*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.*  Mustn't speak out lest a mullah issue a fatwah
calling for your murder, right?
====================================================
The Destruction Of Mecca

Saudi Hardliners Wiping Out Their Own Heritage
By Daniel Howden

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."