There is a growing shadow being cast
over Islam's holiest site. Only a few
metres from the walls of the Grand
Mosque in Mecca skyscrapers are reaching
further into the sky, slowly blocking
out the light. These enormous and garish
newcomers now dwarf the elegant black
granite of the Kaaba, the focal point of
the four million Muslims' annual Haj
pilgrimage.
The tower blocks are the latest and
largest evidence of the destruction of
Islamic heritage that has wiped almost
all of the historic city from the
physical landscape. As revealed in The
Independent last August,the historic
cities of Mecca and Medina are under an
unprecedented assault from religious
zealots and their commercial backers.
Writing in response to the article,
Prince Turki al-Faisal said that Saudi
Arabia was spending more than $19bn
(£11bn) preserving and maintaining these
two holy sites. "[We are aware] how
important the preservation of this
heritage is, not just to us but to the
millions of Muslims from around the
world who visit the two holy mosques
every year. It is hardly something we
are going to allow to be destroyed."
This rebuttal sits at odds with a
series of previously unseen photographs,
published today, that document the
demolition of key archaeological sites
and their replacement with skyscrapers.
Saudi religious authorities have
overseen a decades-long demolition
campaign that has cleared the way for
developers to embark on a building spree
of multi-storey hotels, restaurants,
shopping centres and luxury apartment
blocks on a scale unseen outside Dubai.
The driving force behind this historical
demolition is Wahhabism the austere
state faith that the House of Saud
brought with it when Ibn Saud conquered
the Arabian peninsula in the 1920s.
The Wahhabis live in fanatical fear
that places of historical or religious
interest could give rise to alternative
forms of pilgrimage or worship. Their
obsession with combating idolatry has
seen them flatten all evidence of a past
that does not agree with their
interpretation of Islam.
Irfan Ahmed al-Alawi, the chairman of
the Islamic Heritage Foundation, set up
to help protect the holy sites, says the
case of the grave of Amina bint Wahb,
the mother of the Prophet, found in
1998, is typical of what has happened.
"It was bulldozed in Abwa and gasoline
was poured on it. Even though thousands
of petitions throughout the Muslim world
were sent, nothing could stop this
action."
Today there are fewer than 20
structures remaining in Mecca that date
back to the time of the Prophet 1,400
years ago. The litany of this lost
history includes the house of Khadijah,
the wife of the Prophet, demolished to
make way for public lavatories; the
house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's
companion, now the site of the local
Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid,
the grandson of the Prophet, and the
Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location
of the King's palace in Mecca.
Yet the same oil-rich dynasty that
pumped money into the Taliban regime as
they blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in
Afghanistan six years ago has so far
avoided international criticism for
similar acts of vandalism at home. Mai
Yamani, author of The Cradle of Islam,
said it was time for other Muslim
governments to ignore the al-Sauds' oil
wealth and clout and speak out. " What
is alarming about this is that the world
doesn't question the al-Sauds'
custodianship of Islam's two holy
places. These are the sites that are of
such importance to over one billion
Muslims and yet their destruction is
being ignored," she said. "When the
Prophet was insulted by Danish
cartoonists thousands of people went
into the streets to protest. The sites
related to the Prophet are part of their
heritage and religion but we see no
concern from Muslims."
Lay people, and in some cases even US
senators could be forgiven for thinking
that the House of Saud has been the
guardian of the two holy places for time
immemorial. In fact, it is only 80 years
since the tribal chieftain Ibn Saud
occupied Mecca and Medina. The House of
Saud has been bound to Wahhabism since
the 18th century religious reformer
Mohamed Ibn Abdul-Wahab signed a pact
with Mohammed bin Saud in 1744. Wahab's
warrior zealots helped to conquer a
kingdom for the tribal chieftains. The
House of Saud got its wealth and power,
and the clerics got the vehicle of state
they needed to spread their
fundamentalist ideology around the
world. The ruler of this fledgling
kingdom needed the legitimacy afforded
by declaring himself " custodian of the
two holy places".
But that legitimacy has come at an
enormous price for the diversity of
Muslims who look to Mecca for guidance.
Once in charge, the Wahhabists wasted
little time in censoring the Haj. As
early as 1929, Egyptian pilgrims were
refused permission to celebrate the
colourful Mahmal rites and more than 30
were killed. At the time Egypt severed
diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
Few governments have stood up to them
since.
Instead, the homogenisation of
Islam's holiest sites was allowed to
accelerate into a demolition campaign
that now threatens the birthplace of the
Prophet itself. The site survived the
early reign of Ibn Saud 50 years ago
when the architect for the planned
library persuaded the absolute ruler to
allow him to preserve the remains under
the new structure. Saudi authorities now
plan to "update" the site with a car
park that would mean concreting over the
remains.
"The al-Sauds need to rein in the
Wahhabists now," warns Dr Yamani. "Mecca
used to be a symbol of Muslim diversity
and it needs to be again." But with oil
prices and profits, at record highs,
there is little sign the House of Saud
is listening.
Sami Angawi, a Hijazi architect who
has devoted his life to a largely doomed
effort to preserve what remains of the
history of the world's greatest
pilgrimage sites, said that the final
farewell to Mecca was imminent. " What
we are witnessing are the last days of
Mecca and Medina."
Mecca's skyline
Giant cranes and half-constructed
skyscrapers tower over the Grand Mosque
in Mecca. Six new property developments,
including the Bin Laden group's Zam Zam
Tower, are transforming the character of
Islam's holiest city
ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mountain of light
The mountain of light, or al-Nour, is
next in the Wahhabis' sights. Home to
the Hira'a cave, it was here that the
Prophet is said to have received the
first verses of the Koran. Hardline
clerics want it destroyed to stop
pilgrims visiting. At the foot of the
hill there is a Wahhabi fatwa: " The
Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) did not permit us
to climb on to this hill, not to pray
here, not to touch stones, and tie knots
on trees..."
ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
The Prophet's wife's grave
The ruins in the foreground are the
remains of the grave of the Prophet's
wife, Al Baqi, destroyed in the 1950s.
The mutawi religious police are present
night and day to prevent anyone placing
flowers on the site, or even praying in
the proximity of the graves
THE ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Al Oraid Mosque
The 1,200-year-old mosque, site of
the grave of the Prophet's grandson
al-Oraid, is seen here being dynamited.
Gathered around the site are Saudi
religious police with their distinctive
red scarves, who appear to be
celebrating
THE ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
There is a growing shadow being cast
over Islam's holiest site. Only a few
metres from the walls of the Grand
Mosque in Mecca skyscrapers are reaching
further into the sky, slowly blocking
out the light. These enormous and garish
newcomers now dwarf the elegant black
granite of the Kaaba, the focal point of
the four million Muslims' annual Haj
pilgrimage.
The tower blocks are the latest and
largest evidence of the destruction of
Islamic heritage that has wiped almost
all of the historic city from the
physical landscape. As revealed in The
Independent last August,the historic
cities of Mecca and Medina are under an
unprecedented assault from religious
zealots and their commercial backers.
Writing in response to the article,
Prince Turki al-Faisal said that Saudi
Arabia was spending more than $19bn
(£11bn) preserving and maintaining these
two holy sites. "[We are aware] how
important the preservation of this
heritage is, not just to us but to the
millions of Muslims from around the
world who visit the two holy mosques
every year. It is hardly something we
are going to allow to be destroyed."
This rebuttal sits at odds with a
series of previously unseen photographs,
published today, that document the
demolition of key archaeological sites
and their replacement with skyscrapers.
Saudi religious authorities have
overseen a decades-long demolition
campaign that has cleared the way for
developers to embark on a building spree
of multi-storey hotels, restaurants,
shopping centres and luxury apartment
blocks on a scale unseen outside Dubai.
The driving force behind this historical
demolition is Wahhabism the austere
state faith that the House of Saud
brought with it when Ibn Saud conquered
the Arabian peninsula in the 1920s.
The Wahhabis live in fanatical fear
that places of historical or religious
interest could give rise to alternative
forms of pilgrimage or worship. Their
obsession with combating idolatry has
seen them flatten all evidence of a past
that does not agree with their
interpretation of Islam.
Irfan Ahmed al-Alawi, the chairman of
the Islamic Heritage Foundation, set up
to help protect the holy sites, says the
case of the grave of Amina bint Wahb,
the mother of the Prophet, found in
1998, is typical of what has happened.
"It was bulldozed in Abwa and gasoline
was poured on it. Even though thousands
of petitions throughout the Muslim world
were sent, nothing could stop this
action."
Today there are fewer than 20
structures remaining in Mecca that date
back to the time of the Prophet 1,400
years ago. The litany of this lost
history includes the house of Khadijah,
the wife of the Prophet, demolished to
make way for public lavatories; the
house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's
companion, now the site of the local
Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid,
the grandson of the Prophet, and the
Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location
of the King's palace in Mecca.
Yet the same oil-rich dynasty that
pumped money into the Taliban regime as
they blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in
Afghanistan six years ago has so far
avoided international criticism for
similar acts of vandalism at home. Mai
Yamani, author of The Cradle of Islam,
said it was time for other Muslim
governments to ignore the al-Sauds' oil
wealth and clout and speak out. " What
is alarming about this is that the world
doesn't question the al-Sauds'
custodianship of Islam's two holy
places. These are the sites that are of
such importance to over one billion
Muslims and yet their destruction is
being ignored," she said. "When the
Prophet was insulted by Danish
cartoonists thousands of people went
into the streets to protest. The sites
related to the Prophet are part of their
heritage and religion but we see no
concern from Muslims."
Lay people, and in some cases even US
senators could be forgiven for thinking
that the House of Saud has been the
guardian of the two holy places for time
immemorial. In fact, it is only 80 years
since the tribal chieftain Ibn Saud
occupied Mecca and Medina. The House of
Saud has been bound to Wahhabism since
the 18th century religious reformer
Mohamed Ibn Abdul-Wahab signed a pact
with Mohammed bin Saud in 1744. Wahab's
warrior zealots helped to conquer a
kingdom for the tribal chieftains. The
House of Saud got its wealth and power,
and the clerics got the vehicle of state
they needed to spread their
fundamentalist ideology around the
world. The ruler of this fledgling
kingdom needed the legitimacy afforded
by declaring himself " custodian of the
two holy places".
But that legitimacy has come at an
enormous price for the diversity of
Muslims who look to Mecca for guidance.
Once in charge, the Wahhabists wasted
little time in censoring the Haj. As
early as 1929, Egyptian pilgrims were
refused permission to celebrate the
colourful Mahmal rites and more than 30
were killed. At the time Egypt severed
diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
Few governments have stood up to them
since.
Instead, the homogenisation of
Islam's holiest sites was allowed to
accelerate into a demolition campaign
that now threatens the birthplace of the
Prophet itself. The site survived the
early reign of Ibn Saud 50 years ago
when the architect for the planned
library persuaded the absolute ruler to
allow him to preserve the remains under
the new structure. Saudi authorities now
plan to "update" the site with a car
park that would mean concreting over the
remains.
"The al-Sauds need to rein in the
Wahhabists now," warns Dr Yamani. "Mecca
used to be a symbol of Muslim diversity
and it needs to be again." But with oil
prices and profits, at record highs,
there is little sign the House of Saud
is listening.
Sami Angawi, a Hijazi architect who
has devoted his life to a largely doomed
effort to preserve what remains of the
history of the world's greatest
pilgrimage sites, said that the final
farewell to Mecca was imminent. " What
we are witnessing are the last days of
Mecca and Medina."
Mecca's skyline
Giant cranes and half-constructed
skyscrapers tower over the Grand Mosque
in Mecca. Six new property developments,
including the Bin Laden group's Zam Zam
Tower, are transforming the character of
Islam's holiest city
ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mountain of light
The mountain of light, or al-Nour, is
next in the Wahhabis' sights. Home to
the Hira'a cave, it was here that the
Prophet is said to have received the
first verses of the Koran. Hardline
clerics want it destroyed to stop
pilgrims visiting. At the foot of the
hill there is a Wahhabi fatwa: " The
Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) did not permit us
to climb on to this hill, not to pray
here, not to touch stones, and tie knots
on trees..."
ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
The Prophet's wife's grave
The ruins in the foreground are the
remains of the grave of the Prophet's
wife, Al Baqi, destroyed in the 1950s.
The mutawi religious police are present
night and day to prevent anyone placing
flowers on the site, or even praying in
the proximity of the graves
THE ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Al Oraid Mosque
The 1,200-year-old mosque, site of
the grave of the Prophet's grandson
al-Oraid, is seen here being dynamited.
Gathered around the site are Saudi
religious police with their distinctive
red scarves, who appear to be
celebrating
THE ISLAMIC HERITAGE FOUNDATION
