in London, the British Muslim was pissed, the mega mosque is believed to be so huge that it will dwarf many of Britain’s Christian cathedrals.

Councilor Craig, who lives in a city with 300 mosques and 500 madrassahs, suggests that Britain not allow any more mosques until Muslims allow churches in Saudi Arabia. Craig said, “Why should the Saudis pay for a mosque in the UK when there is not one single church, temple, goodwara, synagogue in Saudi at all?” - CBN

What goes around comes around, and if you need to look for a guilty then you only need to look into a mirror. After all, Burj al Arab is on Muslim soil, some minor renovation can be done to rectify this whole Christian cross issue, now, the real question is why don’t they do it? What say you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So... the sheikh's batting for the other side... GOOD 4 HIM!