Mecca. Part two. Citadel

All of Mecca’s life is concentrated in the city center, where the Grand Mosque stands. Today it’s the largest mosque in the world, but it was once a modest rectangular wall around the Kaaba.

With the rise of Islam at the end of the 20th century, more and more pilgrims began arriving in Saudi Arabia. The old mosque could no longer hold everyone, and it began to be expanded. The area around the Kaaba remained very small, but the new mosque turned into a monstrous structure several stories high.

The Grand Mosque is purely utilitarian. Its job is to hold as many pilgrims as possible without bursting at the seams. In terms of beauty, it doesn’t come anywhere close to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, or to any other mosque, for that matter.

Two minarets at the main entrance are all that remains of the old architecture.

The decoration of the facade is primitive. Al-Haram is nothing compared to the mosques of Iran.

There’s a small square in front of the mosque. When there’s no room inside, people pray outdoors. During prayer, prayer mats are thoughtfully laid out for them.

On the other side of the square, right opposite the mosque, stands a termite mound of skyscrapers — there’s no other word for it. Shapeless, gigantic buildings crawl up toward the sky in steps until they merge into the tallest tower. It is crowned with a huge clock and a spire topped with a crescent.

During night prayer, the crescent spire lights up in poisonous green.

Most of these skyscrapers are hotels. Rooms here are expensive anyway, but during the hajj prices rise many times over. Hotel rooms are often bought up by large groups, and people sleep in them hostel-style, four to a room. True, the rooms themselves are luxury class. On the outside, the hotels try in vain to imitate the old houses of Jeddah.

Mecca is plastered with brands. Walking out of the main gate of the Grand Mosque, the first thing a pilgrim sees is the McDonald’s logo.

The lower floors of the skyscrapers house a huge shopping mall where pilgrims shop till they drop. Popular items include gold jewelry and silk dresses, Rolex watches, gold-plated iPhones and MacBooks, Ray-Ban sunglasses and Louis Vuitton bags, perfumes from the richest French houses, and, of course, an endless variety of halal grub.

None of this is surprising. Islam grew up in Arabia, where trade is a central part of culture. For a Muslim, it’s perfectly normal to push your way to the Black Stone shouting “Allahu akbar” and go shopping five minutes later.

Mecca’s annual revenue is 23 billion dollars. No wonder, since more pilgrims come for the hajj every year. Last time, 2.5 million people visited Mecca. The modest crowds in my photos are nothing compared to the gravitational mass of people that fills Mecca during the hajj.

The hajj is a dangerous adventure from which you might not return. A few years ago, a frenzied crowd crushed more than 2,000 people to death. An old man who bends down for a bag dropped in the crowd will never get up again — he’ll simply be trampled. Not everyone is afraid of dying during the hajj, since such a death opens a direct road to paradise.

Ants

I climbed the skyscraper and went out onto a restaurant’s observation deck. You can see Mecca well from here, but not the Kaaba — only its very edge. You can’t go any higher for now. They promise to open access to the clock later.

No other city looks as much like an anthill as Mecca does from above. From the observation deck, I notice that there are people walking on the roof of the mosque too. So you can get up there. I come down from the skyscraper and go looking for the secret passage.

People come on pilgrimage from all over the world. Here they mix with the local population. Mecca welcomes everyone. It’s as much of a melting pot as the US. Skin color, nationality, and clothing mean nothing here.

Meccans often wear the traditional outfit of a long shirt and a turban. Every day they spend many hours in the mosque praying and reading the Quran. Islam has five obligatory prayers, but these guys pray much more.

The visitors’ clothing varies. Some wear a white Arab dishdasha, while others come from Pakistan in a brown perahan.

Ordinary clothes are put on after the pilgrimage. Until then, pilgrims wear the ihram — the very towels wrapped around the naked body. Meccan hustlers greet pilgrims dressed like this who have just completed the hajj or umrah:

“Salam alaikum, hajji!”

And immediately offer them a cheap haircut.

The thing is, after completing all the rituals, a pilgrim must either shave his head or cut his hair by two finger joints, depending on which Islamic school he belongs to.

That’s why the exit of the Grand Mosque is staked out by crowds of hustlers unlike any in the world. They offer not taxis or lodging but barber services! And they chase every hajji coming out of the mosque, haggling and pestering him to the bitter end.

Fending them off is like walking through a pack of taxi drivers in India. Everyone has a barber friend who cuts better and cheaper than anyone else.

Most Muslims in Mecca are decent, sincerely devout people. Among them there are also many fanatics ready to kill for the right to touch the Black Stone. And there’s a third caste — fallen sinners whose brazenness makes even an atheist’s eyes pop out.

A woman is begging outside the local McDonald’s. She’s refused, and she steps around the corner, where she confers with five friends. They decide to try again and send a child to ask for money. Give to one, and a whole crowd swoops in for the handout. Beggars. You can understand them.

But on the second floor of the Grand Mosque stand two people, a man and a woman. They are holding a piece of cardboard with a message in marker: “Our things and documents were stolen. Help us get home to London.”

O Allah! How low must you sink to mistake Mecca for the Moscow metro? The two come up to me:

“Mister, can you help us get home?”
“I think the police would be better able to help you.”
“We’ve contacted the police. Look, here are the documents confirming the theft. They can’t help us.”

My stubble falls off my face in amazement. Clearly the story is made up and the documents are fake. But what do I say to them? I can’t accuse them of lying while standing a hundred meters from the Kaaba, can I?

“I think you should ask them again. They must help you, I assure you. Ask the police to contact the British ambassador; they’ll give you money on bail. Ciao!”

But before I can get to the next floor, I run into pickpockets. Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around. Behind me is a friendly guy:

“Hello! Which country are you from?”
“Russia, and you?”
“Iraq, my friend! Iraq!”

While the Iraqi was praising Putin, a figure flashed in my peripheral vision. I turned around and saw someone walking away from me. Only a minute later did I realize: while I was being sweet-talked on the right, someone on my left was checking my waist bag.

Holy Mecca is closed to non-Muslims, but they’d do better to keep out thieves and scammers.

The Trespasser

The Grand Mosque has three floors, a basement, and a roof.

The multilevel structure was built for one purpose: to hold as many pilgrims as possible circling the Kaaba at the same time.

Long ago, the mosque had only one level, and the ritual circling of the Kaaba could be performed only on the ground. Then there were more and more pilgrims, and the crowds around the Kaaba grew thicker. To avoid crushes, the Meccan authorities built extra floors and declared that circling on them also counts in the eyes of Allah.

Of course, the circumference of such a lap is many times longer. Not everyone can manage the seven sacred laps along the expanded radius. So go-karts were brought into the mosque. Now you can simply drive around the Kaaba.

I wonder whether a rich sheikh could perform the hajj by helicopter. What does the Quran say about that?

None of these tricks saved Mecca from an excess of people. Such crowds of pilgrims poured in for the hajj that two more removable rings had to be built around the Kaaba. They are installed specially for the hajj and taken down in peacetime.

The mosque itself is being expanded to colossal proportions. Unfortunately, it can only be expanded in one direction. On the other side, skyscrapers already stand. It’s unclear how the Saudis will solve the problem of circling the Kaaba. Send people around the city’s ring road?

It’s very easy to get lost in the mosque. There are so many entrances and exits that I couldn’t find my way to the roof on my own. A cleaner agreed to take me there for a few riyals — damn capitalist.

From the roof I could finally see the skyscrapers in full, with nothing blocking the view.

The roof is the mosque’s secret place. There are always few people here, and there are cozy nooks where you can hide and pray alone. But the spots by the parapet are always taken. Chairs are handed out on the roof. Muslims sit at the very edge and watch the endless round dance below.

As soon as the muezzin sings and calls the faithful to prayer, they will get up from their chairs, push them aside, and roll out prayer mats.

Muslims all over the world are obliged to pray five times a day. Far from everyone does. But in Saudi Arabia, a person who doesn’t fall in prayer to Allah five times a day is a rare exception.

All of Saudi Arabia prays five times a day. Every day. The whole country. So how do you photograph the worshippers if you have to stand in their ranks yourself?

Islam doesn’t forbid praying at home, and many residents of Riyadh, Jeddah, and other cities do just that, coming to the mosque only for the evening or night prayer. Mecca is different. Five times a day, the city’s narrow alleys suddenly start babbling with human streams, which merge into rivers on the wide streets and then turn into a tsunami that crashes onto the mosque.

You don’t have to pray exactly on time. Each prayer can be performed within a window of several hours. So, in principle, you could skip the prayer time and make it up later. But that’s such a shameful thing to do... A Muslim wandering the street during namaz will get reproachful looks. The religious police may even drag him into the mosque by force.

For a long time I didn’t dare take out my camera during prayer, but on the second-to-last day of the trip I found a loophole.

At noon the sun is blazing. The heat is incredible, and there’s no shade at all. Even the Zamzam water heats up in its barrels and doesn’t refresh you at all. Only a handful of people are ready to pray on the roof until evening, and even coming up here is too hot. This is our chance.

Chaos around the Kaaba. The prayer hasn’t started yet.

I roll out a mat at the edge of the roof and stay to wait for the show in unbearable heat of nearly 50 degrees. The white tiles are so hot that you can’t put your foot on the floor. I put my bag under my feet so as not to get burned.

Closer to prayer time, a few people come out onto the roof, and I end up in their field of view. I have to roll up the mat and hide in a tricky spot between two utility rooms.

Singing rings out. The muezzin, the mosque’s herald, calls to all of Mecca: “Hasten to prayer! Hasten to salvation!”

The prayer doesn’t start right away, since people need to get to the mosque and find a free spot. Muslims are given about 10 minutes for this. And I get another 10 minutes in the heat. My head starts spinning. I already got heatstroke while dancing around the Kaaba — and I’ll get it again.

Along with the singing, the Brownian motion around the Kaaba begins to arrange itself into atomic orbitals. Muslims surround it in concentric circles, preparing for prayer. Entry to the square closes.

Everyone is ready. The human ring around the Kaaba now looks like a hand-woven Persian carpet. The prayer begins.

Hands rise to the ears with the words “Allahu akbar” and immediately fold in a humble pose at chest level.

Throughout the mosque, throughout the country, the imam recites the main prayer of Islam:

In response, the choir of worshippers draws out “Amin” — just like Christians.

Hands fly up again, and with another “Allahu akbar,” millions of Muslims fall to the ground in prostration — and only I sit on my knees, snatching the camera out of my bag. Focus. Shot.

And forehead to the mat, so that no one notices.

The prayer lasts about five minutes. The whole namaz is a repetition of the same actions, usually 2–4 times. Stand up, raise your hands, fold them on your chest. Recite the prayer. Bow with your hands on your knees. Then two prostrations, sit for a moment, and stand up again. Each cycle is called a rak’ah.

When a Muslim prays at home, he recites short prayers that are easy to memorize. In the mosque, the imam chants long, poetic surahs, so you can be stuck in the heat for a long time.

I’m standing at the edge of the roof on my last legs. Sweat runs down my face, and if I bend over, it pours onto the floor like hail. Multicolored dots run before my eyes like static on a TV screen. The ringing in my ears grows louder, and the picture seems to start swimming. The straight walls of the Kaaba change their angle, collapsing it into two-point perspective.

The prayer ends. Now, while sitting, you must turn your head to the right and say, “Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.” Then turn your head to the left and say it again: “Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.”

The ringing in my ears turns into hallucinations. The imam’s singing slows down, as if the battery in a cassette player were dying. “Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah!” — the last verse sounds as if two people were singing it, interrupting each other, stretching it out and dissolving with a rattle into Islamic vocals.

As soon as the last syllable of the prayer has been sung, the concentric orbitals around the Kaaba break up into separate atoms that slowly drift apart. Pilgrims sitting closest to the golden doors jump up from their places and, in a mad scramble, race each other to the Black Stone.

The fanatics stretch out their hands to it again, elbowing those behind them, clawing at and pulling back by the face those who have pushed ahead.