The destruction of Mecca
The Middle East’s largest building project has effaced 1,400 years of Islamic history
AS THE governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud has been able to compensate for earlier failings. He came to his role in 2007 from Asir province, where his plans to erect modern tower blocks in the city of Abha were largely unfulfilled. He successfully erased Abha’s quaint old town, with its beehive houses made of wattle, only to replace them with squat breeze-block bungalows. Not a high-rise was to be seen.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “The destruction of Mecca”
From the March 4th 2017 edition
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