Al Noor – Watch Masterpiece by Raff House & Bernhard Lederer

Good evening everyone, I'm writing to you just after the press conference and presentation of a brand new watch, created by a very famous for his 'Gagarin Tourbillon' Bernhard Lederer in collaboration with Raff House. For the ones who haven't read our article about that awesome place it's a high end watch and jewellery house with such brands like Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille or Parmigiani, as well as a Michelin star restaurant, created together with Helene Darroze. This time we were invited to Raff House to be part of the new masterpiece launching there, the watch is called 'Al Noor' and it is an amazing and historical creation, made mainly for the Muslim collectors, as well as the people, who really appreciate the Islamic culture and Swiss watchmaking.

 

The idea to create a watch, based on the Holy Book of Quran, came to Rafel (owner of Raff House) around 3 years ago, being the first in the upcoming series of historically important watches. As he has already collaborated with Mr. Lederer before (on the Gagarin Tourbillon) and the watchmaker was very interested in the concept as well this partnership was established. The piece as we see it today really took almost 3 years to finally become a real watch and the creators have perfected every detail about it, both mechanically and aesthetically. Now check out the video before we get started :)

So let's take a first look at the 'Al Noor' itself! The name of the watch translates from Arabic to 'Light' which has both, symbolic meaning (taken from one of the Quran suras) and a nice sound to it. You can see straight away that the piece is made for the Muslim collectors as it has the Arabic engravings on the dial. They represent the lines from the fist Sura (chapter) of Quran – Al-Fatiha, which is said to be the sura that is recited in every prayer.

Apart from the big text on the dial we can see 2 small 'windows' at 12 o'clock, where the watch displays 2 disks, each carrying 5 'cards' with significant animals all made out of Arabic letters forming 'ayahs' (proofs of God), and the disks rotate every hour, one side after another switching every time! Though you will only be able to see the writings under a loupe. And as I've mentioned already, the animals, writings and engravings were all made symbolically, with the help of Mr. Mohammed Sharif, an expert in the field of Islamic culture and Quran, so he could provide the perfect expertise needed to complete this watch.