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| Fight To Save Saudi Heritage From Rush Of Modernity | ||||||||||
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The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia is struggling to preserve pockets of ancient architecture threatened by the relentless onslaught of modern construction. The rush to modernity in the vast Persian Gulf state, dominated by Bedouin tribes in the heartland of the Arabian peninsula, has made old traditions in urban areas such as this Red Sea coastal district almost obsolete. | |||||||||
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The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia is struggling to preserve pockets of ancient architecture threatened by the relentless onslaught of modern construction. The rush to modernity in the vast Persian Gulf state, dominated by Bedouin tribes in the heartland of the Arabian peninsula, has made old traditions in urban areas such as this Red Sea coastal district almost obsolete. Most of the country has been rebuilt entirely on the back of sudden oil wealth that filled state coffers in the 1970s. In the face of that flood, ancient Hejaz cities such as Jeddah, Mecca and Medina are struggling to save their unique heritage. In extreme cases, the old towns of ancient oases such as Khaibar and al-Ula, with their labyrinthine alleyways and mud brick and palm-roofed homes, stand abandoned, their residents having moved to adjacent new communities in the 1970s. "It was a fashion to leave the old houses after the oil boom. People were moving all the way to the late 1980s. Labourers move into some as tenants, others were abandoned, and some fell down," said Sami Nawwar, head of a government poject to renovate Jeddah's still bustling old quarters. "We don't have a problem with money, but we have a problem with people's attitude," he said, outlining efforts to entice residents to renovate run-down facades with their intricate Islamic woodwork known as "Mangour". Natural Cooling Buildings lie in narrow alleys running north-south and east-west which utilise sea winds but jut out at an angle to create shadows that lessen the effects of summer heat and sun. They are constructed with large stone slabs that provide a cool environment. But with soaring population growth and more than five million expatriate workers in the country of 24 million, developers are swamping the city with pristine apartment blocks and villas. "We eat from a freezer, we live in a freezer, we write in a freezer, we ride in a freezer," said architect Sami Angawi, who has built a stunning villa mixing old Hejazi and new styles. The austere well-protected view of a castle on the outside gives way to an open interior where four storeys of rooms surround a central courtyard flooded by natural light from a glass ceiling. "Islamic civilization is all about balance and we have to rediscover that. Architecture is a reflection of society and is its outer expression," Angawi said. "Mecca and medina are the most disturbed cities in the world in every sense. They are totally out of balance," he said, referring to Islam's holy cities, in western Hejaz province. "New buildings are coming up and the skyline of Mecca will be like the skyline of New York," he said. Old buildings in Mecca are set for demolition as part of plans to increase its ability to absorb pilgrims in the Haj season, when some two million Muslims converge on the ancient city. An old ottoman fort was pulled down last year. "The development must avoid the experience of past expansions that turned large parts of Mecca into a copy of western cities with international hotels at every turn and American fast food restaurants," wrote historian Hatoun al-Fasi in the daily Okaz. War On Idolatry Many say that disrespect for old buildings goes hand in hand with a war on "idolatry" being waged by clerics. Angawi said religious figures who were "anti-creativity, anti-history, anti-culture" were destroying old shrines central to Hejazi life through the centuries in line with fundamentalist Islamic principles which had guided the Saudi state for 70 years. "They have demolished some place that the Prophet prayed in because they fear that people will come to pray there," he said. "The extensions will destroy the mosque where the Prophet and his helpers met before he made his Hijra to Medina," Angawi said, adding that 10 years ago he excavated what might have been the Prophet's home underneath public lavatories built during a previous expansion of the great mosque. The authorities wanted to hush up the discovery to avoid a rush of pilgrims to the site, he said. Clerics have made clear their thinking in the press. Sheikh Saleh al-Haseen suggested in the daily al-Madina that those lobbying for the preservation of religious sites were motivated by "devilish thoughts brought on by hopeless emotion". "They are contradicting the law of God and the way of his Prophet," he wrote. "Islamic legal scholars have never talked about 'reviving monuments' in Mecca, except those God approved of ; the great mosque and others which are part of pilgrimage rites. Neither the Prophet's companions nor anyone who came after them used to visit the alleged birthplace of the Prophet, because the Prophet didn't tell them to." |
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