In a first, Saudi Arabia government releases high-resolution pictures of holy 'Black Stone' in Mecca

In a historic development, Saudi Arabia government has released several high-resolution pictures of an ancient religious stone 'al-Hajar al-Aswad', or the ‘Black Stone’ in Mecca.

These pictures of holy ‘Black Stone’ are up to 49,000 megapixels in size and according to General Presidency for the Affairs of the Saudi Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque it took more than 50 hours to photograph and develop these photos.

The technique of focus stacking was used to click 1,050 photos of the holy stone. The CNN report said that the General Presidency worked with the Two Holy Mosques' engineering agency while the holy stone was photographed for seven hours.

#رئاسة_شؤون_الحرمين توثق الحجر الأسود بتقنية (Focus Stack Panorama)

ماهي هذه التقنية ؟
هي تقنية يتم فيها تجميع الصور بوضوح مختلف، حتى تنتج لنا صورة واحدة بأكبر دقة. pic.twitter.com/n0mWCPAw1r

— رئاسة شؤون الحرمين (@ReasahAlharmain) May 3, 2021

"It's significant because in a sense this is unprecedented," Afifi al-Akiti, a fellow in Islamic studies at the University of Oxford told CNN.

Afifi al-Akiti, who was not involved in the project, said, "One sees that it's not actually black, for example... As I understand it, it's the first time there is a magnified digital photo of the stone and one can see the stone up close and personal.”

"In the Muslim tradition, this is considered to be a holy relic, but reason plays a major role in the Muslim tradition... So while it is unprecedented to see a picture of the stone, I think Muslims are down to Earth and science plays a major role in the religion," he stated.