Developers and purists erase Mecca's history
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 leveled 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."
In London, Geoffrey King, Islamic art and archeology 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.
Followers of Wahhabism say Muslims should focus on Mecca's Grand Mosque, which contains the Kaaba -- an ancient structure that more than 4 million Muslims visit each year as part of haj and umra pilgrimages.
Salaam
If the above is true, then its so unbelievably depressing.
The Holy Prophet
pointed out SIX times in Bukhari hadith that he does NOT fear shirk for his Ummah.
We should be unbelievably careful when referring to the Holy Prophet (saw), coz even an ounce of disrespect towards Him
can nullify all our goods deeds.
The believers are reminded in the Holy Qur’an (the ones who have embraced Islam-not the unbelievers) “O believers do not raise your voice above the voice of the Messenger and do not speak to him so loudly as you speak to one another (this violates the basic norms of courtesy and you should be careful of that) you do not waste your good deeds (on account of this disrespect) without being aware of it” (49; 2).
This Quranic verse underscores three things;
1 Raising your voice in the presence of the Holy Prophet (saw), or referring to Him the way we refer to one another, or behaving in a discourteous uncultured manner is strictly forbidden.
2 This disrespect can nullify all our good deeds.
3 This can happen in a manner that one is not even aware of the waste or loss.
Here an interesting situation develops. On one hand is respect for the Holy Prophet
and on the other are the good deeds and works of a lifetime.
In the case of the slightest disrespect ALL virtuous acts go down the drain (without even one realising the errors of his way) and an individual has to rebuild his image as a believer.
To disregard the importance of manifesting extreme respect to the Holy Prophet
and to overplay Islam’s educational and ritual aspects is a misrepresentation of the teachings of Islam.
And isnt demolishing the blessed home place of the Holy Prophet
not seen as being incredibly disrespectful? Why abolish history, out of fear of Shirk?
Wasalaam
Yes Muslim Sister this has been going on for a long time the Saudis are determined to destroy all these sites and have already done so many others
it all seems so inane
there is no basis in their reason for destroying them, we all know that but what can we do?
I think that ppl who say that that they know better than the Holy Prophet
(astugfirallah) are being disrespectul, what the Holy Prophet 
has said is set in stone, no1 can change it to suit their needs...
i personally beleive those who disrespect the Holy Prophet
cannot be forgiven, that is my personaly opinion for the reason that the Holy Prophet 
is a prophet and the beloved of Allah (swt)
Astaghfirullah these people are truly misguided and their whole ideology is wrong...
IMO possessing a Shirk phobia is worse then shirk
seeing shirk everywhere must be a disorder (I'm sure angel will back me on this one)
destrying things such as the home of the Prophet (pbuh) cos people may start "doing shirk" is the most stupidest thing I have ever heard
but some people's stupidty knows no bounds
definitely agree...i mean some people are quick 2 shout out 'shirk' at anything
if our Beloved Nabi (peace be upon Him and His family) has told us that he does not fear shirk 4 us then why should we find 'shirk' in the slightest lil thing? doesnt add up
soo true
this is depressing cos I've seen these historical sights years ago
and I'd want my children to see them too
my islamic teacher told me that a person can derive blessings from such places
and the demented fools should know that deriving BLESSINGS is diff to WORSHIPPING sumthing :roll:
iv seen some of these sites 2 while on umrah..
true...if our Beloved Nabi (peace be upon Him and His family) has been in a certain place then surely without a doubt we can gain spiritual blessings from that place...
honestly some people are soooo...whats the word(s)...[b]confused and misguided[/b]
Salaam
When we go to Makkah to perfom our Hajj/Umrah we try to kiss the black stone.
We wait there hours on end in the hot sun, just to get a chance to kiss the stone. But why do we kiss the stone, does it benefit us in any way? No, Are we worshipping it by kissing it? No way.
The reason we kiss it is because it has a link with a certain Prophet.
We do not worship it, but we respect it, just as we respect the mountains of Marwah and Safar, and the footprint made of stone of Prophet Ibraheem (AS).
The same applies to all the other blessed historical sites in Makkah and Medina.
You know, even if shirk DOES happen, the question should be “What is the proper way to deal with it?
Destroying buildings isn't going to solve the problem because shirk isn't being caused by the buildings but by the ignorance of the people.
What happens if people start committing Shirk in the kaaba, are we then going to burn the kaaba to the ground?
And how many people who visit these locations engage in Shirk? I doubt that the number is in millions. And is there is any documentation present which actually states the number of actual incidents that occur?...Isnt Shirk a hidden thing?
The argument that it is shirk to let these buildings stand is ridiculous.
Wasalaam
I say we should worry more about the future than the past.
Its far more startling.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
What do mean...Islamic history isn't that important? And its OK to bulldoze Islamic history for a parking lot or sky scrapers?
Its important, but not as if we have no future. We hold those places precious. Will the next generation? how about the one after that? There is something we can do here, but nothing about what Saudi does.
No point wasting energy.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
Salaam,
Admin it is important today and 'if' they has preserved such revered sites then they would be important forever..for coming generations and centuries to come. SO THEY ARE important!
The wahabisim that has scraped all historical sites is disgusting and makes one sick to the stomach.
They could have easily have preserved all buildings and personal belongings of the Holy Prophet saw just as the Ottomans have done in Spain and Turkey. Centuries on buildings still stand and graves of the pious in tact as they have always been. However Janatal Baqi where some of the best people that ever lived are sleeping, eg Hadrat Fatima ra and many Sahaba's ra, their tombs have been caranaged to nothing but a mere stone.
Only Allah knows why the Wahabi's are ruling the Saudi Kingdom..
Wsalaam
Salaam
Forthcoming generations will only appreciate these historical blessed sites if they are still present and if they receive the right education.
Tabarruk (blessings) can be gained from the relics of those who sacrificed everything theirs in servitude and obedience to Allah (swt). Lessons in courage and determination can be drawn from these sacred places.
Yes, there is probably nothing we can do about the Saudi Government…but I wouldn’t declare having a serious issue with all of the above as “wasting energy”.
I do know of people who are working towards preserving these sites. Even if their objective is not achieved their efforts will not be in vain.
Wasalaam
Salaam,
Certainly sister there are people who are pressurising the Saudi govmt to stop the caranage.
I went on Hajj last year and the Umrah this year..allhamdulilah.
Within a year there had already been areas that I had seen last year that have been demolished. Particularly mosques and other sites for eg, the Salman Farsi plantation which is now a site of dumping litter and caged off with bars!!!
Wsalaam
nope-
with attitudes such as that
of course the next generations wont hold the places as being importnat :roll:
Salam
Wahhabis, or Salafies as they are known nowadays, do these type of stupid things because they have no love for the Prophet.
Saying the Islamic Creed does not prove you love the Prophet.
Actions speak louder than words.
They have already secretly managed to alter many of the ancient manuscripts and books of Prophetic Tradition and Islamic History.
Quran is the ohly book that they cannot change. God promised to protect it Himself.
Omrow
their actions seem like a power thing to me
a mentality that implies that they can do what they like
had the Prophet (pbuh) and the Sahaba's feared Shirk they themselves would have demolished the buildings
yet these muppets think they know better :roll:
nope i think the past hold a lot of value cuz they have links to the Holy Prophet
so you cannot possible say let it happen but yeh we have 2 worry bout future but that mean dont forget past..
[size=18]The destruction of Mecca:[/size]
[b][size=15]Saudi hardliners are wiping out their own heritage[/size][/b]
By Daniel Howden
Published: 06 August 2005
[img]http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/3673/13211943ln.jpg[/img]
Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.
Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.
Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage.
It is the same oil-rich orthodoxy that pumped money into the Taliban as they prepared to detonate the Bamiyan buddhas in 2000. And the same doctrine - violently opposed to all forms of idolatry - that this week decreed that the Saudis' own king be buried in an unmarked desert grave.
A Saudi architect, Sami Angawi, who is an acknowledged specialist on the region's Islamic architecture, told The Independent that the final farewell to Mecca is imminent: "What we are witnessing are the last days of Mecca and Medina."
According to Dr Angawi - who has dedicated his life to preserving Islam's two holiest cities - as few as 20 structures are left that date back to the lifetime of the Prophet 1,400 years ago and those that remain could be bulldozed at any time. "This is the end of history in Mecca and Medina and the end of their future," said Dr Angawi.
Mecca is the most visited pilgrimage site in the world. It is home to the Grand Mosque and, along with the nearby city of Medina which houses the Prophet's tomb, receives four million people annually as they undertake the Islamic duty of the Haj and Umra pilgrimages.
The driving force behind the demolition campaign that has transformed these cities is Wahhabism. This, the austere state faith of Saudi Arabia, was imported by the al-Saud tribal chieftains when they conquered the region in the 1920s.
The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods.
The practice of idolatry in Saudi Arabia remains, in principle at least, punishable by beheading. This same literalism mandates that advertising posters can and need to be altered. The walls of Jeddah are adorned with ads featuring people deliberately missing an eye or with a foot painted over. These contrived imperfections are the most glaring sign of an orthodoxy that tolerates nothing which fosters adulation of the graven image. Nothing can, or can be seen to, interfere with a person's devotion to Allah.
"At the root of the problem is Wahhabism," says Dr Angawi. "They have a big complex about idolatry and anything that relates to the Prophet."
The Wahhabists now have the birthplace of the Prophet in their sights. The site survived redevelopment early in the reign of King Abdul al-Aziz ibn Saud 50 years ago when the architect for a library there persuaded the absolute ruler to allow him to keep the remains under the new structure. That concession is under threat after Saudi authorities approved plans to "update" the library with a new structure that would concrete over the existing foundations and their priceless remains.
Dr Angawi is the descendant of a respected merchant family in Jeddah and a leading figure in the Hijaz - a swath of the kingdom that includes the holy cities and runs from the mountains bordering Yemen in the south to the northern shores of the Red Sea and the frontier with Jordan. He established the Haj Research Centre two decades ago to preserve the rich history of Mecca and Medina. Yet it has largely been a doomed effort. He says that the bulldozers could come "at any time" and the Prophet's birthplace would be gone in a single night.
He is not alone in his concerns. The Gulf Institute, an independent news-gathering group, has publicised what it says is a fatwa, issued by the senior Saudi council of religious scholars in 1994, stating that preserving historical sites "could lead to polytheism and idolatry".
Ali al-Ahmed, the head of the organisation, formerly known as the Saudi Institute, said: "The destruction of Islamic landmarks in Hijaz is the largest in history, and worse than the desecration of the Koran."
Most of the buildings have suffered the same fate as the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet, which was identified and excavated by Dr Angawi. After its discovery, King Fahd ordered that it be bulldozed before it could become a pilgrimage site.
"The bulldozer is there and they take only two hours to destroy everything. It has no sensitivity to history. It digs down to the bedrock and then the concrete is poured in," he said.
Similarly, finds by a Lebanese professor, Kamal Salibi, which indicated that once-Jewish villages in what is now Saudi Arabia might have been the location of scenes from the Bible, prompted the bulldozers to be sent in. All traces were destroyed.
This depressing pattern of excavation and demolition has led Dr Angawi and his colleagues to keep secret a number of locations in the holy cities that could date back as far as the time of Abraham.
The ruling House of Saud has been bound to Wahhabism since the religious reformer Mohamed Ibn abdul-Wahab signed a pact with Mohammed bin Saud in 1744. The combination of the al-Saud clan and Wahhab's warrior zealots became the foundation of the modern state. The House of Saud received its wealth and power and the hardline clerics got the state backing that would enable them in the decades to come to promote their Wahhabist ideology across the globe.
On the tailcoats of the religious zealots have come commercial developers keen to fill the historic void left by demolitions with lucrative high-rises.
"The man-made history of Mecca has gone and now the Mecca that God made is going as well." Says Dr Angawi. "The projects that are coming up are going to finish them historically, architecturally and environmentally," he said.
With the annual pilgrimage expected to increase five-fold to 20 million in the coming years as Saudi authorities relax entry controls, estate agencies are seeing a chance to cash in on huge demand for accommodation.
"The infrastructure at the moment cannot cope. New hotels, apartments and services are badly needed," the director of a leading Saudi estate agency told Reuters.
Despite an estimated $13bn in development cash currently washing around Mecca, Saudi sceptics dismiss the developers' argument. "The service of pilgrims is not the goal really," says Mr Ahmed. "If they were concerned for the pilgrims, they would have built a railroad between Mecca and Jeddah, and Mecca and Medina. They are removing any historical landmark that is not Saudi-Wahhabi, and using the prime location to make money," he says.
Dominating these new developments is the Jabal Omar scheme which will feature two 50-storey hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks - all within a stone's throw of the Grand Mosque.
Dr Angawi said: "Mecca should be the reflection of the multicultural Muslim world, not a concrete parking lot."
Whereas proposals for high-rise developments in Jerusalem have prompted a worldwide outcry and the Taliban's demolition of the Bamiyan buddhas was condemned by Unicef, Mecca's busy bulldozers have barely raised a whisper of protest.
"The house where the Prophet received the word of God is gone and nobody cares," says Dr Angawi. "I don't want trouble. I just want this to stop."
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article304029.ece]The Independent[/url]
Lol-why did you repeat my post above?
.
Lol-Its easier it I just delete my post.
isnt this a sign of the day of judgement?
wahts their proposals..........get rid of Makkah and Medinah? or jus masjidul-nabwi?
thats appaling :x
The Lover is ever drunk with love;
He is free, he is mad,
He dances with ecstasy and delight.
Caught by our own thoughts,
We worry about every little thing,
But once we get drunk on that love,
Whatever will be, will be.
ɐɥɐɥ
hayder did u see all the diff holy places before the damn saudis took over? (the slideshow we got to see in the camp)
its sickenin how much disrespect they have for all the family of the Holy Prophet (saw)..
Apparently out of many holy places there are only 6 left!!!! :shock:
i saw a slide show in a Milad programme that I attended during Milad
its tru that soon nothing will be left
cos Saudi is run by good for nothing, arrogant, sexist, power crazy, oppressive ARABS :evil:
exactly money matters to them more than their deen, they got stupid hotel buildings higher than the kaba!! when i was watchin that slideshow it made me cry...its annoyin they have so much power, i wish i could kill them!
me too
its their arrogance thats making them do it
all the shirk/biddah is all in their stupid heads
they think they know better then all the millions of people who till this day let the buildings stand
Its ironic though they think that havin holy sites is bidah/shirk or whatever but bulldozin parts of holy sites is seen as normal, in islam we are taught to give utmost respect to the Holy Prophet Muhammad
and his 
family..any sort of disrespct towards the Holy prophet 
can make you lose your iman..
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