Mecca for the rich: Islam's holiest site 'turning into Vegas'

Historic and culturally important landmarks are being destroyed to make way for luxury hotels and malls, reports Jerome Taylor

Behind closed doors – in places where the religious police cannot listen in – residents of Mecca are beginning to refer to their city as Las Vegas, and the moniker is not a compliment.

Over the past 10 years the holiest site in Islam has undergone a huge transformation, one that has divided opinion among Muslims all over the world.

Once a dusty desert town struggling to cope with the ever-increasing number of pilgrims arriving for the annual Hajj, the city now soars above its surroundings with a glittering array of skyscrapers, shopping malls and luxury hotels.

To the al-Saud monarchy, Mecca is their vision of the future – a steel and concrete metropolis built on the proceeds of enormous oil wealth that showcases their national pride.

Yet growing numbers of citizens, particularly those living in the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have looked on aghast as the nation's archaeological heritage is trampled under a construction mania backed by hardline clerics who preach against the preservation of their own heritage. Mecca, once a place where the Prophet Mohamed insisted all Muslims would be equal, has become a playground for the rich, critics say, where naked capitalism has usurped spirituality as the city's raison d'être.

Few are willing to discuss their fears openly because of the risks associated with criticising official policy in the authoritarian kingdom. And, with the exceptions of Turkey and Iran, fellow Muslim nations have largely held their tongues for fear of of a diplomatic fallout and restrictions on their citizens' pilgrimage visas. Western archaeologists are silent out of fear that the few sites they are allowed access to will be closed to them.

But a number of prominent Saudi archaeologists and historians are speaking up in the belief that the opportunity to save Saudi Arabia's remaining historical sites is closing fast.

"No one has the balls to stand up and condemn this cultural vandalism," says Dr Irfan al-Alawi who, as executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, has fought in vain to protect his country's historical sites. "We have already lost 400-500 sites. I just hope it's not too late to turn things around."

Sami Angawi, a renowned Saudi expert on the region's Islamic architecture, is equally concerned. "This is an absolute contradiction to the nature of Mecca and the sacredness of the house of God," he told the Reuters news agency earlier this year. "Both [Mecca and Medina] are historically almost finished. You do not find anything except skyscrapers."

Dr Alawi's most pressing concern is the planned £690m expansion of the Grand Mosque, the most sacred site in Islam which contains the Kaaba – the black stone cube built by Ibrahim (Abraham) that Muslims face when they pray.

Construction officially began earlier this month with the country's Justice Minister, Mohammed al-Eissa, exclaiming that the project would respect "the sacredness and glory of the location, which calls for the highest care and attention of the servants or Islam and Muslims".

The 400,000 square metre development is being built to accommodate an extra 1.2 million pilgrims each year and will turn the Grand Mosque into the largest religious structure in the world. But the Islamic Heritage Foundation has compiled a list of key historical sites that they believe are now at risk from the ongoing development of Mecca, including the old Ottoman and Abbasi sections of the Grand Mosque, the house where the Prophet Mohamed was born and the house where his paternal uncle Hamza grew up.

There is little argument that Mecca and Medina desperately need infrastructure development. Twelve million pilgrims visit the cities every year with the numbers expected to increase to 17 million by 2025.

But critics fear that the desire to expand the pilgrimage sites has allowed the authorities to ride roughshod over the area's cultural heritage. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of Mecca's millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades alone.

The destruction has been aided by Wahabism, the austere interpretation of Islam that has served as the kingdom's official religion ever since the al-Sauds rose to power across the Arabian Peninsula in the 19th century.

In the eyes of Wahabis, historical sites and shrines encourage "shirq" – the sin of idolatry or polytheism – and should be destroyed. When the al-Saud tribes swept through Mecca in the 1920s, the first thing they did was lay waste to cemeteries holding many of Islam's important figures. They have been destroying the country's heritage ever since. Of the three sites the Saudis have allowed the UN to designate World Heritage Sites, none are related to Islam.

Those circling the Kaaba only need to look skywards to see the latest example of the Saudi monarchy's insatiable appetite for architectural bling. At 1,972ft, the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, opened earlier this year, soars over the surrounding Grand Mosque, part of an enormous development of skyscrapers that will house five-star hotels for the minority of pilgrims rich enough to afford them.

To build the skyscraper city, the authorities dynamited an entire mountain and the Ottoman era Ajyad Fortress that lay on top of it. At the other end of the Grand Mosque complex, the house of the Prophet's first wife Khadijah has been turned into a toilet block. The fate of the house he was born in is uncertain. Also planned for demolition are the Grand Mosque's Ottoman columns which dare to contain the names of the Prophet's companions, something hardline Wahabis detest.

For ordinary Meccans living in the mainly Ottoman-era town houses that make up much of what remains of the old city, development often means the loss of their family home.

Non-Muslims cannot visit Mecca and Medina, but The Independent was able to interview a number of citizens who expressed discontent over the way their town was changing. One young woman whose father recently had his house bulldozed described how her family was still waiting for compensation. "There was very little warning; they just came and told him that the house had to be bulldozed," she said.

Another Meccan added: "If a prince of a member of the royal family wants to extend his palace he just does it. No one talks about it in public though. There's such a climate of fear."

Dr Alawi hopes the international community will finally begin to wake up to what is happening in the cradle of Islam. "We would never allow someone to destroy the Pyramids, so why are we letting Islam's history disappear?"

Under Threat

Bayt al-Mawlid

When the Wahabis took Mecca in the 1920s they destroyed the dome on top of the house where the Prophet Mohammed was born. It was thenused as a cattle market before being turned into a library after a campaign by Meccans. There are concerns that the expansion of the Grand Mosque will destroy it once more. The site has never been excavated by archaeologists.

Ottoman and Abasi columns of the Grand Mosque

Slated for demolition as part of the Grand Mosque expansion, these intricately carved columns date back to the 17th century and are the oldest surviving sections of Islam's holiest site. Much to the chagrin of Wahabis, they are inscribed with the names of the Prophet's companions. Ottomon Mecca is now rapidly disappearing

Al-Masjid al-Nawabi

For many years, hardline Wahabi clerics have had their sites set on the 15th century green dome that rests above the tomb holding the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar in Medina. The mosque is regarded as the second holiest site in Islam. Wahabis, however, believe marked graves are idolatrous. A pamphlet published in 2007 by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, endorsed by Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, stated that "the green dome shall be demolished and the three graves flattened in the Prophet's Masjid".

Jabal al-Nour

A mountain outside Mecca where Mohammed received his first Koranic revelations. The Prophet used to spend long spells in a cave called Hira. The cave is particularly popular among South Asian pilgrims who have carved steps up to its entrance and adorned the walls with graffiti. Religious hardliners are keen to dissuade pilgrims from congregating there and have mooted the idea of removing the steps and even destroying the mountain altogether.

(Source: The Independent) 

Honour killings: Killing an honour?

Honour killing is back on the headlines. I have come across several stories of honour killings, not just in the developing world, but one also in the UK! So here goes something on them. Mind you I’m giving details of very few incidents here, the ones which hit the headlines, god knows how many more have gone unreported.
I don’t think that the actual figure of honour killing is available with anyone, neither is there any authority at the national or provincial level to monitor the act and collect the details in every country. The numbers are only collected from police and media reports. But what about the cases that go unreported?

Honour killing is a compoundable offence in which the parties -- accused and victim family -- can reach a compromise and settle the issue. As the accused of the honour killing is often a family member -- father, brother or husband -- of the victim, he easily earns pardon by the kin of the victim or the complainant. In such killings, parents should pursue the case, but as both the victim and accused were related, the killer gains an advantage.

Palestine
Let me begin with Palestine. To the shock of all, the man killed slit the throat of his wife in the market, in front of all. Why? Just because she sought divorce from her abusive husband of 10 years!

In 2012, 12 women were killed by relatives, including three in "family honour" cases. Those include suspected adultery and similar cases. The new addition is a man killing his wife brutally in the market.
Nancy Zaboun, a 27-year-old mother of three, was reportedly regularly beaten by her 32-year-old husband Shadi Abedallah, at times so severely that she had to be hospitalized. Even then, Abedallah was never arrested, police only made him sign pledges that he would stop beating his wife. And what’s even more surprising is the fact that Abedallah himself is a former police officer and he killed her after attending a hearing in her divorce case.

Women might have scored some breakthroughs in traditional Palestinian society in recent years, including gaining a greater role in public life, but tribal laws still remain strong, and violence against women is generally viewed by police as an internal family matter.

The case might have reverberated across Palestinian society because of the brutality of the attack, but violence against women is overlooked here, as in other parts of the Arab world, and women's rights activists say abusive husbands are rarely punished.

On July 18, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) released a statement, which said a 19-year-old girl was murdered overnight in a refugee camp in Gaza City by her brother and father in an apparent "honour killing". “The body of the girl, identified only by the initials "WMQ," arrived at the city's Shifa Hospital at approximately 2:00 am (2300 GMT on Tuesday),” The Egyptian Gazette reported. "Palestinian police spokesman Major Ayman Batniji told PCHR that police opened an investigation immediately and arrested her father and her brother who both confessed to committing the crime in the context of 'family honour'," it said.

Honour killings, in which a family member murders a relative who is perceived to have ruined the family's reputation, occur periodically in the Palestinian territories.

Last year, following the murder of a woman in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas pledged to amend a decades-old law under which those citing "honour" as a defence could expect to receive a jail sentence of no more than six months.

India:
Honour killings are not new to India. They have been on the headlines very often. On July 14, a man was murdered for falling in love with an upper caste girl. Elango was murdered by a gang of men who opposed his falling in love with Selvalakshmi, 18, a dominant caste girl in Erode. Selvalakshmi’s brother Saravanan, who wanted to save the ‘honour’ of the family, arranged his friends to ‘finish off’ Elango, a dalit. His friends brought Elango to Muneerpallam secretly and killed him. Now Saravanan’s gang has been put behind bars. Selvalakshmi is depressed and sees no hope for her future. “This is not an isolated case. Many Elangos and Selvalakshmis are facing threat from their families for marrying out of their caste,” reported The Asian Age.

A local court of Badaun in Lucknow on July 30 awarded death penalty to seven members of a family for killing a couple in Fareedpur village in May 2006. The police, in its investigation, found that Deen Dayal and Aneeta, both in their early twenties, had been victims of ‘honour killing’. All those convicted belonged to the girl’s family and included her father Nathu.

A local court in Sonipat in Haryana on August 1 awarded life imprisonment to a woman and her two sons for killing her 12-year-old daughter and 14-year-old niece in the name of honour. Chanchal and her cousin Raj Kumari were killed after their grandmother caught them with their 16-year-old cousin around two years back. The judge also slapped Rs 10,000 fine each on the convicts -- Vidya Devi, Kumari's mother, Chand Varma and Suraj Varma, reported The Times of India. They would undergo an additional 10-month imprisonment if they fail to pay the fine. A police officer said the "affair'' infuriated Vidya and her two sons, who took the girls to a secluded place and strangled them to death. They then threw their bodies into a canal near Badwasni village in Sonipat on June 26, 2010.

Pakistan:
Earlier in Pakistan, the honour killings were mostly isolated to northern Sindh, southern Punjab and some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in Pakistan, but now the capital police are registering cases regularly especially in its rural areas, reported Dawn. At least six incidents of honour killings were reported over the last two-and-a-half months in the country.

On July 3, a man was found dead from a nullah at G-11/2. The victim, Mohammad Bashir, and his cousin Ahsanullah, natives of district Kohat, persuaded two local girls to elope with them and did a court marriage a year back. A Jirga -- a tribal assembly of elders -- was called which barred the couple from entering the village. In response, the couple migrated to Islamabad and started living at Merabadi in Golra. On July 13, the victim received a call on his mobile from his in-laws and immediately left the house. Later, he was found strangled in the nullah.

On July 6, a man killed his wife and her alleged paramour in the area of Shahzad town. Later, the accused, who escaped from the spot after the killing, surrendered to the police. The accused told the police that when he returned home on July 6, he found his bedroom locked from the inside, but his wife was in the kitchen. Later, he found a man inside his bedroom and lost his temper and killed the duo. He further claimed that around a month ago, he had returned home and found his bedroom locked. Later, his wife opened it and he saw the man escaping from another door. He rebuked his wife over her illicit relation with the man and in response she left the house. A week later, she returned on his insistence, but did not abandon the illicit relationship.

On July 19, a man killed his sister ‘MB’, 19, on pretext of “honour” at his house in Kirpa. The victim’s family was trying to convince her to marry a man of their choice, but she repeatedly refused. When asked for the reason, she disclosed that she had married secretly. Over the disclosure, her brother killed her with a pistol and escaped. Later, the victim’s father lodged a complaint against his son and the police registered a murder case.

Afghanistan:
An Afghan man killed his two teenage daughters when they returned home four days after running away with a man in a southern village, police said on July 19. The father, who shot the girls, has been detained on murder charges in Nad Ali district in the southern province of Helmand, a hotbed of the Taliban insurgency, provincial police spokesman Farid Ahmad Farhang told AFP. “He killed two of his daughters. His daughters had run away with a young man four days ago. When they returned home their father killed them,” Farhang said. Police have issued an arrest warrant for the young man, who is said to be working as an interpreter with NATO forces in the southern province, reported The Nation.

So-called “honour killing” is a common practice in Afghanistan. The Taliban recently publicly executed a young woman in a village near Kabul after she was accused of adultery. The execution was widely condemned internationally after a shocking video of the killing surfaced in Afghan media. It showed a crowd cheering as a man shot the woman with a rifle.

The UK:
It is not that only developing countries and Muslim-dominated countries are haunted by honour killings, it happens even in the developed countries, even in the West, even in the UK! A jury in the UK has begun considering its verdicts in the trial of a couple accused of murdering of their daughter because they believed she brought “shame on the family”, reported The Independent. Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and his wife Farzana, 49, of Liverpool Road, Warrington, Cheshire, are alleged to have suffocated their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea with a plastic bag. The 10-week trial heard evidence from Shafilea's sister Alesha, who claimed that she and the rest of her siblings witnessed the murder at the family home. Taxi driver Ahmed denies murder, saying Shafilea ran away from home in the middle of the night and he never saw her again. Farzana also denies murder but told the told the jury she saw her husband beat her eldest child and she believes he killed her.

Study on honour killings:
Worldwide, most honour killings take place in Muslim countries -- Pakistan, in particular. But the northern parts of Hindu-majority India also are plagued by the phenomenon. Official estimates suggest at least 1,000 honour killings take place in each country every year. The actual numbers likely are many times that.
As Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom wrote in the Summer 2012 edition of the Middle East Quarterly, “honor killing is the premeditated murder of a relative (usually a young woman) who has allegedly impugned the honor of her family.”

In the case of Pakistani honour killings, the researchers found, three motives prevailed: punishment for “illicit relationships” (often involving a woman who elopes with a mate of her own choosing); “contamination by association” (in which family member are killed for the moral sins of their sister or daughter); and “immoral character,” in which the woman or girl (the average victim age is 22) is punished for going unveiled, or otherwise flouting the standards of dour piety expected of Muslim women in backwards societies.

In Indian honour killings, these factors sometimes are present. But the dominant motivation is something entirely different: caste. This difference in honour-killing motivation is tied to a difference in the murder-sanctioning decision-making process. In Pakistan, the killings are embarked upon as small-scale family conspiracies. In India, on the other hand, caste-based councils called khap panchatays explicitly order the killings -- despite the fact that inter-caste and intra-gotra marriage has been legal in India for over half a century.

The difference in Indian/Pakistani honour-killing motivations also leads to another striking statistical gap between the two nations: “In 40% of the cases, Indian Hindus murdered men, while Pakistani Muslims murdered men only 14% of the time in Pakistan,” the authors reported. “The higher percentage of male victims in India underscores the fact that Hindu honor killings are more often about caste purity than sexual purity. While sexual purity is traditionally a female responsibility, the religious mandate to maintain strict boundaries between castes is an obligation for all Hindus, both male and female.”

From a policy-making perspective, this analysis suggests that there is more hope in India than in Pakistan for eliminating the practice of honour killing.

India has unambiguously denounced honour killings and is keen to crack down on the khap panchayats’ stubborn grip on popular attitudes in northern India. In particular, a bill drafted in 2011 stipulates that: “It shall be unlawful for any group of persons to gather, assemble or congregate with the… intention to deliberate, declare on, or condemn any marriage or relationship such as marriage between two persons of majority age in the locality concerned on the basis that such conduct or relationship has dishonored the caste or community or religion of all or some of the persons forming part of the assembly or the family or the people of the locality concerned.” Unfortunately, the fate of the legislation remains uncertain -- because the khap panchayats still have political sway.

In Pakistan, the situation is worse, because national authorities don’t even control large swathes of their own country’s northern borderlands -- let alone the murderous intra-familial dynamics of the tribes that inhabit these areas.

Political Islam also is a complicating factor in Pakistan. Like the Hindu faith, Islam provides no explicit religious justification for honour killings. Yet the perceived imperative of “protecting” Muslim women from the “impurities” of the West has become wrapped up with the Islamist political project, and so has blurred into a quasi-religious justification for honour killings.

In 2009, the authors note, “Pakistan’s National Assembly passed the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill, which strengthened legal protections against domestic violence for women and children. However, the Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body charged with assessing whether laws are consistent with Islamic injunctions, issued a statement saying the bill ‘would fan unending family feuds and push up divorce rates.’ After this, the bill was held up in the Pakistani senate and allowed to lapse.”

Moreover: “Under Sharia-based provisions of Pakistan’s judicial system, murderers can buy a pardon by paying blood money (dyad) to the victim’s family. Since the family of honor killing victims are nearly always sympathetic to the honor killer as well as complicit to some degree, getting a pardon is usually just a formality. Women’s rights organizations in Pakistan have pressed parliament to disallow the practice of blood money in honor killing cases, but conservative Islamist groups have blocked the needed legislation.”

From a strictly Western point of view, the most interesting conclusion from the Chesler/Bloom study is this: Pakistani immigrants to the West sometimes bring the seeds of a deadly honour culture with them, while Indian immigrants typically do not.

That is because the belief that a family’s honour lives and dies with the perceived chastity and obedience of its female members is deeply culturally ingrained in Pakistan, and often survives for decades, even on Western soil. On the other hand, Indians who emigrate to the West also leave behind the khap panchayats, and the codes of caste behaviour they enforce. (To my knowledge, certainly, there are no khap panchayat in Brampton or Mississauga -- at least, none that issue murder decrees.)

Pakistani cleans shoes to atone for beheading

Thousands of Indian pilgrims barely registered the man in the orange bandanna and Ray-Ban sunglasses taking their shoes and storing them in wooden cubbyholes before they entered the Sikh shrine in this town in northwest Pakistan.

The unassuming 62-year-old tending to the shoes is a top government lawyer and devout Muslim. At the shrine, he is on an unusual solo quest — taking on menial jobs to atone for the beheading of a Sikh by Islamist militants.

Over the past two years, Muhammed Khurshid Khan has traveled to Sikh shrines in Pakistan and India, volunteering to polish shoes, clean bathrooms, cook meals and do other chores. Such service is known as "seva" — selfless service — in Sikhism, and it holds a special place in the faith.

Attacks against Sikhs, Christians and Hindus have spiked in Pakistan in recent years as the Taliban and their allies gained strength. Atrocities by Muslim extremists against religious minorities now are so common that they rarely illicit more than routine condemnation by officials, much less collective contrition or shame.

In helping Sikhs, Khan is reaching out to an extremely small minority in predominantly Muslim Pakistan — the government estimates there are 30,000 Sikhs in the country of 190 million people.

"I have a desire to serve the Sikh community because my community has done them serious harm, and that hurts me," said Khan, taking a break from his work at the shrine in Hasan Abdal, 45 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Khan, one of two dozen deputy attorney generals in Pakistan, began his mission in 2010 after militants kidnapped three Sikhs returning from Afghanistan to their homes in Pakistan. The militants demanded some $240,000 — an amount the families could not afford. Two of the captives were freed in a commando raid, but 30-year-old Jaspal Singh had already been beheaded.

"That news pierced my heart," said Khan. "How could Muslims do such harm to such a peaceful community?"

A day after Singh was beheaded, Khan went to the dead man's home in the northwest city of Peshawar to offer condolences. He sat on the floor with Singh's relatives, but they became wary once they realized Khan was a government official.

Khan then visited a Sikh shrine in Peshawar and asked religious leaders if he could perform seva to atone for the beheading. After two weeks his request was approved, and for the next four months he went to the shrine in Peshawar every day after work, polishing worshippers' shoes for hours.

Handling the shoes of devotees is considered a particularly worthy form of seva because it shows humility and a belief that all people, rich and poor, are equal in the eyes of God.

"When I was permitted to do seva, that day felt like the happiest day of my life," said Khan.

He said he initially hid his quest from his family because he worried they would be embarrassed and ask him to stop, but they are now supportive. He also avoided media interviews until a reporter reminded him that Islam tells followers to publicize good deeds as an example to others.

"My message is love and peace," said Khan, who also visits Hindu temples and Christian churches to reinforce that religious minorities should be protected. "These minorities have been living here for centuries."

Khan has not contacted the beheaded Sikh's family since just after the killing.

Harnam Singh said his slain brother left a widow and four young children and the family has trouble making ends meet.

"We appreciate what Khan is doing because it shows solidarity with the Sikh community," said Harnam Singh. "It would also be good if someone could provide some help for the family because they are facing serious problems."

Sikhism was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak Dev in the Punjab region of South Asia, which was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 when the countries gained independence from the British empire. There are about 20 million Sikhs in India.

The shrine in the Pakistani town of Hasan Abdal is revered because it houses what is believed to be a handprint of Sikhism's founder. This week, there was a festive atmosphere at Gurdwara Panja Sahib, a brick building adorned with arched windows and topped by a large dome. Indians, and some Pakistanis, were visiting as part of a 10-day pilgrimage to celebrate the Sikh new year.

Some worshippers filed in to listen to a religious leader read aloud from the Sikh holy book, the men cutting a particularly vivid figure in their brightly colored turbans. Others splashed holy water on themselves from a pool around the shrine and placed their hand on the founder's print impressed into a rock. Some children jumped into the pool for a swim, and hundreds of pilgrims ate donated rice and spicy fried snacks while religious music blared.

Khan surveyed the gathering from his perch behind a long wooden counter and said he hoped his actions would highlight the need to protect Pakistan's minorities.

"The message is a soft image of my religion Islam, a soft image of my country Pakistan," said Khan. "We are not terrorists."

(Source: AP)