The Governor of Makkah, Prince Khalid Al-Faisal has spoken out against allegations that the country exploits the Hajj for economic gain. Speaking to the Saudi Press Agency, he told of his 'absolute rejection' of the claims which have been leveled at Saudi Arabia in recent years.
The Prince's comments will likely raise eyebrows those who've seen the Kabba dwarfed by an increasing number of skyscrapers and high-end hotels in recent years.
It’s no secret that the Hajj is big business for Saudi. After all, the Hajj and Umrah provide around $6 billion each year for the country depending on the number of pilgrims who attend the annual event, which is considered one of the five pillars of Islam and an obligatory undertaking for Muslims.
Economists estimate that 40 percent of this comes from accommodation, 10 percent from food sales and 15 percent from gifts with the rest stemming from the sale of other services.
In the 1960s, around 200,000 pilgrims performed the Hajj each year compared to around 2.5 million in 2017.
More pilgrims mean more revenue and this year alone saw a 40% increase in the number of Hajj permits handed out by the KSA.
The latest figures have left some people questioning whether Saudi’s elite more concerned about profits than the spirituality of the event.
“Mecca itself and its pilgrim industry have become more blatantly consumerist. The five-star hotels offering views of the Kaaba, the real estate companies established in which businessmen, princes, and clerics make huge sums, shopping malls. It wasn't like that before, the commercialization is now in a different league,” said Andrew Hammond,” a Saudi analyst who has covered the Hajj extensively.
Almost all of Mecca’s old neighborhoods have been razed in the race for further commercial expansion and the former home of the Prophet’s first wife Khadijah now plays host to public lavatories.
The desire for cash is so great that a square meter of land surrounding the Grand Mosque now reportedly retails for around $130,000.
“It's no exaggeration to say the spirit of the place has been destroyed. With the traffic, pollution, fast food, hotels, and swarms of people it's like the Azhar district of Cairo,” Hammond said.
“The hotels and malls are of proportions completely inappropriate for the town's size. Mecca has been lost amid the drive for money and prestige. It's surprising how little of a controversy there has been about what the Saudis have done to Hajj in recent decades,” he added.
However, the increase in commercialization isn’t the only negative side effect which has taken place as Saudi Arabia has dramatically increased the number of pilgrims allowed to take part in the Hajj.
In 2015, more than 2,000 pilgrims were crushed to death in a stampede during the event. Saudi officials placed the blame on pilgrims, however, numerous international leaders suggested that the Saudi were to blame.
“Bringing huge numbers is seen as a point of prestige by the regime, but it was spoiled by the large numbers of deaths, they think that numbers alone are worth risks to individuals in terms of safety. I think it's quite clear that their thinking on safety was running to catch up with the huge numbers of people they had started to bring into the Mecca area during Hajj in the 1990s and early 2000s,” Hammond said.
“They were forced to rethink the movement of people and to push the religious scholars to amend their injunctions on when to carry out some rites such as the stoning of the Jamarat because of hundreds of deaths. People were being crushed to death due to bad management of crowd movement. there had been a tendency too to blame the pilgrims,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hammond criticised Saudi Arabia’s ‘politicized’ allocation of Hajj visas and the recent trend mass allocations of visas being given to journalists from certain media titles.
This year Qatari officials attacked a decision by Saudi Arabia to add restrictions on Qatari citizens traveling to the kingdom for Hajj.
The Kingdom also faced questions over the decision to hand out free Hajj visas to journalists from certain media outlets in Egypt, where the KSA is currently embroiled in a controversy following the takeover of two islands located in the Red Sea.
“Giving out lots of visas to journalists has become a major practice in the last 20 years. The government has developed this notion of marketing itself through Hajj and mediatizing the event in a way it never was before,” he said.
“I think the first motive for the government is a sense that it is their duty to bring as many people as possible. But beyond that basic premise, things go off the rails. They bring people according to a nationality quota system that is politicized. So, governments in favor may win more visas and those out of favor will get less,” he added.
