Medina

We ended our previous journey through Saudi Arabia at the Edge of the World, and we ended it with deep regret about how closed the country is.

Two cities, glassy Riyadh and wooden Jeddah, turned out to be far too little to get to know the Arabian Peninsula, the mysterious heart and soul of the Muslim world.

“Ancient Mada’in Salih, the green oases of Abha and Jizan, radiant Medina, and the holy city of Mecca,” we listed dreamily the places we couldn’t get to. Some are hard to reach across the scorching desert. Others can be visited only by faithful Muslims, and no matter how much we wanted to, we could never sneak in...

No, I don’t mean that we couldn’t at all, or that all the efforts in the world would have been in vain, until...

Let’s just say our hour has struck again.

The Mosque City

There’s a common misconception. Everyone is sure that both cities, Mecca and Medina, are closed to non-Muslims. In fact, people of any faith can come to Medina. But only Muslims may enter the Prophet’s Mosque and the square around it.

The square in front of the mosque is surrounded by a high fence. On each of the four cardinal points, the fence has a large gate that stays open around the clock. Guards stand next to the gates.

The security here is purely decorative. They might stop you if, say, you had the bright idea of going to the mosque in shorts. Nobody tests anyone’s knowledge of Islam, so you can walk right in.

Right behind the gate is a scene from a sci-fi movie. Huge mechanical flowers grow on the square.

The idea of making umbrellas in the shape of flowers came from King Abdullah himself. He took it to the German architecture firm SL Rasch, which since 1980 has been known for its designs for Saudi mosques.

The firm refined the project. A special Teflon fabric was chosen for the umbrellas, which not only shields from sunlight but also blocks ultraviolet completely.

The project was completed in 2011. Two hundred and fifty mechanical tulips were planted on the square. The project cost the budget an astronomical one and a half billion dollars.

And the project itself is truly out of this world. A huge lifeless square turned into a giant garden of mechanical tulips.

But the most important thing about this project isn’t the beauty of the decoration. The thing is, these flowers open every morning and fold back into buds every evening!

As soon as the sun rises, a light sensor goes off, and the bud slowly begins to open. The flower stays open all day and closes again in the evening.

Now that’s real science fiction.

The umbrellas are a perfectly thought-out solution to a whole set of problems.

First, they protect the worshippers from the sun. The mosque can’t hold everyone who comes, so many have to pray outside. The tiles overheat and turn into a frying pan. The umbrellas provide shade and coolness.

Second, each umbrella has a built-in fan with a water sprayer. The fans knock down the heat even better and refresh you.

Third, at night the closed buds turn into lanterns! Every stem has powerful floodlights that light up the whole square.

Finally, the tulip umbrellas are a powerful marketing move to draw people to Islam. Medina has made a breakthrough: people now come to the mosque not only to pray. The square has become a cult place. People gather here to sit in the shade and talk business. There are always lots of people under the umbrellas.

The square has also become a refuge for the poor. It’s the only place where you can escape the unbearable heat. The destitute come to the umbrellas, sit down in the middle of the square, and freeze in prayer.

The tulips grow not only in front of the mosque but also inside it. The Prophet’s Mosque is square, with an open courtyard in the middle. This cutout in the mosque is like a separate flowerbed in the middle of a field of flowers.

The fabric of the umbrellas is so dense that a person can walk on it. The umbrellas are cleaned regularly. A worker climbs onto the flower like a bee and hoses it down.

The mosque itself is a work of art in its own right.

The first mosque on this site was built by the Prophet Muhammad himself in 622. It was a small prayer room and the third mosque ever built in the world.

Then the mosque was added to, rebuilt, and expanded many times until it became the second largest in the world. Together with the square, the Prophet’s Mosque holds 600,000 people. During the hajj, it is decongested to fit a full million.

The modern mosque was begun by the Turks, when Medina was under Ottoman rule. They laid down the vaults and columns, and then the Saudis picked up the idea.

Life is always buzzing in the mosque.

A mosque is a second home for a Muslim. Mosques provide everything people need to come more often and stay longer.

Throughout the Prophet’s Mosque stand tanks of Zamzam water. It’s the equivalent of holy water in Christianity. Muslims drink it in three sips, facing Mecca, saying “Bismillah” with each sip.

Carpets are laid out all over the mosque. They are supplied by a company called Abdullatif Company for Carpets. Its status is evident if only from its website on the carpets.com domain.

For the mosques of Medina and Mecca combined, 70,000 carpets were bought, 325,000 meters long in total and costing 12 million dollars.

Top-class carpets. Your finger sinks into the pile up to the second joint.

The carpets come with a big problem. Muslims are not allowed to pray in shoes. You can pray in socks, but almost everyone prays barefoot. Of course, before each prayer a Muslim must perform ablution: wash his hands up to the elbows, wash his face, rinse his heels, and wipe between his toes. But ablution is often done in a hurry, and old dirt isn’t so easy to wash off.

O Allah, on this trip I saw every kind of foot! White, black, brown, and yellow. With dirt on the heels, hanging stubs of nails, warts, pimples, and boils. And all these feet walk on the carpets into which a Muslim presses his forehead and nose during prayer. What infection couldn’t you catch?

Fortunately, Islam doesn’t deny the existence of germs. So the carpets in the big mosques are cleaned constantly. They are vacuumed several times a day, regularly replaced, and washed with a special detergent.

What other amenities does the mosque have? There’s water to drink. There are carpets to pray and rest on. All that’s left is to find something to read before bed.

Around every column there are special niches holding countless copies of the Quran. I couldn’t count how many there are in total. Hundreds of thousands, I think.

Muslims treat the Quran with great respect. When they take a Quran from the shelf or put it back, they kiss it. You may read the Quran only after the ablution performed before prayer. And the worst thing you can do is put a Quran on the floor. You could get punched in the face for that.

The Garden of Paradise

The Prophet’s Mosque is so called because its first version was built by the Prophet Muhammad himself. And he built it next to his house, so that it would be convenient to go to work as a preacher.

Muhammad died. He was buried in the house of his wife Aisha, which also stood nearby. Later the mosque was expanded. Muhammad’s grave and house ended up inside the mosque. Almost 600 years later, a wooden dome was built over the grave.

Old paintings still show Muhammad’s house and the dome over his grave.

Under the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was substantially rebuilt, and the dome was replaced with a stone one and painted green. It has been called the Green Dome ever since.

Then, in the 20th century, Arabia was seized by the Saudi dynasty, which still rules the country. The Saudis rebuilt the mosque so that it absorbed both the dome and Muhammad’s house, which effectively ceased to exist.

The only thing left from earlier times is the green dome sticking out of the roof. Inside the mosque, under the dome, there’s an interesting spot. Here the red carpets suddenly end and green ones begin. The aisle runs into a huge line.

This place is called the Garden of Paradise. The Garden of Paradise is the very spot in the mosque where Muhammad’s house once stood. His grave is here too.

A long row of columns fenced off with iron railings leads to the Garden of Paradise. This pen for people is divided into three sections.

The sections are opened in turn. First the first section is opened. A crowd of pilgrims instantly fills it, and the section is closed. The crowd is held for a while, then the second section is opened. The pilgrims move into it, and the next batch of people takes the freed-up space in the first section.

People are held in each section for 20 minutes. To reach the Garden of Paradise, you have to stand for a whole hour in a sweaty crowd where you can’t even shift your position.

In short, the typical Saudi attitude. To them, pilgrims are cattle.

It must be said that Islam is a cunning religion.

For example, Islam has an achievement system. Almost like in computer games. Say, a prayer in the Prophet’s Mosque counts as a thousand ordinary prayers. Or: whoever performs the Friday prayer in a mosque is rewarded as for a year of good deeds.

By constantly doing such things, you can rack up points, which in heaven are exchanged for various bonuses.

Muslims believe that praying in the Garden of Paradise brings special harmony and peace. They say that whoever prays in the Garden of Paradise on earth will enter the garden of paradise in heaven too. That’s why huge crowds push their way in here.

During prayer, Muslims prostrate themselves, touching the ground with their forehead and nose. There’s so little room in the Garden of Paradise that it’s hard even to bend over. So people fold themselves in three. They bang their foreheads right under their own knees because there’s no room to stretch out further.

The rows of worshippers stand so tightly that when bowing, your head rests against someone’s heels... A pilgrim tries to make his way to the exit. Someone else bends down and hits him with his head. He takes a step to keep his balance and steps on someone’s hand. Then he knees someone in the back. Trips over someone’s legs.

Oh, the feet. While the carpets in the rest of the mosque are cleaned regularly, in the Garden of Paradise they aren’t washed for a week. The carpets turn into dirty rugs soaked with dust, sweat, flaking skin, nail clippings, bits of warts, and hair.

Having prayed in the Garden of Paradise, the pilgrims come out into a narrow corridor. Now they have a few seconds to pass by Muhammad’s grave and send him a fiery salute.

Meanwhile, police officers poke people in the side with batons and pull them by the scruff of the neck so they don’t linger.

The Crafty Kurd

The humiliation of pilgrims is deliberate Saudi policy.

The Saudis profess Wahhabism, a radical version of Islam. Wahhabis interpret the Quran absolutely literally and raise religion to a totalitarian absolute. For example, Wahhabis understand the commandment “thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” to mean that the Prophet Muhammad himself becomes an idol.

The Saudis came to power at the beginning of the 20th century. And the first thing they did was destroy the old cemetery in Medina.

The Saudis razed thousands of graves. They dug up the graves of Muhammad’s father and mother, his wives, daughters, and sons. That wasn’t enough, so the Saudis went after the graves of Muhammad’s uncles and aunts, then his cousins and second cousins, his mothers-in-law and brothers-in-law. Once these necrophilia lovers got a taste for it, they dug up the whole cemetery, since all 7,000 people buried there turned out to be either friends of Muhammad or someone who had once shaken his hand.

These atrocities didn’t come out of nowhere. Indeed, since the time of Muhammad, Islam has forbidden rituals at graves. All Islamic schools forbid building domes and mosques over graves. The permitted height of a tombstone is just 22.5 centimeters. Wahhabis don’t even allow names on tombstones.

So where did a cemetery with domes come from? Before Wahhabism and the Saudis appeared, Islam was slowly shedding its medieval cruelty and acquiring philosophical, rational theories. The Saudis, however, returned the religion to its roots, declaring all the accumulated humanism to be sinful innovation.

That’s why today, now that the cemetery has been restored to its “original Islamic” state, it looks like a piece of desert awaiting development, with stumps of tombstones sticking out of the ground. Pilgrims are herded through the wasteland cemetery along narrow paths, forbidden to linger or step aside. A group of three Muslims decided to approach one grave. They began quickly reciting a prayer. Police instantly ran up and took them by the elbows.

The cemetery may not be left in peace, and it may be leveled completely to make way for some skyscraper.

That’s why the Garden of Paradise looks like a cattle pen. After all, this is where the Prophet Muhammad himself is buried. For the Wahhabis, this place is cursed twice over. First, Wahhabis consider prayers to Muhammad to be idol worship. Second, a dome and a mosque have been built over the Prophet’s grave. So the carpets in the Garden of Paradise are left dirty on purpose, the crush is planned, and the police deliberately drive the pilgrims with batons.

The Green Dome over Muhammad’s grave is the only historical monument the destroyers haven’t gotten their hands on. Twice they wanted to tear the dome down. The first time they weren’t strong enough; the second time they feared the wrath of the crowd. But the Saudis are preparing a third attempt. A few years ago they announced that they would move the Prophet’s grave out of the mosque and bury him in the common cemetery under a stub of stone with no name.

That hasn’t happened yet, and the Green Dome is a popular meeting place. In front of it, believers and pilgrims from all over the world gather to recite special short prayers addressed to Muhammad.

So there I was, sitting in front of the dome, when a pilgrim, clearly from somewhere in Iraq, started talking to me.

“Hey, salaam alaikum.”
“Wa alaikum salaam.”
“Muslim?”
“Muslim.”
“Kurdistan! You?”
“Rusiya!”
“Oh, Rusiya!”

The Kurd spoke only Arabic. He didn’t know a word of any other language. And I knew only a few phrases in Arabic. The Kurd and I quickly figured out that it was best to talk about simple things that could be explained with gestures.

“Brother, why did you accept Islam?” I understood his question from the word “Islam” and his questioning intonation.
“What are you saying?” I shrugged. “I don’t understand!”

The Kurd repeated the question several times. I pretended not to understand him, though I simply didn’t want to answer. And how would he understand my answer anyway? It’s a whole story. But the crafty Kurd wanted to get to the bottom of why a European had suddenly decided to become a Muslim.

His persistence made me nervous. I had no clear, short answer. I tried to get up and leave, but the Kurd pulled me back by my shirt and sat me down again.

Suddenly the Kurd called out to the crowd. From his tone and the word “inglizi,” I understood him:

“Hey, does anyone here speak English?”
“Yes, I understand,” responded a fat bearded man in a long white Arabian shirt.
“Translate for him: ‘Why did you accept Islam?’”
“Brother, he ask, why you are Islam?” the translator explained in broken English.

Hearing the conversation, several more people flocked to us. They all surrounded me, and the Kurd explained to them that here, you see, sits a European in the middle of Medina, and he, the Kurd, is trying to find out how this palefaced man came to Islam.

Cold sweat. I was ready to tell my flimsy cover story in Russian to some Tatar. But I was completely unprepared to tell a whole story in English to five Muslims surrounding me on all sides.

“Aaah! How I accepted Islam! Well, you see, I kind of always believed in God. I knew there was this dude, Moses. Then Jesus came. My mom told me about this. And then I grew up and learned that there was also Muhammad...”
“Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,” all five chanted in unison upon hearing the Prophet’s name.
“Yes, exactly, peace and blessings be upon him,” I repeated. “Anyway, I learned that there was also Muhammad. And I thought he was no worse than Jesus. So I should believe in him too. Something like that,” I wiped a stream of sweat trickling down my forehead.

The translator explained my words to the Kurd. But the bastard didn’t like my answer:

“Brother, I’m not asking that. I’m asking: why is Islam better than Christianity? Why did you change your faith?”
“Uhh... Well, brother. Min kalbi! From my heart!” How else can I explain it to you, you son of a bitch? You don’t even know English.

The Kurd just wouldn’t leave me alone. Muslims come on pilgrimage from all over the world. Medina and Mecca are the melting pot of Islam. Here you can meet Chechens, Tatars, Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Turks. But the scariest thing is meeting Kurds.

The Kurds are an eternally persecuted people without a state. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds died at Saddam’s hands; tens of thousands are pressed by Turkey and Syria. In such conditions, Kurds have become cunning and perceptive. They’ll see through anyone in no time.

And so this Kurd saw through me at first sight. I was saved by a street-cleaning machine that drove right through the crowd. That’s another Saudi pastime — dispersing the people sitting in front of the dome.

I took the chance and left. And I could have simply said I was a Tatar!

Beyond the mosque

Outside the mosque, Medina is nothing special.

There are a couple of sights. One of them is the Abu Bakr Mosque. The reader has probably never heard the name. He was Muhammad’s friend and companion, who after his death conquered most of what became the Arab Caliphate. It’s unclear why the Saudis didn’t blow up this mosque along with the cemetery. He must have been a good warrior.

Muslims approaching the mosque stare through the window — apparently, behind the glass you can make out Abu Bakr’s footprints or something.

Near his mosque grow a few scrawny palm trees and a modest lawn. There’s no other greenery in Medina. Somewhere outside the city there are palm groves where dates of all kinds are harvested by the kilo and sold on the spot. But Medina itself is an unpleasant city of stone and asphalt.

There’s nothing else to see in Medina. This city is the Las Vegas of the Islamic world. A city without sin, but just as plastic and lifeless. In the center stands a huge mosque. Perfectly straight streets radiate from it.

Hundreds of hotels line the streets. Hotels, hotels, hotels. The whole city is one big hotel.

Every year, millions of pilgrims come to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj. The rest of the year, they come to perform the lesser pilgrimage, umrah. This city lives only off the endless flow of pilgrims.

There’s no public transport in Medina either. None at all. The city is very small, and everyone walks. Only an endless stream of shuttle buses brings pilgrims to the hotels and takes them to the airport.

And what begins beyond the row of hotels is obvious. Where the tourist zone ends, ruin and poverty begin.

But there’s no point looking at poverty in these holy places. Here and now, we are heading to Mecca.