Mohammed’s Mecca, His Mountain & the Modern Muslim Mall

I recall climbing the Lycabettus Hill in Athens after the colonels were out of power. The old man sitting there had returned from exile. He looked out into the distance. It’s gone, he said. The Mountain. The military had completely removed a mountain to build the city. How strange to be missing a mountain—there was emptiness instead.


I remembered that after the World Trade Center Towers went missing from the sky. I felt that emptiness.


I recall sitting in a palmy oasis in Syria. The afternoon was hot and bright. The young farmer had uncovered some Greek or Roman columns in his garden and was quickly covering them up with cement, to keep the government out of his business. What could I do? But he did not know the value of the buried treasure.


Now I recall that small loss when I think of the vast human heritage being erased by war, by rampant capitalism, and sometimes by the good intentions of bureaucrats. God save us!


To make way for a $200 million dollar Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, hundreds of skeletons are being removed from the site of an ancient Ma’am Allah cemetery, believed to contain the remains of dozens of companions of Prophet Muhammad as well as thousands of Muslims.


Funded mainly by American donors, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre is constructing a Museum of Tolerance to promote "unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths." The project was launched at a ceremony in 2004 with Ehud Olmert and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger


Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is carrying out the excavations, said it was common in Jerusalem to build on cemeteries: " If we didn't build on former cemeteries, we would never build."


However, the matter is in Israeli court. In Israel a number of more religious Jews are embarrassed and disturbed by this sacrilege. And when I mentioned this to a prominent New York Rabbi he took the matter seriously. There is hope.


Jerusalem Mufti Imam Sabri has called on Muslims to protest against plans to go ahead with construction. Calls to elected officials are welcome. "We need to know that if this museum is really about tolerance," he said, "This tolerance is not going to be built on the graves of Muslims!"


This story may sound shocking. And yet, it is not unusual. So much of our Islamic heritage is rapidly being dug up, built over, forgotten or destroyed. A few years ago in Ayodhya, India, the famous al Babri Mosque was destroyed, dismantled stone by stone by a mob of fanatic nationalist Hindus. And many mosques in Bosnia and Kosovo were also destroyed in the last decade.


But most unfortunately, we Muslims are destroying an even greater number of our own treasures. It is as if we are destroying our own family home. This is not only true in Iraq, that tragic battleground of intensifying violence, but in Saudi Arabia itself.


To accommodate more pilgrims and business, to build hotels and luxury apartments overlooking the Kaaba, the Saudi authorities have destroyed over 95 percent of historical Mecca. This is our Muslim heritage in ruin.


In place of that history, the Abraj al Bait Mall — one of the largest in Saudi Arabia-- has been built directly across from the Kaaba. The new mall is the first phase in a $13 billion construction boom. The Abraj al Bait housing and hotel complex will include the seventh tallest building in the world. This is good for Starbucks and Cartier and Tiffany and H&M and Topshop, and the bin Laden Construction group. But the next generation will have no idea what it has lost.


Mecca is becoming like Las Vegas, and that is a disaster,” said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, a Saudi opposition research organization. “It will have a disastrous effect on Muslims because going to Mecca will have no feeling. There is no charm anymore. All you see is glass and cement.”


It is not only materialism that drives this vast destruction and loss but also Wahabbi ideology. The Gulf Institute has publicized 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".


“This is the end of Mecca,” said Dr. Irfan Ahmed. He has formed the Islamic Heritage Foundation to try to preserve what it can. He has cataloged the destruction of more than 300 separate antiquity sites, including cemeteries and mosques. Today there are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of the Prophet.


According to the Foundation, the grave of Amina bint Wahb, the mother of the Prophet, found in 1998, is typical of what has happened. "It was bulldozed and gasoline was poured on it. Even though thousands of petitions throughout the Muslim world were sent, nothing could stop this action."


Our lost history includes the house of Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet, demolished to make way for public lavatories; the house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, now the site of the local Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet, and the Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location of the King's palace in Mecca. As a group called “Save the Hijaz” writes to Prince al Turki: “on the site of Jabal al-Khundaq you have built a cashpoint.” (http://www.savethehijaz.org/)


The demolition campaign now threatens the birthplace of the Prophet. The site survived the early reign of Ibn Saud when the architect for the planned library persuaded the absolute ruler to allow him to preserve the remains under the new structure. But Saudi authorities now plan to "update" the site with a car park that would mean concreting over the remains.


And the Cave of Hira? According to news stories in the UK Independent, in the Muslim American (TAM) and in the New York Times, “the mountain of light, or al-Nour, is next in the Wahhabis' sights… Hardline clerics want it destroyed to stop pilgrims visiting. Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who wants to preserve Mecca’s heritage, said of the development. “You are not supposed to even cut a tree in this city, so how could you blow up a mountain? The Islamic laws have been broken.”


Dr Angawi said: "Mecca should be the reflection of the multicultural Muslim world, not a concrete parking lot.”


As a tragic fire reminded Muslims in the Bronx last week, loss of family members is a very painful test. But deliberate destruction of a species, or a cultural heritage, is surely a form of genocide.


Do you want the Prophet’s birthplace, and the Cave of Hira disrespected? Will you tell your children you didn’t take action when the moment came? You and I don’t care about annoying the Princes, do we? Please contact the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission at (202) 337-9450 or contact Saudi Consular authorities at (202) 342-3800 (202) 337-4088 (310) 479-6000 (212) 752-2740 (713) 785-5577. And salaam alaykum.