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The desolate graveyard in Medina

The destruction of early Islamic heritage sites is an on-going phenomenon that has occurred mainly in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, particularly around the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Other similar sites have been targeted for destruction across the region. The demolition has focused on Mosques, burial sites, homes and historical locations associated with the Prophet Muhammad and many of the founding personalities of early Islamic History. In Saudi Arabia, many of the demolitions have officially been part of the continued expansion of the Masjid Al-Haram at Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina and their auxiliary service facilities in order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Hajj pilgrims. Detractors of the demolitions and expansion programs have argued that this phenomenon is part of the implementation of state-endorsed Wahhabi religious policy that emphasizes the Oneness of God (Tawhid) and entirely rejects the worship of divine proxies to God or even the practices and habits which might lead to idolatry and polytheistic association (Shirk).

Historic and holy sites within Islam

Mainstream Islam attaches sanctity to historic and holy sites associated with early Islam. While Shia pilgrims make ziyarat to such locations to mark special events associated with the site or the person buried there, Sunni Muslims have also developed a bond with hundreds of holy places throughout the Islamic world. The holy sites in the Hejaz have especially remained places of pilgrimage and the tomb of the Islamic prophet Muhammad has always been a highly venerated site. However, Wahhabi doctrine disapproves of the holiness of cultivation of sacred sites built around mortals. Veneration of these religious and historic archeological sites are strongly condemned. They consider veneration of and worship at grave sites tantamount to idolatry. The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists' fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods.

In Saudi Arabia

Historical Overview

The theologian Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92), the progenitor of so-called Wahhabi Islam, first turned his theological movement into a political cause upon the formation of an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud of the Al Saud Dynasty, rulers of Diriyah in the Najd, the central highlands of the Arabian Peninsula. Wahhabi ideology established itself on the belief that Islam in the Arabian Peninsula had degenerated into a series of superstitious beliefs tainted by bid’a (innovation) and heretical saint-worship. Wahhabism thus saw itself as a purifying force, seeking to root out al innovative practices that departed from the Oneness of God and implied kufr (disbelief). The alliance between Abd al-Wahhab and the Al-Saud Clan birthed three successive Saudi states, all of which sought to consolidate political power amongst the desert tribes with the Al-Saud, while promoting Wahhabi doctrine as a unifying force within the general population.

Wahhabi Islam in the Hejaz

The Hejaz region of Arabia has long been a center of cultural and commercial exchange. Being the spiritual and historical cradle of Islam and hub of all pilgrimage activity has made the region and its primary urban centers of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah and Ta’if important crossroads of Islamic culture and thought. Because of its religious significance and the commercial trade associated with the pilgrimage industry, the Hejaz has historically looked outwards towards the sea. Pilgrims from Africa, Europe, Central and Southeast Asia have long traveled to the Hejaz to perform the pilgrimage and many of them stayed on long after their religious obligations where complete to settle down and integrate themselves into the local community. The result has been a largely heterogeneous society, politically advanced, religiously tolerant and ethnically diverse.

Much of the Arabian Peninsula was politically unified by 1932 in the third and current Saudi State, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The military campaign led by King Abdulaziz ibn Saud and his Bedouin army of Wahhabi-inspired tribesmen conquered the Hejaz and ousted the ruling Hashemite clan. The new Najdi rulers, nomadic Arabs largely tribal and illiterate found themselves at the reigns of a highly sophisticated society. A cohesive political structure based on the Majlis al-Shura (consultative council) system had been in place for centuries. A central administrative body managed and annual budget which allocated expenditure on secondary schools, military and police forces.

Similarly, the religious fabric of the Najd and the Hejaz were vastly different. Traditional Hejazi cultural customs and rituals were almost entirely religious in nature. Celebrations honoring the Prophet Muhammad, his family and companions, reverence of deceased saints, visitation of shrines, tombs and holy sites connected with any of these were just some of the customs indigenous to Hejazi Islam.

As administrative authority of the Hejaz passed into the hands of Najdi Wahhabi Muslims from the interior, the Wahhabi ‘ulema (body of religious scholars) viewed local religious practices as unfounded superstition superseding codified religious sanction that was considered a total corruption of religion and the spreading of heresy.

What followed was a cleansing of the physical infrastructure, the tombs, mausoleums, Mosques and sites connected with the rites of innovated grave and saint-worship and deemed questionable by state-dogma and the introduction of a reformed theology that espoused a uniform, ultra-orthodox Islam.

Destruction of important sites

The initial dismantling of the sites began in 1806 when the Wahhabi army of the first Saudi State occupied Medina and systematically leveled many of the structures at the Jannat al-Baqi' Cemetery. This is the vast burial site adjacent the Prophet's Mosque (Al-Masjid al-Nabawi) housing the remains of many of the members of the Prophet Muhammad’s family, close companions and central figures of early Islam. The Ottoman Turks, practitioners themselves of more tolerant and at times mystical strains of Islam, had erected elaborate mausoleums over the graves of Al-Baqi’. These were leveled in their entirety. Mosques across the city were also targeted and an attempt was made to tear down the Prophet's tomb.[4]

Widespread vocal criticism of this last action by Muslim communities as far away as India, eventually lead to abandoning any attempt on this site. Political claims made against Turkish control of the region initiated the Ottoman-Saudi war (1811-1818) in which the Saudi defeat forced Wahhabi tribesmen to retreat from the Hejaz back into the interior. Turkish forces reasserted control of the region and subsequently began extensive rebuilding of sacred sites between 1848 and 1860, many of them done employing the finest examples of Ottoman design and craftsmanship.

The tribal campaigns of Ibn Saud that led to the creation of the present Saudi Kingdom led once again to the Wahhabi dominance of the Holy Cities and environs. Ibn Saud along with his Ikhwan army entered Mecca in 1925 and officiated himself as King of the Hejaz the following year. The Ikhwan once again implemented Wahhabist literal interpretations of traditional texts and set to work demolishing sites and structures that had become objects of anti-orthodox heresy. On April 21, 1925 the mausoleums and domes at Al-Baqi’ in Medina were once again leveled and so were indicators of the exact location of the resting places of the Prophet’s family members and descendants, as it remains to the present day. Portions of the famed Qasida al-Burda, the 13th Century ode written in praise of the Prophet Muhammad by Imam Muhammed al-Busiri (1211-1294), inscribed over the Prophet’s tomb were painted over. In Mecca, the tombs of direct relations of the Prophet Muhammad including his first wife Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid and his grandfather Shaybah Ibn Hashem Ibn ‘Abd Al-Manaaf were demolished at Al-Ma’ala Cemetery along with the domed cupola and gate covering the Well of Zamzam within the confines of the Haram opposite the Kaaba.

Among specific sites targeted at this time were the graves of the Martyrs of the Battle of Uhud, including the grave of the renowned Hamza ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib, uncle of the Prophet Muhammad and one of his most beloved supporters, the Mosque of Fatimah Al Zahraa’, daughter of the Prophet, the Mosque of the Two Lighthouses (Manaratayn) as well as the Qubbat Al-Thanaya, the cupola built of the burial place of the Prophet’s incisor tooth which was broken from a blow received during the Battle of Uhud.

Political stability inside the Kingdom and the flow of oil wealth garnered masses of Hajj pilgrims in unprecedented numbers, underlining the need for renovation and expansion of the two holy precincts at Makkah and Medina under both King Abdulaziz and his son King Fahd Ibn Abdulaziz. The expansion programs required the leveling of large tracts of residential districts and consequently the loss of many fine examples of traditional Hejazi urban architecture. More significantly, in order to expand the Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah, historic columns and cupolas supporting porticos built during Ottoman times had to be destroyed, removing fine examples of Ottoman Turkish design.

In Medina, the Mashrubat Umm Ibrahim, the home of the Prophet’s Coptic Egyptian wife Mariah and birthplace of their son Ibrahim, as well as the adjacent burial site of Hamida al-Barbariyya, mother of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, were destroyed during this time. The site was paved over and is today part of the massive marble esplanade beside the Mosque.

The first decade of the new century has seen the greatest obliteration of historic sites of religious significance. Demolition has begun (as yet unfinished) of the famous “Seven Mosques of Medina,” corresponding to Fatimah (daughter of the Prophet), Ali Ibn Abi Talib (cousin, son-in-law and fourth Caliph), Salman al Farisi (companion), Abu Bakr (companion), Umar Ibn al-Khattab (companion), Al-Fateh Mosque (built on the spot where the 110 chapter of the Quran was revealed) and the Mosque of the Two Qiblas (Qiblatayn).

The House of Khadijah bint Khuwaylid in Makkah was demolished and paved over and several public protests were heard at the building of a public toilet on the same site. The house where the Prophet Muhammad was born was converted into a library and was slated for demolition as part of an expansion project.