Mecca’s Vegas Conversion is Good for Islam

There are big changes going on in Mecca. Huge clocktowers, mega-skyrise hotels and absurd clusters of towering domino-style hotels are all in the works. To make way for these huge money-making enterprises, Saudi is bulldozing and paving over many Islamic “Holy” locations. If one of the commandments of Islam is to go to the Hajj in Mecca, they might as well go and stay in comfort, right?

And this new comfort will cost money, which means those attending will be making more money to afford the trip. And making more money requires capitalism, and capitalism tends to have a “calming” effect on religion, moving it from extremist views into secular ones. For Islam, I think this is a good thing.

From the Guardian here:

The Grand Mosque is now loomed over by the second tallest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait clocktower, home to thousands more luxury hotel rooms, where rates can reach £4,000 a night for suites with the best views of the Kaaba – the black cube at the centre of the mosque around which Muslims must walk. The hotel rises 600m (2,000ft) into the air, projecting a dazzling green laser-show by night, on a site where an Ottoman fortress once stood – razed for development, along with the hill on which it sat.

The 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.

“These are the last days of Mecca,” says Alawi. “The pilgrimage is supposed to be a spartan, simple rite of passage, but it has turned into an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can’t afford.”

So much for respecting the sanctity of holy sites. In addition to making Islam more about earning money to afford the hajj, this commercialism must surely dampen much of Islam’s message and meaning, right? And these photos won’t make the city of Mecca look like Vegas. It will make it look like Coruscant! In the long term, I think this is a lulzy and awesome thing to happen to the “religion of peace.”