City in the sky: world's biggest hotel to open in Mecca

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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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/may/22/worlds-biggest-hotel-to-open-in-mecca

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.”

Analysis of the piece, "Banning the Niqab harms an open society...."

Although, this opinion piece starts out great but after the first paragraph, it's all downhill from there due to it being full with erroneous information & confusing the simpleton living on the main street.

Let's break down some of the problems with this piece:
 
1. Confusing the reader was evident from the piece & as such commented on it by a reader (Matt Hughes) that if we come across a veiled woman on the street, then what do we think or who do we blame; is it the woman's own choice of that niqab or her male relatives who forced her to wear it?
 
Most people don't like grey areas & as such, Mr. Joe & Jane Sixpacks on the main street will either ignore that veiled woman outright or start harassing her or her male relatives. If the Muslim woman says that she is wearing it on her own accord then the response will be that "you are brainwashed by your misogynistic male relatives (brother / husband / father). They won't understand that thin line between what's wrong with niqab in a liberal democracy & being forced to wear it.
 
2. Niqab is "anti-liberal" & "anti-democratic". Let me ask this then, why are there laws against indecent exposure in a liberal democracy? Per the author's logic that in a liberal democracy, the government cannot force an individual to dress a certain way. As he eloquently rephrased Pierre Trudeau's line that the state has no business in the dressing rooms of the nation, why are there laws against nudists roaming the streets in downtown areas of Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, & Montreal?
 
A liberal democracy certainly has no rights in the dressing rooms of the nation, but it also certainly doesn't have any rights to single out a tiny minority & make a pariah out of it without ever understanding the reasons behind a certain practice.
 
3. Author never made any distinction between a niqab & a hijab. Several people, & as such evident from the comments to the piece, that both hijab & niqab, are considered one & the same. (Comment by "NewsReader" that "the niqab is clearly misogynist. So is the hijab.").
 
There's a huge difference between a hijab & niqab, but the Mr. Joe & Jane Sixpacks on the street don't have a clue of that, since they have not understood Islam to its full extent & they have also not often interacted with Muslims, with different Islamic cultural practices.
 
4. To begin with the obvious, niqab & hijab have everything to do with Islam. Perhaps, the author likes to open the Quran & go to Chapter 33, Verse 33 where it says, "and stay in your houses & do not display your finery like the displaying of the ignorance of yore ...." Although, this is directed towards Muslim women of "7th-century Arabia" & specifically, the wives of Prophet Muhammad & mothers of all Muslims worldwide, this is applicable to all Muslim women today.
 
Just because a majority is not following a certain practice, it doesn't mean that the practice is outdated now. Using the same logic, Christians should stop the "outdated" practice of fasting & prayers during Lent, since the majority don't observe Lent nowadays. Or Jews should stop the "outdated" practice of observing Shabbat since the majority of Jews don't observe Shabbat nowadays. We can keep going discussing "outdated" practices in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, since majority of the people around the world are not following their religions as dictated in their religious books & scriptures but I think the reader got the point.
 
Now, as I stated above that although, this was a practice of "7th century Arabia," Muslim women of today must dress how the Arab Muslim wives of Prophet did in his time. Question arises then that it was a cultural practice & Quran never actually dictates how a Muslim woman should dress.
 
True, but then Quran never provide specifics for a lot of things in Islam. Hadiths (sayings, practices, lifestyle of Prophet Muhammad) provide the specifics, but then, obviously, the Prophet did whatever he did in "7th-century Arabia" was according to that Arabian culture & times. Let's take a few examples:

a. Prayers: Quran only orders Muslims to pray. It never provide any specifics into it. So, why don't Muslims pray like singing in a choir (Christianity) or as an interpretive dance (Hinduism)? Why do they recite Quranic verses in Arabic when most Muslims of the world don't even have Arabic as their mother tongue? Why do Muslims do all those poses of standing, sitting, or prostration?

b. Fasting: Quran only orders Muslims to fast. So why don't Muslims fast from dawn till noon only? Why don't they fast like some people do in other religions e.g. drink water & don't take solids? Why Muslims abstain from sexual relations while fasting?

c. Alms: Quran only orders Muslims to give alms. So why don't Muslims give 10% of their gross income, similar to Christians? Why don't Muslims calculate alms like we all fill out our complicated taxes?

d. Pilgrimage: I think the readers got the idea that Quran only says perform pilgrimage. How, when, what, of pilgrimage are all provided to us in Hadiths.

So, it seems like that all pillars of Islam are based on the teachings of Prophet Muhammad & were passed down to today's Muslims through these Hadiths. Since, he was living in "7th-century Arabia", we can easily say that all these pillars of Islam are relics of "7th-century Arabia" & should not be followed now. Can we get even one fatwa from any Islamic scholar in the world to denounce all these Islamic pillars?

5. Author cites Al-Azhar University & Turkey as the proof that niqabs have nothing to do with Islam & hence, they are banned. That creates 2 problems. One that readers then ask the question, & rightly so, that why can't Canada then bans the niqabs when they have nothing to do with Islam & Islamic countries & Islamic organizations have spoken out against niqabs (reader: jjfoxy in the comments). That plays right into the hands of Harper & its supporters & anyone else who is against niqabs.

Secondly, citing some examples who support author's view amounts to misrepresenting the facts or confirming his own biases. The author certainly didn't check out the Quran's interpretation & explanations from prominent scholars, like South Asian scholar, Mawdudi, or even Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb. If the author prefers to consult a living scholar of this modern age, then there is Canadian scholar, Dr. Farhat Hashmi, who by the way, does have a PhD in "Hadith Sciences" from University of Glasgow, Scotland, & wears a niqab. Anyway, so what the author did, is called "fatwa shopping," which is when we don't like a certain fatwa or decision from one scholar, we shop around until we find the one we wanted in the first place.

Citing Al-Azhar University & Turkey as an example against niqab is also taking those examples out of context. Al-Azhar University is not the great center of Sunni learning anymore. It was at one time in the past, but, we cannot forget that their rulings / fatwas are heavily influenced by Egyptian dictators. Why aren't any scholars from Al-Azhar University issuing any fatwas against Sunni & Shiite Muslims fighting each other & killing each other all over Middle East? (That I think is far more important matter than niqabs, since that involves human lives).
 
We all know that Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who was ruling Egypt with an iron fist back in 2009, & hence, he forced Al-Azhar University to issue a statement, which he wanted in the first place. We also know that Turkish army, which tightly controls the government, don't allow Erdogan to bring in any legislation which breaks their almost 100-year-old strict traditions to not bring in Islamic practices like hijabs.
 
Taking things out of context, by same measure, the author can say tomorrow that Islam supports dictatorships, because of Imams of Islam's 2 holiest sites, Mecca & Medinah. Both of these Imams give Friday sermons to thousands of Muslims, which have to be pre-approved by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of religious affairs. Those Imams can't say 1 thing against Saudi Arabian regime, which tramples human rights at its will.
 
Taking anything out of context is a very dangerous practice. It is practiced by right-wing & ignorant people in North America, who don't understand Quran & Hadiths & take verses like "kill infidels wherever you find them" out of Quran, completely out of context, as their support for the argument that Islam is not a peaceful religion. Hardliners & extremists in Islam do the exact same thing to encourage Muslims, & especially new converts & misguided Muslims who have never studied Quran & Hadiths themselves, to kill non-Muslims.
 
6. The argument that women are forced to wear niqab or hijab (the author never distinguishes it in the piece) is flawed, since a majority of Muslim women, young & old, are wearing hijab & niqabs, in the West, on their own accord.
 
We can agree that Islamic countries, like Iran & Saudi Arabia, may have forced their women citizens to cover themselves, but what about Muslim women who are converting (e.g. widow of Boston bomber) & Muslim women who were born & raised in a Muslim family. Why are these women taking on niqabs & hijabs? These Muslim women are born & raised in countries where they know their rights & they know that the government will support them fully in whatever decision they take. We can watch multiple videos & documentaries by prominent news agencies, like BBC, on Youtube where new women converts are more strict on taking on niqabs & hijabs than born Muslim women, because those women converts actually learn Arabic & try to understand Quran & Hadiths in their pure forms, whereas, the language of most born Muslims isn't even Arabic, & being complacent in their own religion, they think why do I even need to understand my own religion, when I already know what I need to know about my religion.
 
7. Author goes on to state that "what separates liberal societies from dictatorships is that the former are open, allow for face-to-face consultation, encourage dissent, & recognize individuals as equals."
 
a. I have a problem when people say liberal societies are open. Define "open"? Aren't there laws & regulations to inhibit or stop us citizens & residents from doing certain things in these societies? A robber wants to rob people in an open society or, as I gave example above, a nudist wants to walk down Yonge street nude, or a teen driver without a driver's license wants to race down the highway way above the posted limits? Similar to a market is not exactly "free", no society is exactly "open".
 
b. Liberal societies allow for "face-to-face consultations" but PM Harper of Canada or any of its cabinet members have not had any consultations with any of the Muslim women in Canada on this sensitive topic of niqab. Heck, not even Zunera Ishaq, on whom this whole topic is based, has had any "face-to-face consultation" with the Prime Minister. Does that make Canada a dictatorship then?
 
c. Liberal societies "encourage dissent" but PM Harper does not allow dissent by allowing no journalist on the Parliament Hill to ask questions to the Prime Minister. Canadian scientists keep complaining that they are muzzled on climate change issues by this government. Peaceful protests & marches, be the G20 protests years ago or the most recent protests by unions, students, & Natives, were forcibly ended through amendments to legislation. Does all this make Canada a dictatorship then?
 
d. Since, Canada is a "liberal democracy" & per author, individuals are recognized as equals in a liberal democracy, then the question arises that why it took almost 30 years for Canadian government officials to recognize that 1,200 Natives women being sexually assaulted & murdered is a problem? If 1 woman of European descent gets assaulted & murdered in a Canadian city, then the whole police force is out in force to look for the perpetrator, but it took almost 30 years & 1,200 indigenous women to be assaulted & die, for the Canadian government to realize that we may have a problem on our hands. Are these Natives women being considered "equal" as their counterparts of other races & socio-economic demographic? Does this mean that Canada is a dictatorship, then?
 
All these trump the author's logic, on which his whole argument is based, that Canada is a liberal democracy & an open society.
 
8. Liberal societies must allow one citizen to see another citizen’s face when in conversation or contact. Question should be asked why does Islam asks women to wear hijab or niqab? It seems clear that Islam & "liberal societies" are in conflict in its values.
 
Let's look at this from a different perspective & forget about religion for a minute here.
 
When we want to see the beauty of a woman, do we look at her feet, or her legs, or her arms or her tummy? When males, young & old, are attracted towards a woman, what part of her body do they look at to judge her beauty?
 
The answer is obviously, her face. It's similar to women judging men; by their faces. When we go on any one of the multiple dating & relationship websites on the internet, men & women, both judge a person's attractiveness through their faces. After all, all those beauty products & all those billion-$$$ beauty companies are selling products for women to make their faces pretty & attractive. Women spend a fortune on those beauty products. Many even go as far as to have painful & expensive botox & facial treatments because they need to look good on the dating scene.
 
Now, the argument will come that Muslim men are very lustful & can't keep it in their pants. If that's the case, then why is there a Project97 in Canada, started by Rogers Media, right now? The name of Project 97 came from the fact that 97% of the sexual assaults & harassment in Canada is never reported to law enforcement agencies. Why are there so many sexual assault allegations against the legendary comedian, Bill Cosby? What about rape allegations in university campuses & frat houses all over North America? How about CBC's Jian Ghomeshi & his sexual assault cases against him? Are all the men implicated in these cases Muslims? Of course not.
 
It's basic human biology. Usually, women are not attracted to men on looks. They need a little more than that, which we all call, "foreplay." Ask any sex expert about foreplay, & the answer will be that it doesn't start 2 minutes before sexual intercourse. It starts way before it; perhaps, those flowers, chocolates, & that expensive dinner. But men are ready to go on a moment's notice; as soon as they see an attractive woman in a "cute" dress. Of course, we all know that I am not talking about the nun's dress here.
 
So, Islam protected women from men reducing a woman to "just a piece of meat" & forcing them to talk to her on an intellectual level by telling Muslim women to wear hijab or a niqab. When a Muslim woman is wearing a hijab or a niqab, her colleague, be it a Muslim or a non-Muslim, anywhere in this world, is forced to interact with her mind, not with her body.

There is a reason when we Muslims firmly believe that Islam gave rights & protected Muslim women back in "7th-century Arabia." Now, if somebody or a government forces its female citizens to do something against their will, we can't blame Islam.

Islam also never forces anyone to follow its orders. If a person doesn't like what Islam says, he/she is most welcome to get out of Islam; similar to, when an employee doesn't like his/her employer's rules, be it the dress code or internet usage rights, he/she is most welcome to leave the company, or if a citizen doesn't like a law made by a government, he/she is most welcome to leave that country & renounce his/her citizenship.

Most, if not all, of Islamic rituals / practices practiced by Muslims around the world are written in Hadiths, & not in Quran, which, as explained / proven above, is all based on Prophet Muhammad's actions & sayings in "7th-century Arabia". 

Since, the world keeps changing, Islamic scholars who are highly knowledgable, in religious & secular affairs, are required to issue fatwas like no niqabs for Muslim women, after taking on several factors into consideration, similar to the Justices of the Supreme Court do before issuing a ruling on a sensitive topic. These religious & social matters should not be ruled upon or issued opinions by Muslims, or anyone else for that matter, who doesn't have complete knowledge of Islam. Heck, friends, family, & followers of the Prophet Muhammad, in "7th-century Arabia" never questioned the Prophet or Quran & accepted those rules without any opposition. That, at least, is mentioned in Quran in several places, is the indication of a true believer, that "he hears it & acts upon it." 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/banning-the-niqab-harms-an-open-society-so-does-wearing-it/article23469409/