In 1975, having just returned from the US and Germany, where he did his postgraduate degree in Islamic architecture, Angawi started a centre in Jeddah to preserve the Islamic and natural environment of the holy places of Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, and Medina, which houses the prophet’s mosque and tomb.

The centre, which attracted dozens of scholars from across the world, carried out geological, archaeological and anthropological studies. They also laid out strategies to manage the services needed to cater to the ever-growing number of pilgrims, while still respecting the nature and history of the two places. “Hajjiology,” Angawi likes to call it. Less than a decade later, he resigned from the centre, believing that it had become embroiled in bureaucratic chaos that paralysed its work. “I dream and breathe about Mecca and Medina,” he says. “When I left the centre, this is when my health started to deteriorate.”

At the entrance of Angawi’s house are two large framed maps: one shows Mecca before the construction boom, the other depicts it in its current state. He has marked various sites of historical importance, such as the prophet’s companions’ houses and mosques - many of them are now beneath malls or hotels. “The mapping work I am doing requires governments,” he says. “[But] I am doing it on my own.”

Since the 1980s, more than 95 percent of Mecca’s historical sites - many dating back to the earliest years of Islam in the seventh century - have been demolished, making way for towers and five-star hotels. Then, of course, there is the Mecca Clock Tower, which is 46 times taller than the nearby al-Kaaba, the black cubical considered to be the holiest structure in Islam and around which Muslims circumambulate to signify harmony in the worship of God. The result is stark.

The Mecca Royal Clock Tower is one of the tallest in the world [AP]

The glare of the skyscrapers reflects on the faces of the worshippers, the cranes cast shadows on the marbled flooring. And it was one of these cranes that collapsed on the campus of the mosque in September, killing more than 100 people. “This this is an embodiment of the disruption in al-Mizan,” Angawi whispers, gesturing with his hand as though conducting an orchestra to emphasise every word.

He declared the clock tower “stupid”, unable to conceal his distaste for the structure despite the fact that it was designed by a long-time friend and former colleague at the Hajj Research Centre, Mahmoud Bodo Rasch, a German architect who converted to Islam four decades ago and embarked on a number of projects in the holy cities.

Angawi had pushed the idea of constructing buildings in gradation, with the shortest located closest to the centre of Mecca. He wanted hotels to be built miles away and transportation improved. “Even when Prophet Muhammad came from Medina to perform Hajj in Mecca, he stayed in an area called Abtah, which was 5km away from the mosque,” Angawi explains.

But not all ideas can be “implemented realistically,” Achmed Rasch, the son of Mahmoud, told me as we sat in a cafe in the Fairmont Hotel, located in the clock tower complex. The 35-year-old managing director of Vista Rasch GmbH, a company that specialises in films and exhibition projects in the holy cities, is now overseeing the launch of an observatory and an astronomy exhibition centre built in the enclosure of the clock.

The younger Rasch says building hotels away from the centre would increase traffic on the roads leading to the mosque. He also cites the mountainous nature of Mecca as an obstruction to what might otherwise look like a good option on paper.

He suggests that the best way to preserve the history of Mecca and to make it accessible to millions of visitors would be to set up a museum. “And we are working on such concepts,” he adds.

While some people question why it is that so many European city centres can be preserved, while Mecca seemingly cannot, Achmed has an answer: there simply isn’t any model Saudi Arabia can look to, he says, for the demands placed on it - millions of people visiting at the same time - are unique.

“The unique situation of Mecca ... has to be looked at as the main criteria for developing practical and realistic solutions,” he insists.

But for many residents of Mecca, solutions based on bulldozers and dynamite pose a danger not just to structures but to something simultaneously more personal and more universal - childhood memories of home and collective Islamic memory.

“It’s a prime example of greed overpowering faith,” says Majed al-Shibi, the Meccan whose tribe served pilgrims for centuries, even before the inception of Islam.

“The land surrounding the Grand Mosque in Mecca is one of the most expensive in the world. Developers - may God guide them - will therefore construct as high as they possibly can upon it,” says al-Shibi, who has black and white photographs of the Kaaba and of his ancestors who dressed the holy cubical and cleaned its interior with rose water.

Until the last decade, members of the al-Shibi tribe dressed the Kaaba with the help of enthusiastic locals who flocked to the Grand Mosque to participate in the annual proceeding. Nowadays, the dressing of the Kaaba happens under tight security and while the area around the structure is sealed off. In the past, the volunteers would climb onto the roof of the Kaaba to drape the garment over it. Now, it is all done by cranes. [Majed al-Shibi/ Al Jazeera]

A square-metre of land at the centre of Mecca can cost two million riyals (more than $500,000).

Angawi believes his outspokenness has sometimes been misunderstood as dissent. He insists that he does not doubt the intentions of the country’s leaders in wanting to provide the best possible facilities for the pilgrims. But, he adds, “the means do not justify the ends”.

He believes that if no moves are taken to reconsider the construction, "Mecca's future is gone”. The development that has already taken place accounts for barely 20 percent of that which is planned over the next few years, he explains.

He wants the government to support him in his mission to save what is still salvageable of the Mecca he knows and loves, and is urging that construction be stopped for a few months to allow for the extent of the damage to be reassessed. He is also insisting that his initiative be funded to the tune of a couple of million riyals.

“I bet my life, God willing, that I can find scientific solutions for Mecca and the pilgrimage that are in line with al-Mizan. I put my life on the line for it,” he says. “This is how sure of my work I am. I am someone who dreamt of Mecca - in my dreams and while awake.”

“I want to be given a chance,” he says. “And Prophet Muhammad says if you have a sprout in your hand, and it is possible to plant it before judgement day comes, you should plant it.”

But does he really believe that there is still hope for the Mecca of his dreams when so much of its history has already disappeared?

He answers with another saying of the Prophet Muhammad: “If you see buildings surpass the two [Mecca] mountains, then beware [of judgement day].”

One of those mountains - Qiqaan - has already been levelled to the ground. The other is still partially intact. And that, Angawi says, means “there is still some hope”.

Photography by Amer Hilabi

Designed and developed by Alaa Batayneh

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