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Lead book review

Mecca: from shrine to shopping mall

A review of Ziauddin Sardar’s Mecca argues that Islam’s most sacred city has been desecrated irrevocably by the Saudis

6 December 2014

9:00 AM

6 December 2014

9:00 AM

Mecca: The Sacred City Ziauddin Sardar

Bloom, pp.448, £25, ISBN: 9781408809204

Mecca is the greatest paradox of the Islamic world. Home to the Kaaba, a pagan-era cube of black granite said to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, it is the lodestar to which 1.6 billion Muslims direct their five daily prayers. Mecca is the single point on the planet around which Muslims revolve — quite literally for those able to perform the once gruelling, now simply expensive, pilgrimage or haj.

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