The Destruction of Mecca

[cali]

WHEN Malcolm X visited Mecca in 1964, he was enchanted. He found the city “as ancient as time itself,” and wrote that the partly constructed extension to the Sacred Mosque “will surpass the architectural beauty of India’s Taj Mahal.”

Fifty years on, no one could possibly describe Mecca as ancient, or associate beauty with Islam’s holiest city. Pilgrims performing the hajj this week will search in vain for Mecca’s history.

The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world’s tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the superrich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas.

The “guardians” of the Holy City, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the clerics, have a deep hatred of history. They want everything to look brand-new. Meanwhile, the sites are expanding to accommodate the rising number of pilgrims, up to almost three million today from 200,000 in the 1960s.

The initial phase of Mecca’s destruction began in the mid-1970s, and I was there to witness it. Innumerable ancient buildings, including the Bilal mosque, dating from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, were bulldozed. The old Ottoman houses, with their elegant mashrabiyas — latticework windows — and elaborately carved doors, were replaced with hideous modern ones. Within a few years, Mecca was transformed into a “modern” city with large multilane roads, spaghetti junctions, gaudy hotels and shopping malls.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/opinion/the-destruction-of-mecca.html?_r=0

[BlancheSplanchnik]

1. that really sad. they hate beauty? "brutalism" may be great for developers but it's a blight.

The “guardians” of the Holy City, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the clerics, have a deep hatred of history. They want everything to look brand-new.

They're supposedly protectors of the Spirit, but they don't recognize nor respect Beauty?????

[pa28]

2. Google Earth is a handy tool to take in the scale of Mecca's destruction.

Use it to compare aerial photos from 2014 all the way back to 2004.

You can clearly see that several square miles of old neighborhoods and buildings were just erased and the land re-graded to make way for the new commercial development and mosque expansions.

I'll never be able to visit Mecca but it sure appears to be a less interesting place than 20 or 30 years ago.

[MisterP]

3. whole article on how it's turning into a bad theme park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic_heritage_sites_in_Saudi_Arabia

[AngryAmish]

4. Mecca town is fighting against the members of the Hajj

My father in law went three years ago. He is a first worlder and cannot stand garbage on the street.

The garbage at Mecca drove him to distraction. There are garbage cans everywhere but everyone just threw their garbage on the street. There are Bangladeshi cleaners who do a heroic job but...put your garbage in a can. My fil would talk to the Bangladeshis and they were baffled at the laziness but happy for the job.

[AnalystInParadise]

8. That is not just a Saudi problem

I have waded through garbage on the streets in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and even in Dubai. Good Lord, the garbage in Dubai.

[smirkymonkey]

9. Why do you think it's such a problem? Do they have a lack of public trash receptacles?

Just curious as I would have thought Muslim countries would have been exactly the opposite for some reason.

[Oktober]

12. Totally different standards of 'clean'

They think we are just as nuts with our constant washing and cleaning.

[UTUSN]

5. The BIN LADIN father contracted the thing, no?!1 nt

[n2doc]

6. When you hear about ISIS blowing up historical sites

This is where they got the idea.

[JI7]

7. i read some articles on Saudi Arabia and how people mostly spend their free time at Malls

sounded depressing to me.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. And inside the square, black building is a.......

rock.

A black rock. A meteorite.

I saw an interview (maybe it was in "Religulous&quot where a cleric was asked about this ....fucking rock....and declared it was from god, delivered from heaven.

"It's a meteorite, isn't it?" (yes, of course it is)

"No, it is from god" (or something to that effect)


Yup....like many parts of the various Abrahamic faiths that revere dopey items easily explained by modern science, this one reveres a fucking naturally occurring rock that fell from space.


IT'S A GOD DAMNED METEORITE, for fucks sake.


Islam, proudly joining the 12th century.


(Sorry if some might think I am being intolerant, but I am A HERETIC I AM, and it's a damned meteorite, not a gift from Allah)

[cali]

11. veneration of some object or another is hardly relegated to Islam

[Oktober]

13. ... And no less stupid when others do it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Pretty much what I said;

Yup....like many parts of the various Abrahamic faiths that revere dopey items easily explained by modern science, this one reveres a fucking naturally occurring rock that fell from space.