JEDDAH, 13 October 2006 — The fashion in building luxury hotels and expensive residential towers in the immediate vicinity of the Grand Mosque in Makkah has forced many Umrah pilgrims to seek accommodation far away from the Haram.
Affluent pilgrims who can afford to pay SR10,000 a night — a price that extortionately increases during the last days of Ramadan — find the expensive facilities provided by luxury hotels both appealing and convenient leaving a bulk of low-income pilgrims to find cheap lodging far from the Grand Mosque.
High profile international hotels such as the Makkah Hilton, the Dar Al-Tawhid International, the Intercontinental, the Sheraton, the Metropolitan and Radissons have occupied some of the prime spots around the Grand Mosque. Some of the residential towers are 60-story high and the boom in luxury hotels being built over the past 15 years have sent the price of land close to the Grand Mosque skyrocketing.
On the other hand 80 percent of Umrah pilgrims — who belong to the middle class, lower middle class and the working class — mostly end up taking accommodation at places far from the Haram during the Umrah season. In fact some people are reported to be able to only find affordable rooms at locations up to 10 kilometers away from the Haram — including the Rasifa, the Ring Road and the Aziziah districts of Makkah.
A worker at the courtyard outside the massive prayer complex said that with poorer pilgrims taking up hotels far away, many people end up sleeping and squatting in and around the Grand Mosque. “The aged pilgrims find it very hard to go to their rooms, which tend to be very far away, and return to the Haram for every prayer. Praying at the Grand Mosque as much as possible is the goal of every pilgrim. So they prefer to rest at a place close to the Haram during the intervals between the prayers,” he said.
Hassan Al-Badwi, a 60-year-old Moroccan pilgrim said, “My tour operator in Tangiers told me that my rooms in Makkah and Madinah would be close to both Harams. Having arrived in Makkah I found that my room was on top of a hill 1.5 kilometers away from the Haram. My rheumatic legs give me hell when I walk this distance. It is hardly possible for me to go there and come back for each prayer.”
Al-Badwi added that it was his life-long desire to perform the daily five prayers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah. “I don’t bother going to my room after each prayer. If my room was closer then I would have gone there to rest,” he said, adding that he found it difficult to visit the public lavatories located close to the Grand Mosque.
Nafisa Al-Fayoumi, an Egyptian pilgrim, said she has rented a hotel room three kilometers away from the Grand Mosque and so stays in the courtyard outside the Grand Mosque from Asar until the Taraweeh prayers (late at night). “Umrah has become expensive. I have to get a taxi to travel to and from my hotel everyday. If I go by foot then I end up losing my way,” said Nafisa.
She added that the aged women who have come for Umrah with her were not capable of attending the prayers at the Haram because of the distance between their lodgings and the Haram. Ayman Al-Safdi, a Syrian Haj and Umrah organizer, appealed to investors and hotel companies close to the Haram to make part of their constructions affordable to lower income groups as well. “They should make accommodation to all people — the rich and the poor. The rich pilgrims only account for 20 percent of the total number of pilgrims.”
