EL Sajjadah > The Illuminating Prayer Mat: Lights Up When Facing #Mecca [video]

Turkish designer Soner Ozenc, (born 1980) who graduated from Central Saint Martins, has come up with an electronic prayer mat that lights up when facing Mecca! We love this product! It has been featured at an exhibition in MoMa, New York and other exhibitions internationally. This Sajjadh however is yet to be available to the public as the project needs to be backed up by you. At Kickstarter the project is gaining momentum but still needs much more funding. Watch the video below to know more: 

'EL' stands for ‘Electro Luminescent’ and 'Sajjadah' means ‘Prayer Mat’. 

"EL Sajjadah is thin and flexible. You can roll it and carry it around in its special case. EL Sajjadah is not only a functional / practical product but also a unique art piece that you can hang on the wall as a night light." Soner Oznec

Art & Design  (via Kickstarter)

The patterns on a prayer mat tell you the story of life. The Snake represents Hell which surrounds Heaven with a rectangle border. There is a Mosque at the heart of the Heaven. Mihrab is the arch that you would see at every mosque and so is the Light of God (Allah), suspended from the ceiling. Hand and Foot patterns indicate where to place hands and feet.

Green is the holy color of Islam. Black is the color of Kaaba.  

'Vector line art' has been implemented to achieve a contemporary approach to the patterns on a traditional prayer mat. The Mosque pattern for instance, was drawn pixel by pixel by looking at a small scale model of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

Technology  (via Kickstarter)

EL Sajjadah shows the right direction to pray by lighting up the patterns on its surface when facing Makkah, so that the interface becomes the prayer mat surface itself. Two pieces of information are required in order to do this: where north is, which is provided by a built-in digital compass, where we are in the world, which is manually input by the user via the 'city selection button'. EL Sajjadah operates on: mains power, or rechargeable batteries. 

Support El Sajjadah at Kickstarter