http://sg.yimg.com/xp/reuters/20050708/1305360625.jpg

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Some of Islam's historic sites in Mecca, possibly including a home of the Prophet Mohammad, are under threat from Saudi real estate developers and Wahhabi Muslims who view them as promoting idolatry.

Sami Angawi, an expert on the region's Islamic architecture, said 1,400-year-old buildings from the early Islamic period risk being demolished to make way for high rise towers for Muslims flocking to perform the annual pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city.

"We are witnessing now the last few moments of the history of Mecca," Angawi told Reuters. "Its layers of history are being bulldozed for a parking lot," he added.

Angawi estimated that over the past 50 years at least 300 historical buildings had been levelled in Mecca and Medina, another Muslim holy city containing the prophet's tomb.

Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's dominant doctrine which promotes a strict narrow interpretation of Islam, was largely to blame, he said.

"They (Wahhabis) have not allowed preservation of old buildings, especially those related to the prophet. They fear other Muslims will come to see these buildings as blessed and this could lead to polytheism and idolatry."

The Washington-based Saudi Institute, an independent news gathering group, says most Islamic landmarks have been destroyed since Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932. It cited a 1994 edict by the kingdom's senior council of religious scholars which ruled that preserving historical buildings might lead to polytheism.

Angawi, who founded the Haj Research Centre in 1975 to study and preserve Mecca and Medina's rich history, claims to have identified a home of the Prophet Mohammad. But he is reluctant to publicise its location fearing it would be demolished like Dar al Arqam -- the first school in Islam where the prophet taught.

Angawi's views were echoed elsewhere.

In London, Geoffrey King, Islamic art and archaeology specialist at the School of Oriental and African and Studies, said the fate of Islamic historic sites in Saudi Arabia was "depressing".

"The religious authorities have failed to appreciate the significance of these buildings to Muslims and scholars worldwide," said King, who taught for several years in the kingdom and stressed many young Saudis agreed with him.

REAL ESTATE DEMAND

Followers of Wahhabism say Muslims should focus on Mecca's Grand Mosque, which contains the Kaaba -- an ancient structure that more than four million Muslims visit each year as part of haj and umra pilgrimages.

Real estate firms see massive demand for new accommodation to house up to 20 million pilgrims expected to visit Islam's holiest city annually over the coming years as authorities relax entry restrictions for pilgrims.

"The infrastructure at the moment cannot cope. New hotels, apartments and services are badly needed," the director of a leading real estate company said, estimating that developers are spending around 50 billion riyals ($13 billion) on projects in the city.

Dominating these is the 10 billion riyal Jabal Omar scheme. Covering a 230,000 square metre area adjacent to the Grand Mosque, the seven-year project consists of several towers containing hotels, apartments, shops and restaurants.

Angawi said these developments will dwarf Mecca's Grand Mosque and are a sign of crass commercialisation.

"Mecca is being treated like a bad copy of any city when it is a sanctuary. The house of God is being commercialised and these developments are disrespectful and totally out of proportion."

But the Jabal Omar Development Company, the firm behind the project, said it was changing Mecca for the better, not least in demolishing more than 1,000 poorly built homes that clung precariously to the hillsides around the Grand Mosque.

The firm said around 70,000 residents from 29 different nationalities used to live on the Jabal Omar site before selling up and moving into better quality housing elsewhere.

The residents of a similar neighbourhood close by seemed to be equally eager to attract developers.

Ali Hussein, a 38 year-old originally from Myanmar, lives in a cramped house deep within a network of unpaved, rubbish-strewn alleyways. "The people that moved away now live in nice homes," he said as a stray cat skipped over a puddle of sewage nearby.

"This is a very poor area. We hope another investor will come," said Amin Rafie, a local community ombudsman, adding that residents would likely be offered a handsome price for their dishevelled homes in Saudi Arabia's oil-driven real estate boom.

But Angawi wasn't convinced of the developers' motives.

"We have to accommodate these new pilgrims, but do we have to do it in towers and skyscrapers? Making money seems to be the bottom line here," he said.

"We are destroying physical links to our past and turning our religion and history into a legend," he said.

---

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050708/3/23mdm.html

Really sad. Developers sould be more socially responsible. Developing a historic has to be done in a culturally sensitive manner. But greed and extremist attitudes get in the way. :(

well its jealousy, thought abdulwahab never said anything about demolishing anything except tombs, alsaud found it a nice thing to destroy the people's history to be able to make way for themselves, remember the abdul raouf's museum it got burned but not the side of al-saud? very interesting!

al-saud want to make it a money making machine and the worst part is that they arent doing it islamicly legal, they kick out 10 000 from their houses and recompensate only 100 to keep some on their side, if they would recompensated everyone it would have been different, besides that they could have built those buildings around mecca there is a lot of place but they are doing everything intentionally.

There is a hadeeth in which muhammad says: When some gets nearly finished, you should there is something bad going to happen(it might me many things like getting a desease or loosing power, or never going to heaven , there is sooo many things)

and there is one of that last hour signs that mecca won't be ''reckognizable'' because of its ''tall'' buidlings, thought when they will be completed it will be the end of that cursed saudi regime.

another one of the signs is that people will be able to go from iraq to mecca in minutes (the train that is being built) but there will be killing for no reason everywhere.

The most obvious in mecca is that there is 2 big communities that dominate, ahl al bayt (descendants from ali ibn abi talib), tribes originaly from mecca and the african community that came to mecca 700 years ago. there is a bedouin and indian community which is large but 80% of them were brought by al-saud to change the demographies. most of the africans, tribes originaly from mecca (some of them are bedouins but moved to the outskirts of mecca when al-saud came) and the ones from ahl ahl bayt in mecca don't have any kind of reckognition(they dont have saudi passports, or any passport... the only reason al-saud is being able to do his projects near the haramein is because he stole the land in a wicked way. when they don't have any passport they dont exist, thats how he lowers the population)

The african, meccan and ahl al bayt communities are being faced with a lot of racism and oppression by the goverment and recently there is many killings that are being happening like an african man went to a bedouins house and killed all the mans family!!! all of this is happening is because al-saud is destroying their houses and bringing the indian (who are mostly laborers) and bedouins (who work with the goverment) to live in the new residential complexes, al-saud thinks he can do that but by doing this act he is making way for a huge civil war! he event went against wahabis by destroying the masjid of Abdallah al rushud who died in iraq a month ago.

many acts are happening more and more in mecca and it will grow the main events are:

-the killing of the master interegator Al-sawat
-the fall of a saudi army chopper after being hit by a sam 7 rocket
-the attack on a saudi police station
-the theft of a weapons depot for the police station


those were many events that happend in 2005, there will surely be more killing is never something we like but its not something we can always control. People always talk about terrorists but they arent civilized enough to study the reason why they attack! and in fact its because they dont want to give them what they want! The saudi regime doesnt want to give back the 7.5 trillion he stole from the people and give the country back to the people.
America doesnt want to recompensate people in fallujah who's houses costedf 1 to 2 million US dollars, so until they continue being greedy and stubborn they will taste a much worser poison than they are tasting now.

well anyways im sad for what is happening but it can always be rebuilt... look at saddam he re-built the city of babyl, the ishtar gates the great masjid of samara, the abbassid palaces, and so and so. as long as we have them recorded we can always rebuild them, al-hajjaj ibni 'amru destroyed the ka'aba!! and rebuilt it in a shape of a cube thought its really if you go back to history in the shape of a have cube attached to a half circle. my only fear is that they take the ka'aba to one of their palaces in riyadh hahahaha :D

Why are most people in the gulf soo helpless, and complacent...Why not demonstrate, protest against these things! I know its not easy, but the people aren't even trying...People in the Gulf are soo politically inactive....I don't think i've ever heard, at least not in recent times of any protest or demonstration going on anywhere in the gulf except for Bahrain, and Kuwait recently in relation to women rights....Here in Bahrain the people are very politically active, or at least make an effort to be soo...Sometimes they go even too far with protests and demonstrations against ridiculous things such as stopping the Nancy Ajram concert =S (about a couple of yrs ago)...

Dont see anything Wrong with Demolishing Old homes around the Haram sheriff.... some sites that are seen as culturally important should be kept however I support the new development that will better be able to handle some 20 million pilgrims that are estimated to visit the city.

so sad, its alone gone now, isn't it?

And all these Hejazi members of this forum like Hijazzey and Anas have dissapeared too

well its jealousy, thought abdulwahab never said anything about demolishing anything except tombs, alsaud found it a nice thing to destroy the people's history to be able to make way for themselves, remember the abdul raouf's museum it got burned but not the side of al-saud? very interesting!

al-saud want to make it a money making machine and the worst part is that they arent doing it islamicly legal, they kick out 10 000 from their houses and recompensate only 100 to keep some on their side, if they would recompensated everyone it would have been different, besides that they could have built those buildings around mecca there is a lot of place but they are doing everything intentionally.

There is a hadeeth in which muhammad says: When some gets nearly finished, you should there is something bad going to happen(it might me many things like getting a desease or loosing power, or never going to heaven , there is sooo many things)

and there is one of that last hour signs that mecca won't be ''reckognizable'' because of its ''tall'' buidlings, thought when they will be completed it will be the end of that cursed saudi regime.

another one of the signs is that people will be able to go from iraq to mecca in minutes (the train that is being built) but there will be killing for no reason everywhere.

The most obvious in mecca is that there is 2 big communities that dominate, ahl al bayt (descendants from ali ibn abi talib), tribes originaly from mecca and the african community that came to mecca 700 years ago. there is a bedouin and indian community which is large but 80% of them were brought by al-saud to change the demographies. most of the africans, tribes originaly from mecca (some of them are bedouins but moved to the outskirts of mecca when al-saud came) and the ones from ahl ahl bayt in mecca don't have any kind of reckognition(they dont have saudi passports, or any passport... the only reason al-saud is being able to do his projects near the haramein is because he stole the land in a wicked way. when they don't have any passport they dont exist, thats how he lowers the population)

The african, meccan and ahl al bayt communities are being faced with a lot of racism and oppression by the goverment and recently there is many killings that are being happening like an african man went to a bedouins house and killed all the mans family!!! all of this is happening is because al-saud is destroying their houses and bringing the indian (who are mostly laborers) and bedouins (who work with the goverment) to live in the new residential complexes, al-saud thinks he can do that but by doing this act he is making way for a huge civil war! he event went against wahabis by destroying the masjid of Abdallah al rushud who died in iraq a month ago.

many acts are happening more and more in mecca and it will grow the main events are:

-the killing of the master interegator Al-sawat
-the fall of a saudi army chopper after being hit by a sam 7 rocket
-the attack on a saudi police station
-the theft of a weapons depot for the police station


those were many events that happend in 2005, there will surely be more killing is never something we like but its not something we can always control. People always talk about terrorists but they arent civilized enough to study the reason why they attack! and in fact its because they dont want to give them what they want! The saudi regime doesnt want to give back the 7.5 trillion he stole from the people and give the country back to the people.
America doesnt want to recompensate people in fallujah who's houses costedf 1 to 2 million US dollars, so until they continue being greedy and stubborn they will taste a much worser poison than they are tasting now.

This is true, i have heard the same. Thats why western hejazi saudis dont like the royals at all

Thats why western hejazi saudis dont like the royals at all

This may look very rude from my side but who exactly appointed you to speak on our behalf? I'm hejazi (born & raised) and I haven't left the area until recently for the University and came back afterwards. However, I've traveled around the world and seen the different effects of different Governments over different countries.

I just felt obligated to say this, not because I fear the Royal Family but, because the truth needs to be documented. The Kings of Saudi Arabia and their respective Governments have done for this country more than others. We have free education (and related books), free higher education (and related books at least in KFUPM), free healthcare system, cheap gas rates, cheap services rates and to top it all off the Retirees General Establishment which is officiated by the Government (even if the name indicates a private practice), that is to name a few. So no, I don't dislike the Royals because what they did, are doing and hopefully will be doing is of more value than what's done by a handful of Royal Family members.


I have to reiterate a point that I've repeated a couple of times, though. Makkah as I know it no longer exists! No Jarwal, Goshashiyah and the others!! True, it saddens me but I know it's for the greater good of this country and fellow Muslims. The Holy Mosque will have a bigger capacity, a much needed expansion. Have you people seen footage from last Ramadan? People were praying in the middle of the streets, on the curbs, in between vehicles and everywhere. Now, why are we crying about some recent history when we should focus more on serving the visitors (creating more space for prayers, linking more services outlets, enhancing and upgrading the Infrastructure, etc.) of the Holy Mosque. That's what our ancestors cared about more, serving the visitors of the Holy Mosque. King Abdullah is just trying to live up to his title "Servant of the Holy Mosques" and I'm not qualified to judge but in my humble opinion, he's on the correct path. Could he and his Government have avoided the scenario of certain officials ripping off or embezzling? No, because greed is in every human regardless of what position or family-descend he/she is.

ProudArabian, I'd really like for you to stop your hate-towards-Saudi-Government-posts. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion but this is getting ridiculous. Should you have any more remarks on our Government, I'll be more than pleased to lend a listening ear BUT though Private Messaging and/or IMs.

p.s. I apologize for the long post but I had a sprint of thoughts that didn't seem to end.

This may look very rude from my side but who exactly appointed you to speak on our behalf? I'm hejazi (born & raised) and I haven't left the area until recently for the University and came back afterwards. However, I've traveled around the world and seen the different effects of different Governments over different countries.

I just felt obligated to say this, not because I fear the Royal Family but, because the truth needs to be documented. The Kings of Saudi Arabia and their respective Governments have done for this country more than others. We have free education (and related books), free higher education (and related books at least in KFUPM), free healthcare system, cheap gas rates, cheap services rates and to top it all off the Retirees General Establishment which is officiated by the Government (even if the name indicates a private practice), that is to name a few. So no, I don't dislike the Royals because what they did, are doing and hopefully will be doing is of more value than what's done by a handful of Royal Family members.


I have to reiterate a point that I've repeated a couple of times, though. Makkah as I know it no longer exists! No Jarwal, Goshashiyah and the others!! True, it saddens me but I know it's for the greater good of this country and fellow Muslims. The Holy Mosque will have a bigger capacity, a much needed expansion. Have you people seen footage from last Ramadan? People were praying in the middle of the streets, on the curbs, in between vehicles and everywhere. Now, why are we crying about some recent history when we should focus more on serving the visitors (creating more space for prayers, linking more services outlets, enhancing and upgrading the Infrastructure, etc.) of the Holy Mosque. That's what our ancestors cared about more, serving the visitors of the Holy Mosque. King Abdullah is just trying to live up to his title "Servant of the Holy Mosques" and I'm not qualified to judge but in my humble opinion, he's on the correct path. Could he and his Government have avoided the scenario of certain officials ripping off or embezzling? No, because greed is in every human regardless of what position or family-descend he/she is.

ProudArabian, I'd really like for you to stop your hate-towards-Saudi-Government-posts. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion but this is getting ridiculous. Should you have any more remarks on our Government, I'll be more than pleased to lend a listening ear BUT though Private Messaging and/or IMs.

p.s. I apologize for the long post but I had a sprint of thoughts that didn't seem to end.

Well said :applause:

All I can say is that I was waiting for The Pharaoh to come and that it was right to wait..

Proud $@!& is trying to look like the guy who knows everything in the world!!
dude!!honestly,get over your self.
I'm Hijazi,Mottalibi,Hashimi ,Qurashi and before that Im SAUDI.
and please talk about you're self when you need to say something like this:
This is true, i have heard the same. Thats why western hejazi saudis dont like the royals at all
and since you have nothing to do with Saudi in general or Al-Hijaz in particular,you have no right to say any of your Sh**y comment around us,because I'm sure it disgust me as much as anyone else in this forum.
روح شوف لحمك من خير مين،قبل ما تتكلم يا ....

he just like to make up stories and believe them :)

who ever started this threed is a shee3eeee jaaaheeeeel, guys ignore him, let him cry, in islam buildings are not holy. so grow up.

^^
Now there, that wasn't too nice, was it? No need to call names. We're all Muslims here.

Woow..!
We apparently do have our own share of ignorants here and I thought we didn't..
Pfff, silly me !

Hijazzey was the most amazing saudi contributer to this website, he is from Hijaz and clearly fealt this way. I am not saying every Hijazi is against the Saud governments, but there are still many

Fighting with a pig is always a bad idea. wheather you lose or win, the pig likes it. Moreover, all what you get is dirt.

^ lol go worship sauds then, nobody is stopping you

^^ get a life kid .

Why are most people in the gulf soo helpless, and complacent...Why not demonstrate, protest against these things! I know its not easy, but the people aren't even trying...People in the Gulf are soo politically inactive....I don't think i've ever heard, at least not in recent times of any protest or demonstration going on anywhere in the gulf except for Bahrain, and Kuwait recently in relation to women rights....Here in Bahrain the people are very politically active, or at least make an effort to be soo...Sometimes they go even too far with protests and demonstrations against ridiculous things such as stopping the Nancy Ajram concert =S (about a couple of yrs ago)...

Things have changed since this post, haven't they? :cheers: