LONDON, 18 August. - (ANA) - The sudden pivot to consumerism shortly after the conclusion of Islam’s holiest rite is creating unease among some Muslims. Completing Umrah this Ramadan, the writer Azania Imtiaz Patel described in Aeon magazine emerging from the Great Mosque into a world of brand names and Times Square-style billboards, a whiplash she likened to a kind of grief. Patel argued that where pilgrims once battled drought to find God, today they battle abundance and the “Manhattanisation of Mecca.”

 

She is far from being the first to experience such ambivalence. In 1934, for example, the first Englishwoman to make Hajj prayed the car would never displace the camel. In fact, Mecca has long been a marketplace, with streets full of Bedouin caravans selling wares to the crowds. The comfort, security, and bling of a modern-day $26.6 billion Great Mosque expansion, ringed by hotels and malls, is how Saudi Arabia deals with the needs of the ever-growing number of pilgrims — 1.7 million foreigners this Ramadan alone.

 

 

 

 

The holiest city in Islam is to get a $8 billion facelift, it was announced in May 2008, with homes and hills being flattened to make way for hotels, apartments, shopping malls and transport facilities for pilgrims. Six development projects ordered by the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, will transform Mecca, which struggles to accommodate the millions of Muslims who pour into the city every year to perform hajj.

 

The biggest change would be to the courtyards of the Grand Mosque, which can hold at least 120,000 worshippers during prayer times. An ambitious expansion programme led to the demolition of 1,000 properties in the immediate Shamiya area and Saudi authorities have set aside an estimated $100 million to compensate the homeowners. - (ANA) - 

 

AB/ANA/18 August 2026 - - -