Every time I visit Makkah and look at the area around the Grand Mosque, I panic and begin worrying about the future. I can’t imagine how the place will look like in a few years with all these high-rise buildings encroaching on the area and suffocating the Grand Mosque. Imagine what will happen 30 or 40 or 50 years from now with more and more pilgrims and Umrah visitors coming to Makkah.
Over time, the huge residential and commercial buildings will become a massive physical barrier that will block any future expansion of the Grand Mosque. If this happens, the mosque and the open spaces surrounding it will not able to accommodate the increased numbers of pilgrims.
When the need arises for future expansion of the mosque, there will be only one alternative: Knock down all those giant sprawling buildings and force the state to pay billions of riyals in compensation to the owners. That will be a heavy burden on the state and the government will find itself unable to secure such massive amounts. No matter what the justification might have been for allowing these concrete and steel monsters to mushroom around the Holy Haram, the area should have been kept completely free of surrounding buildings for a reasonable distance.
There should be open spaces all around the Grand Mosque, making it easily visible from a distance. This would allow free movement and greater convenience for the millions of pilgrims and visitors as well as allowing for future expansion of the mosque itself. There is an pressing and urgent need for a complete review of the situation, rethinking all existing plans for the development of the area surrounding the Grand Mosque. There should be no licenses for any kind of investment in this area. What is left of the open space should be preserved for future expansions. All future planning should be wholly directed to serving spiritual needs rather than commercial or other ones.
Another important step should be the immediate suspension of any expansion of existing commercial projects surrounding the Grand Mosque. This will prevent further increases in the value of the properties and reduce the amounts needed as compensation when the land is appropriated for future expansions.
I may be wrong in my assessment, but I think there are many who share my views, including the owners of the huge projects whom I believe consider themselves patriotic citizens before they are investors.
Because they were not driven by greed when they decided to invest in the area surrounding the Grand Mosque but aimed to improve the place and give it the look it deserves, these investors will not hesitate to serve the public interest when the time comes for re-planning the area.
