Saudi to spend $400m on Makkah hajj projects

[A.Rafay]

Saudi Arabia is to spend around US$400m on development projects at holy shrines on the outskirts of Makkah, the official Saudi News Agency reported.

The report said the investment projects would include linking the city of Mina with Jamarat in Al-Azizia, the expansion of the western parts of the holy site of Jamarat, the transfer of the camel and cattle slaughter houses to Al-Sharayea in Mina and improvements to the water circulation in Muzdalifah and Arafat.
The work was announced by Dr Sahal Al-Sabban, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Hajj for Transport and Projects in the holy places and came as millions of pilgrims began arriving this week in Makkah for Islam's annual hajj pilgrimage, which starts on Wednesday.
Hajj must be performed by all Muslims at least once in their lifetime who are capable of making the expensive, difficult journey, a duty that applies equally to Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims at a time of tension between Islam's two biggest sects.
Saudi leaders have emphasised it is a strictly religious occasion and they are prepared to deal with any troublemaking.
Authorities are keenly aware of past episodes of violence at hajj, such as in 1979, when attackers seized the Grand Mosque, beginning a two-week siege that left hundreds dead.
Last year nearly 3m pilgrims performed the hajj, with roughly a third from inside the conservative kingdom. The Saudi authorities said there have so far been 1.7m arrivals from abroad and about 200,000 from inside Saudi Arabia.
Makkah's merchants, famed across the Arab world, are already doing a thriving trade as pilgrims stock up on souvenirs such as prayer beads and mats, Qur'an, dates, gold and zamzam water, pumped from a holy well.
Saudi Arabia's king is formally titled Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the ruling family has long based its claims to reign on its guardianship of Islam's birthplace.
Over the past decade it has spent billions of dollars expanding the Grand Mosque and building new infrastructure to avert the stampedes and tent fires that marred past pilgrimages with hundreds of deaths. The last deadly stampede was in 2006, when 360 people were crushed to death.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-spend-400m-on-makkah-hajj-projects-477345.html

 

[Ottoman-Smack]

Mashallah way to go.. build it when time comes Turks will enter Mekkah and Medina again Amin.

 

[Safriz]

i like what they are doing..
But i dont like that giant clock tower they built overlooking masjid e haraam.....
Looks odd and like a church tower.

 

[A.Rafay]

Mashallah way to go.. build it when time comes Turks will enter Mekkah and Medina again Amin.

Why??? Are turkeys not allowed now for hajj??? Are turks not allowed to come to medina and makkah??

i like what they are doing..
But i dont like that giant clock tower they built overlooking masjid e haraam.....
Looks odd and like a church tower.

it looks good to me, What wrong with clock, its helping people remember time!

 

[Arabian Legend]

Mashallah way to go.. build it when time comes Turks will enter Mekkah and Medina again Amin.

As a vistor, other than that keep dreaming.

i like what they are doing..
But i dont like that giant clock tower they built overlooking masjid e haraam.....
Looks odd and like a church tower.

MAKKAH – Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world’s largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Makkah.
Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock perched atop a tower, which is expected to be the world’s second tallest building, will establish Makkah as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.
The clock reflects a goal by some Muslims to replace the 126-year-old Universal Time standard – originally called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) – with Makkah Mean Time.
At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented “scientific” arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian. They said that Makkah is the center of the world and that the Greenwich standard was imposed by the West in 1884.

Saudi Gazette - Muslims may soon set their clocks to Makkah Mean Time


^^ an old article explains the goal of Makkah clock.

 

[Bubblegum Crisis]

i like what they are doing..
But i dont like that giant clock tower they built overlooking masjid e haraam.....
Looks odd and like a church tower.

MAKKAH – Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world’s largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Makkah.

Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock perched atop a tower, which is expected to be the world’s second tallest building, will establish Makkah as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.

The clock reflects a goal by some Muslims to replace the 126-year-old Universal Time standard – originally called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) – with Makkah Mean Time.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented “scientific” arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian. They said that Makkah is the center of the world and that the Greenwich standard was imposed by the West in 1884.

Saudi Gazette - Muslims may soon set their clocks to Makkah Mean Time

^^ an old article explains the goal of Makkah clock.

^^

See old link :

http://www.defence.pk/forums/middle-east-africa/191736-saudi-s-giant-clock-establish-makkah-time.html

 

[Tihamah]

i like what they are doing..
But i dont like that giant clock tower they built overlooking masjid e haraam.....
Looks odd and like a church tower.

I agree with you nothing within the borders of Makkah should be higher than Almasjid Alharam menarites, or at least they should placed the tower away from Alharam by few kilometers at least, also the crescent they used on the top, looks like some emblem of medieval europe they could have a crescent that looks closer to the islamic one which used all over muslims world over mosques.