Posts Tagged Mecca

The Destruction of Holy Sites in Mecca & Medina – Destroying Islamic Heritage

10 February 2010
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The Asian Age: The Arabian Peninsula, the cradle of Islam, is being demolished by hardliners. In countries such as Saudi Arabia almost all of the Islamic historical sites are gone, but this is not the first time they have been destroyed.
In 1802, and army led by the sons of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) and Muhammad ibn Saud occupied Taif and began a bloody massacre. A year later, the forces occupied the holy city of Mecca. They executed a campaign of destruction in many sacred places and leveled all the existing domes, even those built over the well of Zamzam. However, after the army left, Sharif Ghalib breached the truce, inciting the Wahhabis to re-occupy Mecca in 1805.
In 1806, the Wahhabi army occupied Medina. They did not leave any religious building, including mosques, without demolishing it, whether inside or outside the Baqi’ (graveyard). They intended to (more…)

The Road to Mecca

31 May 2009
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An exclusive post by Kazim Aizaz Alam

 

(Allama) Muhammad Asad aka Leopold Weiss — b. 1900 d. 1994 — is a well-known name at least in the Muslim world. I have recently read his wonderful book ‘The Road to Mecca’. Let me write here briefly what I think of the book and its writer, who is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished Muslim scholars of the last century.

 

About the writer:

Muhammad Asad was born into a Jewish family that lived in Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a lawyer and grandfather was a rabbi. At age 22 he travelled across the Arab world first time as a Middle East correspondent for European newspapers. He converted to Islam in 1926. In later years he travelled extensively in the entire Muslim world. Though his mother tongue was German, he wrote ‘The Road to Mecca’ in English. Besides German and English, he knew French, Arabic, Persian and Urdu as well. He translated and explained the Quran as well as Sahih al-Bukhari from Arabic into English. (more…)