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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Destruction of Mecca
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 Indias Taj Mahal.
Fifty years on, no one could possibly describe Mecca as ancient, or associate beauty with Islams holiest city. Pilgrims performing the hajj this week will search in vain for Meccas 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 worlds 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 Meccas 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
(20,219 posts)They're supposedly protectors of the Spirit, but they don't recognize nor respect Beauty?????
pa28
(6,145 posts)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
(23,730 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)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
(1,832 posts)I have waded through garbage on the streets in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and even in Dubai. Good Lord, the garbage in Dubai.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Just curious as I would have thought Muslim countries would have been exactly the opposite for some reason.
Oktober
(1,488 posts)They think we are just as nuts with our constant washing and cleaning.
UTUSN
(70,695 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)This is where they got the idea.
JI7
(89,249 posts)sounded depressing to me.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,368 posts)rock.
A black rock. A meteorite.
I saw an interview (maybe it was in "Religulous" 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)