Orang Islam yang tidak mengerti apa yang namanya peninggalan sejarah itu juga
TIDAK banyak, if any, mengadakan penggalian arkeologis di Makkah dan Madinah
sehingga yang kita ketahui tentang sejarah kedua kota itu diabad ke VII dan
sebelumnya hanyalah dari bualan orang Arab primitif...
Ini berbeda dengan orang Yahudi dan orang Nasrani yang banyak melakukan
penggalian arkeologis ditempat tempat yang bersejarah bagi mereka.
[CNN]
Mecca redevelopment sparks heritage concerns
By Tim Hume and Samya Ayish , CNN
February 7, 2013 -- Updated 1100 GMT (1900 HKT)
CNN.com
(CNN) -- An Ottoman-era portico in Mecca's Grand Mosque has become the latest
battleground in a conflict between those who want to preserve the city's
architectural heritage and Saudi authorities pushing for redevelopment.
The 17th century portico -- one of the oldest parts of the Grand Mosque,
Islam's holiest -- is being removed by Mecca authorities as part of an
expansion project to create more space for soaring numbers of pilgrims.
Millions of people visit Mecca and Medina annually (two million of them during
the Hajj pilgrimage alone), a number that is only expected to grow rapidly in
the coming years.
However, one UK-based Saudi historian says what Saudi authorities are doing in
Mecca amounts to "cultural vandalism."
Irfan Al Alawi, executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation,
which seeks to preserve historical sites in Saudi Arabia, says significant
features of Mecca and Medina's architectural history are being lost on account
of the renovations.
He has called on the Muslim world to voice its disapproval at the demolitions,
which he likened to the torching of ancient manuscripts by Islamists in
Timbuktu, Mali.
Every follower must carry out the Hajj once in their lives, if physically and
financially able to do so. Overcrowding at the Hajj has resulted in fatal
stampedes on a number of occasions, with 1,426 pilgrims killed in 1990 and more
than 350 killed in 2006.
Saudi Binladin Group's Mohammed Jom'a, the supervisor of the project at Mecca's
Grand Mosque, told CNN the expansion would triple the amount of space there.
"(The authorities) want to offer more space to the pilgrims to avoid crowds,"
he said.
But Al Alawi says there's a better way.
"I'm not against expanding the mosques at all, but there are ways you can go
about it without destroying the historical aspects of these sites," he said.
"Rather than engaging with heritage concerns, the Saudis are simply not
interested."
Clashes with Turkey
Turkey says it is alarmed by the loss of the Ottoman portico and its Foreign
Affairs Ministry has been in correspondence with the Saudis over the matter
since 2010.
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"It is very important to preserve the Kaaba porches as the legacy of the
Ottoman Empire where they stand," Turkey's Directorate for Cultural Properties
and Museums said in a statement to CNN.
CNN contacted the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, local officials in Saudi
Arabia, including the Mayor and Municipality of Mecca and the Saudi Embassy in
London. But we were unsuccessful in getting a response to our request for
comment.
Al Alawi said the authorities were inclined not to value aspects of Mecca's
heritage that dated from before Saudi control over the city -- such as the
portico, going back centuries to Ottoman sovereignty over the city -- because
that evidence of a pre-Saudi Mecca undermined the kingdom's important position
in the Islamic world as guardians of the city.
This is not the first time Saudi authorities have clashed with Turkey over the
destruction of Ottoman-era buildings in Mecca, which Turkey views as in
important part of a shared Islamic heritage.
In 2002, Ankara made a heated protest about the destruction of Mecca's Al Ajyad
fortress, built on a hill overlooking the Kaaba in the late 18th century.
Both the citadel and the hill it sat on were demolished to make way for the
skyscraper city that today looms over the Grand Mosque, prompting Turkey's then
Minister of Culture, Istemihan Talay, to accuse the Saudis of an "act of
barbarism."
Mecca's changing face
Over the past 10 years, Mecca's skyline has transformed.
Lavish skyscrapers now tower over devotees circling the Kaaba in the Grand
Mosque.
Most imposing is the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, a 120-floor hotel that resembles
London's Big Ben and which, at 601 meters, is the world's second tallest
building.
The U.S.-based Institute for Gulf Affairs estimates that 95% of Mecca's
millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.
Saudi authorities say the changes are part of a push to modernize offerings to
pilgrims, who have traditionally stayed in austere lodgings.
The Saudi government is also pushing forward with major redevelopments at
Medina's Mosque of the Prophet -- where the Prophet is believed to be buried.
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gear
Al Alawi claims the threat to the heritage of the mosques adds to a wider
pattern of destruction of historic sites in Saudi Arabia. He says it reflects
an ideological agenda stemming from the kingdom's ultraconservative Wahhabist
brand of Islam.
He added that the Wahhabis place great emphasis on avoiding the sin of "shirq"
-- idolatry, or polytheism -- which they believe is encouraged by shrines,
tombs or anything that could promote alternative forms of worship, or the
veneration of an entity other than Allah.
The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice says it plans to
close or eradicate 14 historic sites around Mecca, so that pilgrims from other
countries cannot engage in idolatrous rituals there, the Saudi Gazette reported
last month.
As a consequence of their Wahhabist beliefs, said Al Alawi, the Saudis had
systematically destroyed such sites since the early days of the kingdom.
Demolitions over the decades
In 1925, the year the first Saudi king, Ibn Saud, captured Medina, the Saudis
demolished the mausoleums in al-Baqi cemetery attached to the Mosque of the
Prophet.
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The raids at al-Baqi -- which is believed to house the remains of number of the
prophet's wives, children and other relatives -- and at the Mualla cemetery in
Mecca, caused an outcry from the international Muslim community. Some still
mourn the destruction as a "day of sorrow."
Separately, the site of the house said to belong to the prophet's first wife,
Khadijah, which Al Alawi was involved in excavating in the 1980s, today
contains a toilet block for pilgrims, while the site believed to be the
prophet's birthplace was a cattle market before being turned into a library.
Some Salafist groups abroad, such as Egypt's Ansar Al Sunna Al Muhammadyeh,
support the renovations around the Grand Mosque.
"We do not sanctify places or people, but we go according to what the Quran
said and what the Prophet said," the group's secretary general, Sheikh Ahmed
Yousef, told CNN.
"There is no place that is holier than the Kaaba, so if the Saudi government
decided to expand then this is because they care about Islam more than the
heritage."
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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