Saudi Arabia purposely works on turning Mecca into a pictorial remembrance image and numbers for the profits of the Haj ministry. It does this by continuously tampering with the place and the vision through defacing and hiding the latest of the Hijazi civilization before the Mohammadian call and after it. It also does it by replacing that with artistic works that are merely cheap photographs that are badly made and have no creativity or worth to it.

This conscious decision to push Mecca away through the destruction of 95% of its historic sites as documented in various media reports. The latest such action has been the replacement of the home of Khadkija Bin Khweiled with a corridtor that leads to the toilets. This was done in fear that improper acts are done in the area as stated by the Saudi media machine. Meanwhile millions are spent to refurbish al Sud old homes in Dareieh.

The destruction is not limited to the Masjid in the old city of Mecca but Madina’s mosques and old homes are not protected from the attempts to destroy them including the grave of Prophet Mohammad whose remains are about to be transferred to a far away location and thus any Islamic relics near the prophet’s mosque will end.

This organized destruction is going un deterred and anyone questioning the validity of this information can easily check Arab and international reports that document this.

The most dangerous of this destruction, which was leaked recently, is about the near destruction of the last historic relics, of the two oldest Islamic cities, Mecca and Yathrub. But the picture remains incomplete without talking about the artistic acts that are organized by the Saudis with the aim of finalizing the plans to bury it artistically and knowledge wise in contrast to other cities like Jerusalem which are dealt with as a living city for all religions, denominations and races.

In the totality of all exhibits sponsored by the Saudis in the past few years, people appear without facial details as they circle around the Kaaba which emerge as a symbolic icon and non responsive blocks.

The presence of Mecca reflects a knowledge complex crisis that restricts the work of Arab artists. Even foreigners who are invited during seasonal exhibits to photograph the Haj which costs millions face the same dilemma as they confront the same questions about the relationship of the holy city with the art  of Muslims around the world.

There is a lack of clarity in the sense that the Haj as an Islamic religious act suffers from a knowledge divorce from the history of Arabs before Islam, when the Haj was the basis of community building were commerce intertwined with social order, poetry, myths and worship and more…

In most of the works that dealt with Mecca, humans are absent from the holy scene, or at best appears as part of an unidentifiable block while the Haj contains humans from different colors, shapes and different ethnicities.

The  holy authority is not divorced from it social extensions. Males are dominant in art works about Mecca, while in reality, women are present, with their face uncovered whether in the Haj or the ‘Umra.

On the other hand, Yabous or Elia or Beit Al Maqdes (Jerusalem) is present with its markets and narrow streets and people in various drawings. The images shift from the holy to the normal in different levels. If  we add literary and research changes that deal with Jerusalem we are confronted with a truly human image full of life and smell. In fact some research has denied the narrative around the city according to the three monotheistic religions.

News of the Daesh invasions leads the Arab telecasts. Reports that the city of Hader (in Arabic it means civilization) near Mosel at the time that we notice a conscious decision to ignore Mecca. Maybe the Saudi regime will continue its destruction this year at the latest and thus all the heritage and antiquities that document the birth of Islam will be gone. The only thing remaining will be worthless works that show a mass movement of unresponsive people wading around in a time of terror and fear.

لقراءة المقال باللغة العربية الرجاء

Mahmoud Muneer, a writer, journalist and editgor of Takween section in Ammannet