I think if Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) come back to life now & go to Mecca, he wouldn't be able to recognize his own city, & more than likely, he would cry on what the keepers of the Two Holy Mosques have done to such a sacred city. I'm not even going to discuss how he would feel at the status of Muslims around the world.
As the article states, Mecca has become the "Las Vegas for pilgrims." In the article, some one else calls Mecca, the "Mecca-hattan." Really? Will this make Muslims happy that one of the two sacred cities for them is being compared with the "Sin City" & Manhattan?
No, it's not the fault of the writer to compare Mecca with Vegas. I's the fault & greed of the Saudi Royalty who have built so much secular / worldly grandiose monstrosity around the "House of Allah" that it is definitely a miracle that one can even see that sacred House from the air (even that, if you are hovering directly above it).
On top of that, as the article points out, that with these monstrous & very expensive developments, akin to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha, the poor residents & pilgrims are slowly being priced out of the city. It's like a gradual gentrification where rich elites are trying to get rid of the poor from Mecca by making the real estate in it so expensive that poor people can't visit or live in the city. Just like the poor people in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha live far outside of the city center, since they can't afford the luxurious lifestyle of the people (who are usually European & North American expatriates) who actually live in the city center.
Ironically, the lifestyle of the Prophet, whom the Saudi Royalty, Saudis, & the whole Muslim world purport to love & follow his ways, was, essentially, of a modern-day poor man. He could count his assets on his fingers. But his followers, in this day & age, apparently count their blessings & show off that wealth by staying at 5-star hotels, like InterContinentals & Hiltons during their pilgrimages.
I am blaming those Muslims (non-Saudis & commoners) because those Muslims are creating demands for these kinds of monstrosities. I mean how can these Muslims feel the hardships & learn from the pilgrimage when they stay in these 5-star hotels with all the luxuries, & perhaps, more luxuries than their own homes. That's why, several Muslims proudly boast that they have performed pilgrimages multiple times, even though, the cost of each pilgrimage is becoming astronomical. Because, pilgrimage for these Muslims is like a walk in the park.
Yes, I agree that in Wahhabism or in true Islam, old sacred sites should be torn down because they do give rise to idolatory. Heck, even now, when Muslims visit Medina, some Muslims start praying to Prophet like, Allah forbid, he is their god. So, destroying non-religious sites is one way to not encourage idolatory but building Paris Hilton stores & Starbucks in their places is also very wrong.
Just imagine, if this same Royalty would've spent this wealth in helping Muslim refugees in Iraq, Syria, Burma, then those Muslims wouldn't have to find shelters in non-Muslim European & South-East Asian countries. Heck, if all those rich Muslim pilgrims who stay in these ultra-pricey hotels during their pilgrimage spend that money on helping their poor brothers & sisters in Islam, they would earn more rewards than showing up in Mecca to show off their social status by booking hotel rooms in these monstrosity of hotels.
If you are still thinking that all these gaudy construction is all well & good, then ask yourself these questions:
1. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem? (Judaism holy site for pilgrimage)
2. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the churches in Christianity's Holy Land? (Christianity's holy sites for pilgrimage in Jerusalem)
3. How many sacred pilgrimage sites of Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism are being overshadowed by monster hotels right beside them? (a quick Google search will help you know the answer).
So, why do Muslims, whose Prophet preached to let go of the world & its wealth, are the ones to not only build such buildings & desecrate their holy sites by physically making them so small & miniscule (generally, us, people don't like small things in this world), but also enthusiastically create demand, by shelling out thousands of their money, for someone to build such things?
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4 helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the world’s largest hotel when it opens in 2017.
With 10,000 bedrooms & 70 restaurants, plus 5 floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf.
Modelled on a “traditional desert fortress”, seemingly filtered through the eyes of a Disneyland imagineer with classical pretensions, the steroidal scheme comprises 12 towers teetering on top of a 10-storey podium, which houses a bus station, shopping mall, food courts, conference centre & a lavishly appointed ballroom.
Located in the Manafia district, just over a mile south of the Grand Mosque, the complex is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance & designed by the Dar Al-Handasah group, a 7,000-strong global construction conglomerate that turns its hand to everything from designing cities in Kazakhstan to airports in Dubai. For the Abraj Kudai, it has followed the wedding-cake pastiche style of the city’s recent hotel boom: cornice is piled upon cornice, with fluted pink pilasters framing blue-mirrored windows, some arched with a vaguely Ottoman air. The towers seem to be packed so closely together that guests will be able to enjoy views into each other’s rooms.
“The city is turning into Mecca-hattan,” says Irfan Al-Alawi, director of the UK-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, which campaigns to try to save what little heritage is left in Saudi Arabia’s holy cities. “Everything has been swept away to make way for the incessant march of luxury hotels, which are destroying the sanctity of the place & pricing normal pilgrims out.”
The Grand Mosque is now loomed over by the second tallest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait clocktower, home to thousands more luxury hotel rooms, where rates can reach £4,000 a night for suites with the best views of the Kaaba – the black cube at the centre of the mosque around which Muslims must walk. The hotel rises 600m (2,000ft) into the air, projecting a dazzling green laser-show by night, on a site where an Ottoman fortress once stood – razed for development, along with the hill on which it sat.
The list of heritage crimes goes on, driven by state-endorsed Wahhabism, the hardline interpretation of Islam that perceives historical sites as encouraging sinful idolatry ... . In Mecca & Medina, meanwhile, anything that relates to the prophet could be in the bulldozer’s sights. The house of Khadijah, his first wife, was crushed to make way for public lavatories; the house of his companion Abu Bakr is now the site of a Hilton hotel; his grandson’s house was flattened by the king’s palace. Moments from these sites now stands a Paris Hilton store & a gender-segregated Starbucks.
“These are the last days of Mecca,” says Alawi. “The pilgrimage is supposed to be a spartan, simple rite of passage, but it has turned into an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can’t afford.”
The city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj, but during the rest of the year more than 20 million visit the city, which has become a popular place for weddings & conferences, bringing in annual tourism revenue of around £6bn. The skyline bristles with cranes, summoning thickets of hotel towers to accommodate the influx. Along the western edge of the city the Jabal Omar development now rises, a sprawling complex that will eventually accommodate 100,000 people in 26 luxury hotels – sitting on another gargantuan plinth of 4,000 shops & 500 restaurants, along with its own six-storey prayer hall.
The Grand Mosque, meanwhile, is undergoing a £40bn expansion to double the capacity of its prayer halls – from 3 million worshippers currently to nearly 7 million by 2040. Planned like a vast triangular slice of cake, the extension goes so far back that most worshippers won’t even be able to see the Kaaba.
“It is just like an airport terminal,” says Alawi. “People have been finding they’re praying in the wrong direction because they simply don’t know which way the mosque is any more. It has made a farce of the whole place.”
As the article states, Mecca has become the "Las Vegas for pilgrims." In the article, some one else calls Mecca, the "Mecca-hattan." Really? Will this make Muslims happy that one of the two sacred cities for them is being compared with the "Sin City" & Manhattan?
No, it's not the fault of the writer to compare Mecca with Vegas. I's the fault & greed of the Saudi Royalty who have built so much secular / worldly grandiose monstrosity around the "House of Allah" that it is definitely a miracle that one can even see that sacred House from the air (even that, if you are hovering directly above it).
On top of that, as the article points out, that with these monstrous & very expensive developments, akin to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha, the poor residents & pilgrims are slowly being priced out of the city. It's like a gradual gentrification where rich elites are trying to get rid of the poor from Mecca by making the real estate in it so expensive that poor people can't visit or live in the city. Just like the poor people in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha live far outside of the city center, since they can't afford the luxurious lifestyle of the people (who are usually European & North American expatriates) who actually live in the city center.
Ironically, the lifestyle of the Prophet, whom the Saudi Royalty, Saudis, & the whole Muslim world purport to love & follow his ways, was, essentially, of a modern-day poor man. He could count his assets on his fingers. But his followers, in this day & age, apparently count their blessings & show off that wealth by staying at 5-star hotels, like InterContinentals & Hiltons during their pilgrimages.
I am blaming those Muslims (non-Saudis & commoners) because those Muslims are creating demands for these kinds of monstrosities. I mean how can these Muslims feel the hardships & learn from the pilgrimage when they stay in these 5-star hotels with all the luxuries, & perhaps, more luxuries than their own homes. That's why, several Muslims proudly boast that they have performed pilgrimages multiple times, even though, the cost of each pilgrimage is becoming astronomical. Because, pilgrimage for these Muslims is like a walk in the park.
Yes, I agree that in Wahhabism or in true Islam, old sacred sites should be torn down because they do give rise to idolatory. Heck, even now, when Muslims visit Medina, some Muslims start praying to Prophet like, Allah forbid, he is their god. So, destroying non-religious sites is one way to not encourage idolatory but building Paris Hilton stores & Starbucks in their places is also very wrong.
Just imagine, if this same Royalty would've spent this wealth in helping Muslim refugees in Iraq, Syria, Burma, then those Muslims wouldn't have to find shelters in non-Muslim European & South-East Asian countries. Heck, if all those rich Muslim pilgrims who stay in these ultra-pricey hotels during their pilgrimage spend that money on helping their poor brothers & sisters in Islam, they would earn more rewards than showing up in Mecca to show off their social status by booking hotel rooms in these monstrosity of hotels.
If you are still thinking that all these gaudy construction is all well & good, then ask yourself these questions:
1. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem? (Judaism holy site for pilgrimage)
2. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the churches in Christianity's Holy Land? (Christianity's holy sites for pilgrimage in Jerusalem)
3. How many sacred pilgrimage sites of Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism are being overshadowed by monster hotels right beside them? (a quick Google search will help you know the answer).
So, why do Muslims, whose Prophet preached to let go of the world & its wealth, are the ones to not only build such buildings & desecrate their holy sites by physically making them so small & miniscule (generally, us, people don't like small things in this world), but also enthusiastically create demand, by shelling out thousands of their money, for someone to build such things?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the world’s largest hotel when it opens in 2017.
With 10,000 bedrooms & 70 restaurants, plus 5 floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf.
Modelled on a “traditional desert fortress”, seemingly filtered through the eyes of a Disneyland imagineer with classical pretensions, the steroidal scheme comprises 12 towers teetering on top of a 10-storey podium, which houses a bus station, shopping mall, food courts, conference centre & a lavishly appointed ballroom.
Located in the Manafia district, just over a mile south of the Grand Mosque, the complex is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance & designed by the Dar Al-Handasah group, a 7,000-strong global construction conglomerate that turns its hand to everything from designing cities in Kazakhstan to airports in Dubai. For the Abraj Kudai, it has followed the wedding-cake pastiche style of the city’s recent hotel boom: cornice is piled upon cornice, with fluted pink pilasters framing blue-mirrored windows, some arched with a vaguely Ottoman air. The towers seem to be packed so closely together that guests will be able to enjoy views into each other’s rooms.
“The city is turning into Mecca-hattan,” says Irfan Al-Alawi, director of the UK-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, which campaigns to try to save what little heritage is left in Saudi Arabia’s holy cities. “Everything has been swept away to make way for the incessant march of luxury hotels, which are destroying the sanctity of the place & pricing normal pilgrims out.”
The Grand Mosque is now loomed over by the second tallest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait clocktower, home to thousands more luxury hotel rooms, where rates can reach £4,000 a night for suites with the best views of the Kaaba – the black cube at the centre of the mosque around which Muslims must walk. The hotel rises 600m (2,000ft) into the air, projecting a dazzling green laser-show by night, on a site where an Ottoman fortress once stood – razed for development, along with the hill on which it sat.
The list of heritage crimes goes on, driven by state-endorsed Wahhabism, the hardline interpretation of Islam that perceives historical sites as encouraging sinful idolatry ... . In Mecca & Medina, meanwhile, anything that relates to the prophet could be in the bulldozer’s sights. The house of Khadijah, his first wife, was crushed to make way for public lavatories; the house of his companion Abu Bakr is now the site of a Hilton hotel; his grandson’s house was flattened by the king’s palace. Moments from these sites now stands a Paris Hilton store & a gender-segregated Starbucks.
“These are the last days of Mecca,” says Alawi. “The pilgrimage is supposed to be a spartan, simple rite of passage, but it has turned into an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can’t afford.”
The city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj, but during the rest of the year more than 20 million visit the city, which has become a popular place for weddings & conferences, bringing in annual tourism revenue of around £6bn. The skyline bristles with cranes, summoning thickets of hotel towers to accommodate the influx. Along the western edge of the city the Jabal Omar development now rises, a sprawling complex that will eventually accommodate 100,000 people in 26 luxury hotels – sitting on another gargantuan plinth of 4,000 shops & 500 restaurants, along with its own six-storey prayer hall.
The Grand Mosque, meanwhile, is undergoing a £40bn expansion to double the capacity of its prayer halls – from 3 million worshippers currently to nearly 7 million by 2040. Planned like a vast triangular slice of cake, the extension goes so far back that most worshippers won’t even be able to see the Kaaba.
“It is just like an airport terminal,” says Alawi. “People have been finding they’re praying in the wrong direction because they simply don’t know which way the mosque is any more. It has made a farce of the whole place.”
