Starting Friday, millions of Muslims around the world will recognize Ramadan with prayer and dawn-to-dusk fasting for a month. In 2015, a record number of 14 million Muslims visited the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan.
So to avoid the massive crowds, Experience Mecca, a Cairo based tech company, developed an App which creates an “immersive” Virtual Reality (VR) experience of Islam’s holiest site – Mecca. The App recreates the pilgrimage in 3D. Using VR goggles, the user is transported to Mecca, er VR Mecca, where the user can walk on the hallowed grounds and join other pilgrims performing prayers. There are details like birds hovering above the Kaaba, the building at the center of Mecca’s sacred mosque, and you can even hear the Call To Prayer.
Ehab Fares, the director of BSocial agency, says he is hoping to reach students and those interested in Islam with his new App. “Instead of reading a book, I am taking you there virtually to experience the sensations of being at Mecca. You can live what’s happening through this immersive bridge of past, present and future.”
