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out of the Mosque. He says the presence of the holy grave and noble dome are major innovations and that they both need to be destroyed! His thesis received very high marks. Last year, the city planning board of Medina painted the famous green dome of the Prophets Holy Mosque silver. After intense protests by the citizens of Medina, the board restored the dome to its original color. In the Ottoman part of the Prophets Mosque, at the center of the three sections raised a bit from the ground level are three circles. The first, toward the west, corresponds to the grave of the Prophet. The next two toward the east correspond to the graves of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and Umar ibn al-Khattab. Above the circles are invocations including Ya Allah and Ya Muhammad. The latter was removed and replaced it with Ya Majid by adding the dot under the ha of Muhammad to make it jim and two dots under the second mim of Muhammad to make it ya. There are qasidas written by rulers of the Muslim world, such as Sultan Abd al- Hamid. Many verses of the famous Burda of al-Busayri had also been painted over. On the Qibla side, the brass partition that is divided into three sections between two columns, the authorities have also tried to cover the famous two verses inscribed in the east from the story of al-Utbi as mentioned by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir. O best of those whose bones are buried in the deep earth, and from whose fragrance the depth and height have become sweet! May I be the ransom for a grave in which you dwell, where purity, bounty and munificence. If one raises his head a bit, he will see on the first section of this partition a green banner, on which the words of the Almighty are framed in yellow: O you who believe! Raise not your voices above the voice of the Prophet, may blessings and peace be upon him and his family, nor speak aloud to him in talk, as you speak aloud to one another, lest your deeds be rendered fruitless while you perceive not. (Quran 49:2) The Sacred Chamber has four exterior doors: on the south, Bab al-Tawba (The Door of Repentance), on the north, Bab al-Tahajjud (The Door of Night Prayer), on the east, Bab Fatima (the Door of Fatima), and on the west, Bab al-Nabi (The Door of the Prophet)also known as Bab al- Wufud (The Door of Delegations). These gates have been present since the year 668 AH except for the Gate of the Night Prayer, which was installed in 729 AH. Inside there are two gates, one on either side of the triangular part of the interior compartment. All of these doors are covered by brass shelves holding Qurans, an attempt to prevent the public from looking inside the Sacred chamber. The Wahhabi religious authorities are, unfortunately, on a fast track. In 1998 the grave of Amina bint Wahb, the Prophets mother, was bulldozed in Abwa and gasoline was poured on it. Even though thousands of petitions throughout the Muslim world were sent to Saudi Arabia, nothing stopped this action. One of my late teachers, Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad ibn Alawi al-Maliki, a Meccan who was a great historian on the holy sites and inherited his knowledge from his father and forefathers who were all teachers of the holy Haram, showed me pictures of the grave of Sayyida Amina marked with a pile of stones after the destruction. The House of Khadija was excavated during the Haram extensions, then hurriedly covered over so as to obliterate any trace of it. This was the house where the Prophet received some of his first revelations and it is also where his children Umm Kulthum, Ruqqaya, Zaynab, Fatima, and Qasim were born. Dar al-Arqam, the first school in Islam where the Prophet taught has also been demolished. It was in the area of Shib Ali near the Bab Ali door opposite the kings palace. It is now part of the extension of the Haram. The authorities plan to demolish the house of Mawlid, where the Prophet was born. About 60 years ago, this house, which used to have a dome over it, was turned into a cattle market. Some people then worked together to transform it into a library, which it is today. It is lined with shelves of books about Mecca, most of them written by Meccans. But the library is under threat again because of the new Jabal Umar project, one of the largest real estate development projects near the Grand Mosque. The birthplace of the Prophet is to make way for a car park and hotels. About 99% of real estate owners in the Jabal Umar area are shareholders in this company. The owners have been provided with financial incentives, including what they used to receive as rents, combining five-star facilities under the luxurious Le Meridien banner. The Meridien Towers will allow several thousand housing units in Mecca to be available during specified periods of time, for a one-off, fixed fee, giving the towers 25 years of shared ownership in Mecca. This scheme allow outsiders, whether Muslim or not, to invest in the city; they will be allowed to buy from a range of properties that can be used, sublet, resold or given as a gift. For the holy month of Ramadan in Mecca, authorities built a wall enclosure in the Haram for women to pray there so men will not be able to see them. However, this has also blocked womens visibility of the Kaba while they perform their prayers. The tawaf (circumambulation) for women has also been restricted to certain times. We dont know if these changes are permanent or just for Ramadan. In Medina, of the seven mosques at the site of the Battle of the Trench (Jabal al-Khandaq), where Sura al-Ahzab was revealed, only two remain. The others have been demolished and a Saudi banks cashpoint machine has been built in the area. The remaining mosques will be demolished as soon as the new mosque being constructed is ready. One of the mosques slated for destruction is Masjid Fath, the mosque and rock of victory, where the Prophet stood during the battle of the trench praying for victory. On the rock is where he received Gods promises of victory and of the conquest of Mecca. Dr. Irfan Ahmed is Joint Chairman of the Islamic Heritage and Research Foundation, which was formed to help protect and preserve the holy sites in the Hijaz. For more information contact islamic_heritage@hotmail.com
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