Makkah part II: What's going on in the sacred mosque?

People are wondering What's all the work going on inside and around the sacred mosque .Others don't even know there is something going on in the sacred mosque ,the dearest spot on earth to the heart of every Muslim. Maaany many buildings around the haram have been demolished leaving a vast empty area . Huge cranes working all day , a whole new four story Mas'a has been built (almost finished ) and people are performing sa'ay in it right now as you read. This post is mainly about the new extension project in the sacred mosque. Let's first see some photos and discuss the details of the project at the end

Click any photo to view in full size.

Work goes on day and night

This is how a demolished building looks like. Where did I see this before? lakomollah Ya ahla felasteen...

All this area was crowded with buildings.

You can see the two minarets at King Fahd gate, Dar al tawheed intercontinental and king Abdul Aziz Endowment project in the background.

The last three photos were taken from jabal-al-ka'ba street close to the Shamiya area where most of the extension will take place.

The New Mas'aa :

"Lo! (the mountains) As-Safa and Al-Marwah are among the indications of Allah. It is therefore no sin for him who is on pilgrimage to the House (of Allah) or visiteth it, to go around them (as the pagan custom is). And he who doeth good of his own accord, (for him) lo! Allah is Responsive, Aware." Quran[2:158]

To know more about Safa and Marwa hills and their significance in Islam follow this link

The distance between Safa and Marwah hills is about 450 meters, so that seven trips between them back and forth would cover 3.15 kilometers. The two hills and the path between them are now inside a long gallery that forms a part of the sacred mosque called "the Mas'aa".

The extension project of the holy mosque included building a new four story Mas'aa beside the old one. The Mas'aa is almost finished now and it's opened for people to perform sa'ay.

From the safa hill, the beginning of Sa'ay.

From the Marwa hill.

The new Mas'aa from outside at the Marwa. still not finished.

same spot as the pervious photo.

Moving back further

Demolition work in the area aroung the Mas'aa

How it's supposed to be at the end.

This is the haram before extension

Is this how the Haram will be after the extension project?. It's a whole city.However the new Mas'aa doesn't appear in this model I wonder why.The sacred mosque currently has nine minarets. eight of them are in pairs .In this photo, three more minarets are added. All the minarets are in pairs except for two of them. The Mas'aa is between those two single minarets.

Another model for the finished project.But this photo is much different from the previous one. Here you can see the new Mas'aa and there is only one minaret standing alone at the Safa mountain and two new huge minarets are added.I wonder which of the two models are they working on. In any case, it's something that every Muslim should be proud of.

for more details about the extension project follow this link

I still have more photos but enough for this post.