A Saudi cleric has publicly claimed that the sun orbits around the Earth which is a still object, stressing that all the opposing evidence circulated over centuries are nothing but fabrications.
Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari, who was speaking at a university lecture in the United Arab Emirates, was answering a student’s question about whether the Earth rotates or is stationary.
The Islamic scholar quickly replied 'stationary and does not move', before launching into a confusing explanation that suggested that ‘if the Earth was moving, airliners would never be able to reach their destination.’
After telling the student that the Earth does not rotate, Sheikh al-Khaibari attempts to back up his argument with religious statements and quotes from other Islamic clerics.
Perhaps struggling to make his argument understood, the religious lecturer then attempts to use a visual aid to illustrate how difficult it would be for airliners to travel if the Earth is spinning.
In his explanation, the cleric said that, if the Earth was truly moving then airliners could just stop in the air and wait for the country to arrive beneath them, rather than waste time actually flying.
‘If the Earth was moving in the opposite direction the plane would never be able to reach its destination,’ he added.
Sheikh al-Khaibari also said that the claim of the NASA lunar mission was Hollywood fabrication and that humans have never been to the moon, according to Al Arabiya.
Video of the event has inevitably proved a hit on social media, where users started an Arab-language hashtag that translates as #cleric_rejects_rotation_of_Earth.