Mecca's Mega Architecture Casts Shadow Over Hajj

Towering over Mecca, this is the world's second-tallest building (Abraj al-Bait) – and it is just a tiny part of a voracious development that has seen historic sites bulldozed and locals forced into shantytowns.

As the hajj begins, Oliver Wainwright reports:

Three million Muslims arrived in Mecca this week for the annual hajj pilgrimage, an event that has mutated from a simple, spartan rite of passage, in which pilgrims give up their worldly goods, into a big-bucks business worthy of Las Vegas – with the overblown architecture to match.

Read the rest of The Guardian (October 24) article here.

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Comment: The Saudis and Wahhabism are the greatest threat to Islam.  They are not guardians of Islam's holiest sites but rather occupiers destroying Islam's cultural heritage and overall integrity.

Their fanaticism is not unlike that of the Taliban.  They cut of the same misguided cloth.

This is a time when Muslims should force the Saudis to stop bulldozing Mecca and building a Disney-like theme park.

Unfortunately too many Muslims, particularly those here in South Africa who are mostly rudderless, are too concerned with superficial matters related to self-preservation and entry into heaven via navel-gazing.

And I guess in these contexts the worry over the destruction of Islam's holy sites in Mecca is a moot point.

Onward!