Makkah, the cradle of Islam, which teaches human welfare and opposes hedonism to its core, has now been turned into a city, which from afar may roughly look like Paris or even Las Vegas. The spiritual grandeur of the holy city of Islam has seemed to have changed places with rather a resort, where one can find luxury hotels in abundance.
Luxury hotels may not be a problem for many visitors, who generally arrives in the city with sole purpose of pilgrimage. But the closeness of the prodigious well-lit structures, showing the richness of the inhabitants in control of the state affairs, overshadows the majestic Kaaba and the mosque around it along with its four tall minarets. Minarets, which used to look tall in the past, could no more be considered tall anymore, there are now expensive much much more taller hotels have been erected adjacent to it!
In a city of a country like Pakistan marred with corruption, businessmen have failed to raise structures, which can obstruct the view of the nation’s founding father Quaid’s mausoleum in Karachi. There a few examples of uncompleted enterprises. One is of Jahangir Khan’s squash complex.
But in the Saudi Kingdom, it seems nothing could put a full stop to a Sheikh’s aspirations, who seems to envy his European and particularly American contemporaries!
The Royal Makkah Clock Tower is one of the examples of Sheikh’s enterprises, which eclipses the Grand Mosque so badly that it actually looks overshadowed to the massive luxury hotel donning world’s largest clock.
Jeddah has one of the World’s busiest Airport, the closest to Makkah, but the air traffic was there even when there was not too many luxury hotels in the holy city. So there is little to relate that the luxury hotels may help the city to be able to accommodate more tourists. Makkah will host tourists, rather pilgrims in abundance, luxury hotels or no luxury hotels.
Sheikhs now could proudly claim that millions of tourists come to their land and can justify big structures mainly the Makkah Clock Tower quite easily. Comparable destruction has also followed around the Masjid-e-Nabwi, the mosque of the Prophet, the second most important place of pilgrimage for Muslims around the world.
To show their ‘Royal Grandeur’ to the world, Saudis have hurt the basic message of Islam, which focuses on humbleness and modesty of its adherents.
