Five towers to overshadow Ka'aba

Yvonne Ridley's programme on Islam Channel yesterday featured the new skyscrapers that are being built right next to Ka'aba in Makkah, the holiest place in the world for Muslims. Phase One, ZamZam Tower will be complete in 2006.

Callers into the programme advanced mixed feelings on the project. Some looked forward to the spectacle, but I tended to side with those who thought this venture was a bit hairy pie.

I'm not against progress. I'm not even necessarily against tall buildings (Muslims regularly advance the hadith of the Prophet (saw) about competition in building them being a sign of the Last Day, but that's different from a prohibition against them).

But it is strange how in much of the Middle East there is mass construction of skyscrapers going around in a blind aping of the West, with no actual consideration as to why they are needed in New York and London. Here, there came a point where all the ground had been used up and the only way to build was upwards.

I was in Qatar last year and it was strange seeing these tall buildings there. I couldn't work out what I found odd about them till I realised each one of them was surrounded by miles of empty space. They had not exhausted their land.

My question to the two pin striped suited entrepreneurs who were on the Agenda, who are going to be hawking this real estate, would be why is it necessary to engulf the airspace around the Ka'aba when there is not even a proliferation of medium sized buildings in the city yet?

No one was convinced by the response of one of them to a caller who complained about the violation of the space around the mosque, when he said people should concentrate on the Ka'aba itself and prayer rather than the scenery.

No doubt, there is a need for more accommodation. Two million people go on Hajj now compared with only tens of thousands only a generation or two ago. On the programme they said twenty million may make the pilgrimage in decades to come. Surely the mosque may need to expand then, and is it wise to be building such immovable structures where space may be needed in the future? This thought gave me sympathy with the callers that said this giant structure should be located a little distance away from the haram itself, with decent transport facilities such as trams put on to shuttle people easily.