Bummer… The Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia bulldozed Mohammad’s home to build a public toilet.
Over the years, the Saudi government has let fundamentalist Wahhabi clergy and developers destroy the famed old mosque of Abu Bakr and tombs of close relatives of Muhammad in Medina. It has turned the sites of Muhammad’s great battles of Uhud and Badr into a parking lot and an area of empty tarmac. In 1990, a site where some believe Muhammad lived with his first wife, Khadija, was paved over when developers extended prayer areas around Mecca’s Great Mosque –Wall Street Journal.
The minaret at the Imam Ali Ureidh Islamic Shrine in Medina was another casualty of Wahhabist destruction in Saudi Arabia.
The LA Times reviews a new book by Steve Coll on the Bin Laden family.
Infidel Bloggers Alliance reported on the new toilets:
The results have been particularly appalling in the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, where Saudi-financed construction projects undertaken by the Bin Ladens essentially have eradicated the historic pilgrimage sites.
Not too many years ago, the remains of the Prophet Mohammed’s house in Mecca were bulldozed to construct a public toilet.
These projects not only allow the Saudis to profit more from the hajj, which religious Muslims are obliged to make at least once, but also have imposed a Wahabi straitjacket on the pilgrimage. Formerly, Shia and sufic pilgrims observed the hajj with all sorts of individual rituals and visits to shrines and tombs they referred. Now, thanks to the Bin Ladens’ demolition and construction projects only a Wahabi version of the pilgrimage is possible.
Progress- Wahhabi style.