City in the sky: world's biggest hotel to open in Mecca

The Guardian ^ | 22 May 2015 | Oliver Wainwright

[Cronos]

Four helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city

[Cronos]

list of heritage crimes goes on, driven by state-endorsed Wahhabism, the hardline interpretation of Islam that perceives historical sites as encouraging sinful idolatry – which spawned the ideology that is now driving Isis’s reign of destruction in Syria and Iraq. In Mecca and Medina, meanwhile, anything that relates to the prophet could be in the bulldozer’s sights. The house of Khadijah, his first wife, was crushed to make way for public lavatories; the house of his companion Abu Bakr is now the site of a Hilton hotel; his grandson’s house was flattened by the king’s palace. Moments from these sites now stands a Paris Hilton store and a gender-segregated Starbucks.

and

The Grand Mosque, meanwhile, is undergoing a £40bn expansion to double the capacity of its prayer halls – from 3 million worshippers currently to nearly 7 million by 2040. Planned like a vast triangular slice of cake, the extension goes so far back that most worshippers won’t even be able to see the Kaaba.

[odds]

This type “tourism investment” by the Saudis has been in the pipeline for several yrs now. They said they couldn’t continue to rely purely on oil revenue (surprise, surprise) - there was actually a tv documentary here several yrs ago about alternative means of revenue for Saudi Arabia, and a few of the Gulf States.

Only 1 catch, you gotta be a muslim; and it means something like: “muslims be enticed to come to haj and bring your $$$$$ with you to spend in an Islamic country in a 5 star luxury ............”

[Don W]

World’s tallest hotel. World’s tallest building.

Turnabout is fair play, no?

Think about that, moon-worshipping heathen b******s.

*I* will NEVER FORGET.

[Cowboy Bob]

Where would they be without oil?

What will happen when oil finally runs out?

[Cronos]

May be Moslem casino :)

but note that the Wahabbis have destroyed most of Mecca already

The destruction of sites associated with early Islam is an ongoing phenomenon that has occurred mainly in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, particularly around the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The demolition has focused on mosques, burial sites, homes and historical locations associated with the Islamic prophet Muhammad and many of the founding personalities of early Islamic history

Much of the Arabian Peninsula was politically unified by 1932 in the third and current Saudi State, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The military campaign led by King Abdulaziz ibn Saud and his Bedouin army of tribesmen conquered the Hejaz and ousted the ruling Hashemite clan. The new Najdi rulers, nomadic Arabs largely tribal and illiterate, found themselves at the reins of a highly sophisticated society. A cohesive political structure based on the Majlis al-Shura (consultative council) system had been in place for centuries. A central administrative body managed an annual budget which allocated expenditure on secondary schools, military and police forces.

Similarly, the religious fabric of the Najd and the Hejaz were vastly different. Traditional Hejazi cultural customs and rituals were almost entirely religious in nature. Celebrations honoring Muhammad, his family and companions, reverence of deceased saints, visitation of shrines, tombs and holy sites connected with any of these were among the customs indigenous to Hejazi Islam.[4] As administrative authority of the Hejaz passed into the hands of Najdi [Wahabi] Muslims from the interior, the Wahabi ‘ulema (body of religious scholars) viewed local religious practices as unfounded superstition superseding codified religious sanction that was considered a total corruption of religion and the spreading of heresy.[5] What followed was a removal of the physical infrastructure, tombs, mausoleums, mosques and sites associated with the family and companions of Muhammad

In 1801 and 1802, the Saudis under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in today's Iraq, massacred parts of the Muslim population and destroyed the tombs of Husayn ibn Ali who is the grandson of Muhammad, and son of Ali (Ali bin Abu Talib), the son-in-law of Muhammad. In 1803 and 1804, the Saudis captured Mecca and Medina and destroyed historical monuments and various holy Muslim sites and shrines, such as the shrine built over the tomb of Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, and even intended to destroy the grave of Muhammad himself as idolatrous, causing outrage throughout the Muslim world

On April 21, 1925 the mausoleums and domes at Al-Baqi in Medina were once again levelled[13] and so were indicators of the exact location of the resting places of the Muhammad’s family members and descendants, as it remains to the present day. Portions of the famed Qasida al-Burda, the 13th century ode written in praise of Muhammad by Imam al-Busiri, inscribed over Muhammad's tomb were painted over. Among specific sites targeted at this time were the graves of the Martyrs of the Battle of Uhud, including the grave of the renowned Hamza ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib, uncle of Muhammad and one of his most beloved supporters, the Mosque of Fatimah Al Zahraa’, daughter of Mohammad, the Mosque of the Two Lighthouses (Manaratayn) as well as the Qubbat Al-Thanaya,[13] the cupola built as the burial place of Mohammad’s incisor tooth, which was broken from a blow received during the Battle of Uhud. In Medina, the Mashrubat Umm Ibrahim, the home of Mohammad’s Coptic Egyptian wife Mariah and birthplace of their son Ibrahim, as well as the adjacent burial site of Hamida al-Barbariyya, mother of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, were destroyed during this time.[13] The site was paved over and is today part of the massive marble esplanade beside the Mosque. The government-appointed permanent scholarly committee of Saudi Arabia has ordered the demolition of such structures in a series of Islamic rulings noting excessive veneration leading to Shirk.

[iowamark]

[onyx]

[odds]

>>”Similarly, the religious fabric of the Najd and the Hejaz were vastly different. Traditional Hejazi cultural customs and rituals were almost entirely religious in nature. Celebrations honoring Muhammad, his family and companions, reverence of deceased saints, visitation of shrines, tombs and holy sites connected with any of these were among the customs indigenous to Hejazi Islam.[4]”<<

Honestly, I get a serious headache when looking at stuff like that.

I just blame it on a single person long ago, “salman al farsi” (his arabic name). He presumably taught those bloody bedouins Arabs. Pre-Islamic Arabs were mostly against Mo and his Islamic religious stuff. Mo took the best elements out of all other preceding religions, combined them with bedouin arab customs/traditions/beliefs, and applied them in the worst way possible, to satisfy his megalomania. The Iranian ayatollahs/mullahs are by-product of the same Islam, be it a different offshoot. AND ALL SHI’ITES WERE ARABS FIRST, not any other ethnicity or race.

I can quote a significant verse from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh about muslim-arabs; but the meaning is too complicated ;-)

>>”May be Moslem casino :)”<<

Yep, Casino Royale!

[RichInOC]

Good to see they followed the rules and circumcised it.

[Cvengr]

157 W 57th St Park Hyatt has 210 rooms in the first 30 floors of the 1001 ft tall 87 story bldg. dominating over Central Park.

The bldg in Mecca is reportedly over 2000 ft tall with 45 storys? .. sitting atop a 10 story pedestal.

The penthouse for the 157 bldg sold for over $90 million.

The bathtubs alone cost 6 digits.

I watched a PBS documentary on 157 and the Mecca tower is just as arrogant. It’s simply throwing money at something to bolster an ego.

[RichInOC]

But seriously, I look at those pictures and I’m not sure how sacrilege is an improvement on idolatry. Aside from the optics of building mega-skyscrapers overshadowing the Grand Mosque in the first place, those are some astoundingly ugly buildings.

[Cronos]

Salman-al-Farsi — first a Zoroastrian mohad (priest), then a Nestorian Christian, then converted to Islam. You’re right, he probably taught Mo and team the subtleties of Zoroastrianism and Christianity to enable Mo to weave them into his narrative to create a unifying force for Semites

[odds]

Yes. Add to that similarities between Judaism and Islam in quite a few practices & core beliefs.

As I said “Mo took the best elements out of all other preceding religions, combined them with bedouin arab customs/traditions/beliefs, and applied them in the worst way possible, to satisfy his megalomania.”

[Dallas59]

A good place for ISIS to start.

[equaviator]

Looks like it did in my flight simulator!

[DrGunsforHands]

There’s a very strong Scrooge McDuck vibe to the building.

[PIF]

Nice target ...

[Vaquero]

Time to drop a few kinetic weapons from space on Mecca during a big Hajj celebration

[smalltownslick]

I thought I saw Big Foot

[smalltownslick]

Yes yes!!!