History and the tawaf of change

The religious beliefs and practices of worship that stand almost entirely unchanged amid the constantly and rapidly changing physical fabric of the sacred lands present, at first glance, an interesting contradictory picture.

Indeed, the urban fabric of Mecca and Medina is changing rapidly. The structure of the mosques, too, grows and expands so much from one year to the next that visitors notice it at once. The expanding mosques in fact gain this space by eroding the "historic urban heritage" that today's world values so highly. Almost nothing remains today of the Mecca in which our Prophet lived. For almost the entire area of the city has been annexed to the Masjid al-Haram. When those who visit Mecca wish also to make a historical journey here, there is no historical monument worth mentioning to greet them apart from the Kaaba. The memory of the Ajyad Fortress, demolished recently, remains a small detail before the whole Meccan silhouette that is vanishing before your eyes. Even the colossal Zamzam Hotel built in place of this fortress is given a lifespan of 20 years at most. Of the Abu Qubays hill, where the Meccan polytheists gathered during the Farewell Pilgrimage to watch the Muslims performing the sa'y, nothing remains today on the side facing the Kaaba; in its place stands a huge palace. The cemetery where, as the story is told in the Holy Qur'an, the polytheists buried their girl children alive, and which had been preserved until recently, has also vanished amid the works expanding the Kaaba. The change in Mecca affects not only the historical-human geography but also the natural geography. The hills around the Kaaba, which is surrounded by high hills, are disappearing one by one. In mountainous Mecca, an artificial plain has been created using all the possibilities of technology.

A similar situation applies to Medina. Almost the whole of the Medina of the Prophet's time falls within the boundaries of today's Masjid an-Nabawi. Consequently, you cannot find much in Medina today in the name of history.

When you see the crowds of both Mosques during the Hajj and the Ramadan Umrah days, you cannot help thinking differently about sensitivity to history. Here, in place of sensibilities such as history or nostalgia, one feels the reign of a sensibility far more realistic than history and far more honest than nostalgia: the actually living sunnah. Wherever the world is heading, and from whatever world of meaning and culture those who come here originate, the scripture-based tradition taught, narrated and transmitted here through the ages draws everything into its own time and its own world of meaning and evaluates it there. As if nothing worth mentioning had happened after the Prophet. Even what happened after him is again referred to that same time and settled in the debates within that time.

The extraordinary reality of the Two Holy Mosques, which encompasses everything and gives everything meaning, tells like a dazzling truth the transience of everything that belongs to humans and who it is that actually endures. In Mecca, let alone the historical traces left by many peoples who have come and gone through history, even the traces of the Prophet's biography are gradually fading, yet all the change lived through the ages, including today's technological spectacles, constantly revolves around this single reality. It is as if this change too, going round and round, joins the circumambulation around the Kaaba. History circumambulates the House, change does, technology does…

The only truth this circumambulation, in which history too takes part, proclaims is: "Everything that exists in the world is transient; what remains is the existence of your Lord, the sole owner of power and generosity."

Undoubtedly this view of history does not arise only from the pressure of an excessive population forced by the growing demand for worship. The Salafi understanding prevailing in Arabia also does not resist at all history's demand to join this circumambulation; on the contrary, it immediately facilitates it. Because history here is seen not as reduced to embodied structures that must be fetishized, but as a subject that reminds of principles and provides a lesson.

We find a way to visit Badr. Our aim is only to see the place where a historical event took place, to open a window onto history. The place where this first battle of Islamic history took place is a spot in the middle of the desert, 120 km south of Medina. Those who stop at Badr are not welcomed warmly at all, because it is assumed that those who come here come only to attribute sanctity to the graves of the 14 martyrs lying here, and measures are taken against me with a sharp reaction.

The attendant at the entrance of the martyrs' cemetery recalls the hadith whose gist is "No journey is to be undertaken with the intention of veneration to any place other than the three mosques," and explains that he absolutely cannot let us linger around here. It is of no use to explain to him that our intention is certainly not veneration, but that he should not think this much historical curiosity excessive. When we get a chance to deepen the conversation a little more, he explains to us that coming all the way here to understand Badr is unnecessary, and that the best way to understand Badr is to read the Qur'an and the books of the sira. Everything we need to take a lesson from there is sufficiently available, he says, and anything beyond that is superfluous. We content ourselves with having seen the area and having taken part in such a conversation.

On the way back, one of our traveling companions makes a calculation of how such a place, if it were in Turkey's hands, could be exploited to attract the world's tourists. Knowing that in Arabia the religious domain is at least far from such calculations, that the whole calculation is focused on maintaining a sunnah thought to conform to the essence of religion, and thus witnessing the ways Allah follows in protecting His own religion and the House, leaves us further amazed.