Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, who served as the kingdom’s top religious cleric for over 25 years, has died in Riyadh. He was 84. Funeral prayers were attended by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler. The funeral was held at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh.

As grand mufti since 1999, Sheikh Abdulaziz held one of the most influential religious roles in the Sunni Muslim world. Saudi Arabia, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the annual Hajj pilgrimage, has long tied state legitimacy to clerical authority under its strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.

Sheikh Abdulaziz’s role as grand mufti put him in the spotlight because of every Muslim’s goal of attending the annual Hajj pilgrimage required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lives. The grand mufti’s words are carefully followed. (Related: take these steps and jump into the Green Prophet guide for a greener Hajj).

Blind from a young age, Sheikh Abdulaziz was appointed grand mufti by the House of Saud’s King Fahd. Fahd was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 13 June 1982 until his death in 2005.

Sheikh Abdulaziz’s rulings reflected decades of Islamic ultraconservative thought, once condemning mobile phone cameras as a threat to morality and he compared chess to gambling. (This year the Taliban banned chess). He opposed women driving and described gender mixing as “evil and catastrophe” before later softening his stance as the state changed course. Saudi Arabia decided to let women drive in 2018.

At times, his comments provoked international backlash. In 2015, he reportedly told Kuwaiti officials it was “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region” in the Arabia peninsula— remarks his aides later attempted to downplay. He also issued sectarian statements against Shiite Muslims, particularly following Iran’s criticism of Saudi Arabia after the deadly 2015 Hajj stampede.

Luckily for the western world, and peaceful prospects in the region through the Abraham Accords, he condemned al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State, calling them “enemy No. 1 of Islam.” After 9/11, when Saudi Arabia battled an al-Qaida insurgency within its own borders, he rejected militant jihad as “fake.” We should not forget that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

From Wahhabism to Vision 2030

Sheikh Abdulaziz’s career spanned a period of dramatic transformation under the House of Saud, a grand kingdom that rose from rules in mud castles. Once aligned tightly with the religious establishment, the monarchy gradually moved to curtail clerical power — especially under Saudi Arabia’s young visionary Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In 2018,  under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia ended the ban on women driving — a watershed reform that the grand mufti eventually supported.

The University of Novarra’s Naomi Moreno, pens a piece on Saudi reform saying it might be being more for optics than for real change within: “While some perceive the crown prince’s actions to be a genuine move towards reforming Saudi society, several indicators point to the possibility that MBS might have more practical reasons that are only tangentially related to progression for progression’s sake. As the thinking goes, such decrees may have less to do with genuine reform, and more to do with improving an international image to deflect from some of the kingdom’s more controversial practices, both at home and abroad. A number of factors drive this public scepticism.”

Mohammed bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” supervised by Sheikh Abdulaziz has also pushed massive economic liberalization, from Saudi Aramco’s controversial IPO to the multibillion-dollar mega-city NEOM. While any PR material put out by Saudi Arabia’s development companies, owned and operated by the House of Saud, tout sustainability objectives, no third party organizations or journalists can verify any claims.

Eco Branding or Environmental Boondoggle?

The grand mufti’s declining influence coincided with Saudi Arabia rebranding itself as a global hub for tourism and sustainability, no doubt advised to them by well-paid consultants and architects eager for multi-million, even billion dollar contracts. Ultra-luxury resorts are being marketed as eco-destinations across the Red Sea and virgin islands, even as construction threatens pristine habitats. See Shebara.

From coral reefs to fragile desert ecosystems, critics argue that these projects risk becoming environmental boondoggles — glossy green branding masking ecological disruption. The dynamic mirrors other regional tragedies, such as the controversial Qatari-backed resort development on Assomption Island near the Aldabra Atoll.

“Sheikh Abdulaziz served the faith and the nation with dedication,” the Saudi Royal Court said in its obituary statement. Yet his legacy remains contested: a staunch defender of Wahhabi orthodoxy who presided over a society that — under royal command — shifted toward liberalization, consumerism, and grand “eco” visions for the future.

As Saudi Arabia accelerates its transformation, the passing of its top cleric who memorized the Qu’ran at age 10 underscores the changing face of religious authority and perhaps tolerance in a kingdom increasingly defined by megaprojects, oil wealth, and the House of Saud’s push to rebrand itself for a post-oil world.

The post Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh dies at 84 appeared first on Green Prophet.

At the very center of the Islamic world stands a cube. Modest in shape yet immense in meaning, the Kaaba anchors the faith of over a billion Muslims, who turn toward it five times a day in prayer. Located within the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, this black-clad structure is the direction of prayer, the spiritual axis of Islam, and the focal point of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Yet despite its global significance, the Kaaba remains one of the most mysterious buildings on Earth. Few have seen inside it, and fewer still know what lies beyond its heavy door.

The interior of the Kaaba is striking in its simplicity. Step inside, and you enter a quiet, rectangular chamber lined with smooth white marble. Three ancient wooden pillars rise from the floor, holding up a flat wooden ceiling. From this ceiling hang delicate silver and gold lamps, some inscribed with calligraphy from bygone Islamic dynasties. The scent of oud lingers in the air—applied regularly with sacred oils stored in a modest wooden cabinet tucked along one wall.

The floor itself is made of cool, polished marble. There are no decorations, no paintings, no thrones or altars—only space, light, and stillness. The room is empty of ornament but full of spiritual weight.

This is not a place of tourism or spectacle. The Kaaba is closed to the general public. Entry is reserved for rare ceremonial occasions, most notably when it is cleaned twice a year in a ritual carried out with immense care and reverence. This responsibility belongs to a distinguished Meccan family, the Al-Shaibi clan, who have been the traditional caretakers of the Kaaba for generations—since the time of the Prophet Muhammad himself.

It is a hereditary role, passed down with deep honor. During the cleaning, the interior is washed with Zamzam water and rosewater, wiped down with white cloths, and anointed with perfumes. Only a small group of religious leaders, heads of state, or invited dignitaries are present.

The cloth that wraps the Kaaba—the Kiswa—is replaced once a year during Hajj. Woven from silk and embroidered with Quranic verses in gold thread, the Kiswa is produced by a dedicated team of artisans in a specialized factory in Mecca. It is raised slightly each year to prevent wear from the crowds of pilgrims, then lowered again after Hajj concludes.

While the Kaaba we see today has undergone many reconstructions, its spiritual essence remains unchanged. Tradition holds that it was originally built by Abraham and his son Ishmael as a house of monotheistic worship. Over the centuries, it has been rebuilt several times due to floods, fires, and the passage of time. The current structure dates largely to a 17th-century reconstruction, with its foundations going back even further.

No appointment needed to kiss the stone

Just outside the eastern corner of the Kaaba lies the Black Stone, a revered object kissed or touched by pilgrims performing the circumambulation ritual. But the sanctity of the Kaaba is not contained in any one object or wall. It lies in the unity it creates. Across continents and cultures, from mud mosques in Mali to prayer rooms in Jakarta, millions face the same direction each day, bound together by the unseen geometry of faith.

The Kaaba does not boast grandeur in the way palaces or cathedrals might. Its power is in its restraint. It is a place beyond spectacle, where emptiness becomes presence, and silence becomes prayer.

The post Inside the Kaaba: Islam’s Hidden Heart appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi artist Ahmed Mater talks about his work involving magnetism, mirage and Mecca. Ahmed Mater: Chronicles is taking place at Christie’s headquarters located in the heart of St. James’s, London, from July 17 to August 22.

Curated by Dr. Ridha Moumni, Chairman, Christie’s Middle East and Africa and organised thematically, the exhibition will trace Ahmed Mater’s expansive career, from his first artistic experiments to his latest projects.

As an acclaimed multimedia artist working across mediums including photography, videos, paintings, sculptures and installations, the exhibition will illustrate Mater’s unique visual reflections on the transformations across the social and spiritual landscapes of Saudi Arabia, and the Arab World.

Ahmed Mater: Chronicles will trace his artistic genesis from experimental forays during medical school, his formative years in the Al-Meftaha Arts Village, and his involvement in enriching the Kingdom’s contemporary art scene with Edge of Arabia, to the laboratory of ideas and collaborations that his current studio represents.

The Christie exhibition will highlight Mater’s seminal works, which include early-career abstract paintings, the Illumination series, the celebrated Desert of Pharan photography project (featured below) and will also unveil his most recent work, including Magnetism Book.

Drawing on themes of mutation, modernisation, land, and faith, the artworks included in Ahmed Mater: Chronicles will be on loan from prestigious institutions in the Middle East, from important private collections, and from the artist’s studio.

Some of his themes involve nomadism, desert dwellings and the shifting sands of Saudi Arabia. The exhibit will also feature Mater’s upcoming AlUla exhibition.

::Ahmad Mater

The post Saudi Arabia artist Ahmed Mater featured at Christie’s in London appeared first on Green Prophet.

Toray Industries from Japan announces it will supply the membranes for a new reverse osmosis desalination plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This will be the Kingdom’s first seawater reverse osmosis  desalination plant using clean energy under a public-private-partnership (PPP) structure. 

The Yanbu 4 desalination plant is located 100 miles of Saudi’s Madinah province, near the town of Ar Rayyis. With the production capacity of 450,000 cubic meters per day of potable water once it is completed, the plant will supply drinking water to the Makkah and  Madinah regions respectively. This is where millions of Muslims go on a Hajj pilgrimage. Good green news in advance of Ramadan which starts next week. 

Toray will supply the RO elements  and provide technical services and will help alleviate water shortages not  only in Makkah and Madinah regions but in the Middle East and North Africa.

Over the years, Toray has expanded RO membrane sales, production, and technical  support to help resolve global water issues. Applications extend from desalination and  waste water reclamation to industrial usage. The aggregate water production capacity of  Toray RO membranes is 120,000,000 cubic meters per day. That is enough to serve the  water needs of 840 million people. 

Providing access to clean water is pivotal to the Toray Group Sustainability Vision,  representing a roadmap to the World as Envisioned by Toray Group in 2050, and embodies Toray Vision 2030, through which the Group pursues sound, sustainable growth.  

Toray will continue to provide RO membranes and other advanced membrane  technologies and strengthen technical services to cater to local demand. It will thereby  help resolve water issues in the Middle East and other regions in which industrial and  population expansions will likely boost water demand. 

The post New Saudi Arabia Desalination Plant Powered by Clean Energy appeared first on Green Prophet.

On the road to Mecca in Saudi Arabia four hundred years ago, one could stop at a professional sorcerer: it seems that Muslim pilgrims walking from Cairo in Egypt to Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula would make a stop at these professional sorcerers. Dinns are a real thing in Islam, so beware if you cross one when out on a pilgrimage or if one enters your home. This guide may help you get the dinns out.

You know about the Evil Eye and hamsa, hamsa, hamsa for keeping it away? It’s an old practice in the Middle East. Finding some sources to superstitions are the strange magical tools found along pilgrim routes and described by Israeli researchers in the Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World. The researchers found stones and sculptures, some broken, and guess these objects were used in magical rituals carried out in order to ward off the evil eye, to heal diseases and more.

According to the researchers, “This discovery reveals that people in the Early Ottoman Period—just as today—consulted popular sorcerers, alongside the formal belief in the official religion.”

Itamar Taxel of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Uzi Avner of the Dead Sea-Arava Science Center, and Nitzan Amitai-Preiss of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem were involved in the study that looked at the objects found in the Eilat region in the 1990s.

The group of objects is associated with rituals or ceremonies and comprises predominantly dozens of fragments of clay globular rattles, mostly similar to table tennis balls, containing small stones, that sound when the rattle was shaken. There were 2 miniature votive incense altars found, a small figurine of a naked woman or a goddess with raised hands, a characteristic feature of deities or priests; a few other figurines, and crystal pebbles.

The examination of the clay used for the ceramic objects has shown that they came from Egypt.

This is the first time that such a large assemblage of ritual objects of this kind has been found, and it is even more unique at a temporary site and not a permanent settlement.

The magical objects were found next to the Pilgrimage Road (Darb al-Hajj, in Arabic) that led from Cairo, crossed the Sinai Peninsula, and continued in the region of Eilat to the town of Aqaba, and then crossed the Arabian Peninsula on the way to Hajj in Mecca and Medina. This route was in use from the first centuries after the rise of Islam, from the 7th century to the 19th century.

“The spot of these artifacts next to the camping site, and the comparison of the artifacts to those known in the Muslim world, as well as the fact that these artifacts were found together as a group, lead to the understanding that they were used in magical rituals,” the researchers announce, adding:

“The artifacts were found broken, and they may even have been purposely broken in the ceremonies. It seems that these rituals were carried out at the site by one or several people who specialized in popular magical ceremonies. From the literary sources, we know that there was a demand for magical rituals among people from different strands of society. Such rituals were carried out daily alongside the formal religious rituals—including in the Muslim world—and it is probable that the pilgrims making their way to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were no exception,” they add.

The Darb el-Haj road will be part of tourism and educational activities in Israel showing how cultures past lived their lives in the Holy Land.

The post Magic and Islam appeared first on Green Prophet.

From desert to a thriving, green land. It’s nothing short of a miracle, you might say. But this miracle was born of hard work, and a vision. 

Al Baydha is an area in western Saudi Arabia, about 20 miles south of Mecca.  It comprises nine villages inside of roughly 600 miles, and its inhabitants are Beduin tribes, who in centennial nomadic tradition, used to move across the land with the rainfall.  This, and other traditional land management methods used in the Arabian Peninsula, allowed the land to stay green for pasture; essential for the animals which are the basis for Beduin economy. But in the 1950s, those traditional systems were abolished.

The Beduin were obliged by law to settle in one area, a change that caused overgrazing and the gradual disappearance of native pasture.  The community was obliged to buy barley and hay for feed. To meet expenses, they chopped trees down for sale as charcoal.  Soon, the once-fertile land was nothing but rocky desert.

Wells had to be dug further down to reach water, as the scant seasonal rains, with nothing to contain the water on the land, made flash floods that rolled away to the Red Sea instead of seeping into the soil to replenish reserves. 

In 2019, Saudi Princesses Haifa al Faisal and Nouf bint Fahd visited Al Baydah and witnessed the inhabitant’s poverty-stricken lives. They initiated a development project with the aim of restoring sustainable agriculture to  the area.

A prototype 100-acre area became the Al Baydha project, headed by  Standford University permaculturist Neil Spackman (below) and Harvard University bioethicist and futurist Mona Hamdy. Spackman said in an interview on the Planetary Regeneration Podcast:

“Across the whole of Middle East, there’s an indigenous management system called EMA, which essentially means ‘protected land.’ This system pre-dates Islam so it’s functioning for at least 2,000 years. It was a tribal management system that may change the fertility of the landscape.

These were largely abolished in the 1950s across the Fertile Crescent and in the Arabian Peninsula. Because of that change in management, the tribal boundaries especially were eradicated. You’ve had a free for all on grazing such that, wherever it rains in the Mecca region for instance, when it rains in Al Bayda we get people from 250, 300 miles away, bringing all of their animals to graze on that land. As soon as the grass is gone, they are out of there. “

Spackman lived among the inhabitants of Al Baydha from 2010 to 2018, gaining their trust and willingness to cooperate in the regeneration project.  Building rock terraces and check dams, and opening swales (wide, shallow ditches) in the land, the project’s first stages succeeded in harvesting rainwater.

Packman and Hamdy used the ancient water-conservation methods of ancient Incans and Nabateans to contain seasonal floods and train the water to flow as useful streams.

In 2012, the project moved to planting drought-resistant trees.  By 2015, Packman and the Beduin planted ten species of trees, 4000 in all. Most ultimately didn’t survive, but enough did to give reasonable hope for a green landscape providing foraging for bees and animals, windbreak, seeds from which to extract oil, charcoal, and soil improvement through fixing of nitrogen. 

Construction of project headquarters, a bat cave (for valuable guano) and a pigeon house taught the residents skills for building a housing complex later. The Beduin are skilled in making cheese, and there are hopes for establishing a commercial dairy in Al Baydha.

The project had its risks. Packman was working on ideas and theories, getting experience on the ground.  And in 2016, funds stopped. To save costs, Packman stopped the drip irrigation that was nurturing the trees. They began to die off. Although the locals begged him to bring water in, he refused, considering that if the project didn’t survive the climate, it had been wrong from the start. Almost two years of drought followed, and it seemed that the project was going to dry up.

But in late 2018 and in 2019, rain fell again, and the landscape sprouted new life. Photographs and YouTube videos show the startling contrast between the arid, desolate land before the project started, and the rich savannah that now covers the flood plain. Mountainside terraces are lush and green.  Drip irrigation was never re-established, for the water shepherded and reserved is sufficient.

Plants now thriving in Al Baydha include fruit and nut trees, vines, culinary and medicinal herbs, ground cover, grasses, clumping plants such as ginger and turmeric, and tree and shrub cash crops such as frankincense and moringa. The Al Baydha project is a proven success. Now it remains to use this project as a template for regeneration in other desert areas.

The implications of the Al Baydah project are enormous. The low-tech methods used there can regenerate Saudi Arabia’s coastal plane, which shares Al Baydah’s characteristic mountains, wadis under the mountains, and flood areas sloping down to the coast. Instead of losing 90% of winter rainwater to the Red Sea in floods, that water can be used to regenerate life in the desert. Agricultural production can return, creating jobs and improving the economy of any region.  

“In sharing the story of the Al Baydha project,” says Spackman, “I hope that millions of people are inspired and thousands of projects launched to develop regenerative systems.

The Al Baydha project, to date, only encompasses a very small watershed in a forgotten corner of Saudi Arabia. But it is also living proof of what people can do when they work with each and with nature and look to the past practices of terrace farming. It’s a testament to the potential of regenerative agriculture, and a template of reforestation of millions of hectares of desert landscape, in the Arabian Peninsula, and beyond.”

The post Al Baydha Regenerative farming in Saudi Arabia appeared first on Green Prophet.

As news of the Covid-19 virus broke this year one of the first dramatic headlines was that hajj was cancelled. Hajj, an annual and often just once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage Muslims make to Mecca in Saudi Arabia was cancelled over fears of coronavirus spread.

Hajj has fielded viruses before but was not immune to the MERS virus and the H1N1 avian flu, that most of us believed would spare us. This year was the first time in 90 years that hajj was effectively cancelled to foreign pilgrims. Normally 2.5 million people come every year.

But now the Saudi Arabian government, which has faced one of the most devastating impacts of Covid-19 in the Middle East, with more than 250,000 infections and nearly 3,000 deaths, has renewed its support for the life-defining pilgrimage by allowing people from 160 different nationalities already residing in Saudi Arabia, to complete the journey, safely and with social distancing measures in mind, reports the New York Times.

“The hajj is one of Islam’s most important and profound requirements, performed once in a lifetime. It follows a route the Prophet Muhammad walked nearly 1,400 years ago and is believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

“The hajj, both physically and spiritually demanding, is intended to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims. But rather than standing and praying shoulder-to-shoulder in a sea of people from different walks of life, pilgrims this year are social distancing — standing apart and moving in small groups of 20 to limit exposure and the potential transmission of the coronavirus.”

The Saudi Government, which is not an elected government but overseen by King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, will welcome pilgrims to hajj which starts today Wednesday July 29. They will already let up to 10,000 people already living in the kingdom for the pilgrimage to complete the mission, and will provide for them meals, hotels, transportation and healthcare.

No kissing the kaaba!

Al Jazeera gives an update on how those already in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to perform hajj. Here is an excerpt:

Pilgrims will be tested for the new coronavirus before arriving in the holy city of Mecca and will be required to quarantine at home after the ritual. Wearing face masks at all times will be mandatory for pilgrims and organisers.

Touching or kissing the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam, will be banned during Hajj this year, and a physical distancing space of 1.5 metres (five feet) between each pilgrim during the rituals – including mass prayers and while in the Kaaba circling area – will be imposed, according to a statement by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.

Congregational prayers are permitted, but worshippers are required to wear face masks and to maintain physical distancing. Also, access to holy sites at Mina, Muzdalifah, and Mount Arafat will be limited to those with Hajj permits until August 2.

The post No kissing the kaaba at this year’s hajj appeared first on Green Prophet.

The annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca known as Hajj has officially begun. Just search #hajj or #hajj2014 and you’ll see proof on social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook in the form of posted updates and photos.

Pilgrims themselves have been contributing to this broadcasting, sometimes with selfies (see here for some good ones and ones featured here), yet many Islamic scholars and clerics are not too happy about it.

Condemning such behavior as “touristy” and calling it “humble-bragging,” they claim that it is muddying understanding of the Hajj and the experience thereof.

Related: How to prepare for a healthy hajj pilgrimage

For an event that is based upon sincerity – to oneself and to one’s God – uploading photos to personal profile pages online and coming up with a dozen hashtags with which to label each of them do not quite seem right.

One sheikh reported to have seen pilgrims raise their hands in a posture of supplication when they are ready for the picture-taking, and dropping their hands immediately after. Just as people often pretend to be a certain way on social media, are pilgrims pretending to be devout when they take these selfies?

The Hajj is a time for meditation and concentration, with the goal in heart and mind to become closer to God. If pilgrims know that Allah seeks their concentrated worship for the week’s duration, then why are they inclined to share their time with another power that we like to call the Web?

Indeed, it is easy to get “caught up” in activities on the web. It seems unlikely that one can really live “in the moment” when the urge to document and upload selfie media is present. I myself have this problem constantly when I’m traveling. (Do I find my camera and take this breathtaking picture of the sunset now, or do I not? Should I just hold still and enjoy it?) Taking a selfie photo or video cannot freeze time, but it can interrupt it.

I am guessing that the majority of the selfies are taken with smartphones, which itself I think presents a problem. You have probably heard someone you know talk about feeling “lost” without his or her phone.

Technology like social media represents connection with the outside world, whereas spirituality requires deeper internal reflection. During the Hajj, pilgrims can “find” a feeling of security and of being at home in the grace and goodness of God alone.

Until just a few years ago, camera phones were not allowed inside the holy mosques at Mecca during the Hajj, although of course they were sneaked in by some pilgrims. Security is said to have since become more lax with the restriction. Hence, the selfie posts have multiplied.

As a non-Muslim, I have not made the pilgrimage to Mecca, so I have no Hajj photography history to speak of. However, imagining myself now as a pilgrim, I would probably want to take pictures, some with myself included in the frame, to preserve the beauty and significance of the event for my memory and, yes, perhaps to share with family and friends. Remember, for many Muslims, the journey is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Furthermore, snapping a pic can take mere seconds, especially if uploading to social media sites, with all the bells and whistles of captioning and hashtagging, does not occur. People have different concentration levels; a pilgrim may be completely justified in taking a photo if it is at a time when it will not disrupt his prayer and it seems that he will not be distracting others.

Additionally, some pilgrims who are in favor of taking Hajj selfies have raised the point that sharing those photos and videos on social media expresses Islam in a positive light. Instead of sending a message of terror or extremism in the context of Islam, pilgrimage photos can portray the peace and serenity that the age-old religious tradition – and pillar of faith – represents. In such a photo, non-Muslims may see a foreign land but their Muslim friend’s familiar face at the forefront, making the Hajj and Islam overall more relatable.

So, what do you think? Is taking selfies during the Hajj perfectly acceptable, as it can be chalked up to “a sign of the times,” or do you agree with the critics who call it deplorable? Maybe it depends on the circumstances. Feel free to share your thoughts below!

Image #4 above is most retweeted selfie photo from Hajj 2014 on Twitter

The post Hajj selfie fever rocks the Kaabah in Mecca – but is humble bragging holy? appeared first on Green Prophet.

As of 4 October, according to the World Health Organization (also known as the WHO), laboratories in the region had confirmed 136 cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), including 58 deaths since April 2012.

Most cases and deaths have been in Saudi Arabia, where two million Muslims are expected to converge in mid-October for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Madinah.

The virus is seen as a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which swept through Asia in 2002-3, killing over 700 people.

MERS-CoV can cause breathing difficulties, diarrhoea, kidney failure, and in extreme cases, death.

Saudi Arabia’s Health Minister Abdullah Al Rabia says his country is ready for an outbreak, but stressed that he was confident there would be no problem, given there were no recorded cases during either July’s Umrah pilgrimage or last year’s Hajj.

The country, which has had 120 cases and 49 deaths since September 2012, has assigned two laboratories for MERS-CoV-specific testing. It will also use existing health surveillance points at borders (set up to ensure pilgrims are vaccinated against Meningococcal Meningitis and Yellow Fever) to be on the look-out for cases.

Health authorities around the Middle East, many of whom already send large health support teams to the Hajj, will also be raising awareness of the virus among pilgrims, with a focus on reminding people what they should do if they return from Saudi Arabia and feel unwell.

The risks of MERS-CoV transmission were discussed at length during a week-long meeting of the International Mass Gathering Medicine Conference held last month in Saudi Arabia, home to the Global Center for Mass Gathering Medicine run by the Saudi government.

Over 1,000 health officials from WHO, the US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and various governments from around the world attended the event, which focused on MERS-CoV.

One of the difficulties with the virus is that the early symptoms can be easily confused with the common cold. Unless doctors are specifically screening for the virus, it can be hard to pick up.

Another challenge is that despite more than one year of research, scientists remain unsure about the source of the virus and how it is transmitted.

“Until we have a definitive source of infection, it is hard to give targeted advice,” explained Richard Brown, a medical doctor and regional adviser for communicable disease surveillance and epidemiology for WHO’s South East Asia Regional Office.

Brown, who is also focal point for WHO’s International Health Regulations, told IRIN: “There is an assumption that the source is animals, and we have seen some very interesting studies about bats and camels, but if they are a possible source of infection, we don’t really know how it’s getting from those animals to humans, or whether perhaps even these animals are being infected from yet another, undiscovered source.”

He added: “People need to be careful in a very generic way, such as ensuring good hand hygiene. We would normally tell people to avoid very crowded situations, but obviously in this case, with the Hajj, that is unrealistic.”

Anthony Mounts, a medical doctor and technical lead for the MERS-CoV response with WHO in Geneva, stressed the importance of global awareness about MERS-CoV, not just among countries in the Middle East, or those sending pilgrims to the Hajj.

“The Hajj could possibly be an issue, but actually there are pilgrims that go to sites in Saudi Arabia all through the year. When you look back at our data, we have not seen cases emanating from these people,” he explained.

Global threat?

“However”, he added, “the concern extends beyond the countries in the immediate region. If you look at the way people travel in the region, in particular the workforce, they come from a lot of poor countries, from places like Pakistan, India and the Philippines, all of which are places which don’t perhaps have the best infrastructure to respond to a virus or even to detect it.”

Experts find some comfort in two things: the pace of the disease has not accelerated, nor has the disease mutated.

“Although we have seen human to human transmissions occur in healthcare facilities, between patients, from patients to doctors, among healthcare staff and close family members, we haven’t yet seen that third or fourth level of community transmission,” Mounts said, meaning when the disease is spread more randomly among strangers.

“There have been quite a lot of investigations looking for this [community transmission], they just haven’t found it yet. What’s more, the clusters that we have seen seem to extinguish themselves with relatively modest interventions, which was not the case with SARS.”

The post MERS Risk and Hajj – How to Prepare for a Healthy Pilgrammage appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia’s government has confirmed that it will develop and build a $640 million solar power plant in the holy city of Mecca. It continues the country’s recent talks of bolstering its clean energy sector and with the holy pilgrimage of Hajj beginning, the government believes this is the best time to announce the massive project.

More importantly, however, the announcement of the solar power plant, one of the largest in the Middle East North Africa region, comes as numerous reports, including one from Citibank, have said the country could become a net importer of oil by 2030, making it difficult to meet the energy needs of the population.

Instead of sitting on their hands and waiting, Riyadh is moving forward on clean energy, and the Mecca power plan will have a capacity of 100 megawatts, Saudi economy newspaper Eqtisadiah reported. The office of Mecca’s Mayor Osama bin Fadl al-Bar told Green Prophet that the solar station “will save the city at least $550 million off its electricity bill every year.

“This is a great project and we are very proud that Mecca is going to be pushing a cleaner energy bill that promotes environmental awareness,” the mayor’s office added.

The mayor himself told Al-Eqtisadiah that “the project will be established on an area of about 2m sqm. About 20 international consortiums consisting of about 100 companies will compete for the execution of the project.”

In line with Saudi’s push toward clean energy, the city will be accepting bids for the tender in the first week of next year. Overall, the Saudi government hopes to create some 10 percent of its annual energy needs by 2017 through solar and wind power projects.

According to al-Eqtisadiah, the move into cleaner energy sources could save the Kingdom some 8 million barrels of oil daily.

AHMAD FAIZAL YAHYA / Shutterstock.com

The post Holy Mecca Will Be Saudi’s First Solar City appeared first on Green Prophet.