Saudi Gaudily Commercialization of Mecca

When the Wahhabi radicals entered Mecca they destroyed the tombs of the Companions of the Prophet because they claimed it would lead to paganism.

Wahhabi's first act in Mecca was to destroy its cultural and religious heritage, and the Saudis continue in that effort today.

The Saudi government intends to expand the Harem Mosque in Mecca into a structure large enough to hold 3 million people. It is bound to take up enormous space. That has some Saudis worried. Sami Angawi, himself a Saudi architect, is the founding-director of the Haj Research Center. HRC is dedicated to preserving historic sites in Mecca.

Numerous structures of Islam’s early history have been bulldozed over to make way for the five-star hotels and Starbucks that surround the Haram Mosque. The presence of such lavish hotels is a criticism that many Muslims have toward the Saudi handling of the Hajj, many Muslims accuse the Saudis of not seeing the duty as a solemn obligation, but, rather, as a way to squeeze money from pilgrims.

Mr. Angawi worries that the Mosque expansion will lead to even more bulldozing. Unfortunately for Mr. Angawi, the Saudi monarch does not share his concern. The radical Wahhabi Islam that is state ideology in Saudi Arabia views efforts to preserve historical sites to be a facet of idolatry. Thus they are indifferent to the fact that both the house of the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Khadiji, and the school where Prophet Muhammad taught have both been destroyed.

Destroying cultural heritage in the name of the mosque is one thing and can even be justified, but not this cheap imitation, vulgar architecture, and savage capitalism in the form of a clock monstrosity which the royals have built:

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It is an architectural absurdity. Just south of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Muslim world’s holiest site, a kitsch rendition of London’s Big Ben is nearing completion. Called the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, it will be one of the tallest buildings in the world, the centerpiece of a complex that is housing a gargantuan shopping mall, an 800-room hotel and a prayer hall for several thousand people. Its muscular form, an unabashed knockoff of the original, blown up to a grotesque scale, will be decorated with Arabic inscriptions and topped by a crescent-shape spire in what feels like a cynical nod to Islam’s architectural past. To make room for it, the Saudi government bulldozed an 18th-century Ottoman fortress and the hill it stood on. The tower is just one of many construction projects in the very center of Mecca, from train lines to numerous luxury high-rises and hotels and a huge expansion of the Grand Mosque. The historic core of Mecca is being reshaped in ways that many here find appalling, sparking unusually heated criticism of the authoritarian Saudi government. “It is the commercialization of the house of God,” said Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who founded a research center that studies urban planning issues surrounding the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and has been one of the development’s most vocal critics. “The closer to the mosque, the more expensive the apartments. In the most expensive towers, you can pay millions” for a 25-year leasing agreement, he said. “If you can see the mosque, you pay triple.”