Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca

10 July 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Abraj Al Bait Towers © King Eliot/cc-by-sa-3.0

Abraj Al Bait Towers © King Eliot/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Abraj Al-Bait is a government-owned megatall complex of seven skyscraper hotels in Mecca. These towers are a part of the King Abdulaziz Endowment Project that strives to modernize the city in catering to its pilgrims. The central hotel tower, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower, A Fairmont Hotel, has the world’s largest clock face and is the third tallest building and fourth tallest freestanding structure in the world. The building complex is metres away from the world’s largest mosque and Islam‘s most sacred site, the Masjid al-Haram.   read more…

Theme Week Abu Dhabi – Al Ain

8 May 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  8 minutes

Oasis of Green Mubazarrah © Shahinmusthafa Shahin Olakara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Oasis of Green Mubazarrah © Shahinmusthafa Shahin Olakara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Al Ain (literally The Spring), also known as the Garden City of The Gulf given the many oases, parks, tree-lined avenues and decorative roundabouts within the city. Strict height controls on new buildings, to no more than four floors, emphasise the greenery of the city, is the second largest city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the fourth largest city in the United Arab Emirates. With a population of 650,000 (2013), it is located approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) east of the capital Abu Dhabi and about 120 kilometres (75 mi) south of Dubai. Al-Ain is the birthplace of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder of the United Arab Emirates, and has the highest proportion of Emirati nationals (30.8%). Al-Ain is located in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, inland on the border with Oman. Jebel Hafeet (Hafeet mountain) is considered one of the monuments of Al-Ain, lying just to the southeast and rising to 1,300 m in elevation. Sand dunes of varying texture that are tinged red with iron oxide lie to the north and east of Al-Ain. The freeways connecting Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai form a geographic triangle in the country, each city being roughly 130 kilometres (81 mi) from the other two. The cultural sites of Al Ain (Hafit, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases Areas) are UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2011.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Medina

29 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  14 minutes

Al-Masjid al-Nabawi - Mosque of the Prophet © Aymanzaid2/cc-by-sa-4.0

Al-Masjid al-Nabawi – Mosque of the Prophet © Aymanzaid2/cc-by-sa-4.0

Medina, also transliterated as Madīnah, is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also the capital of the Al Madinah Region. The city contains al-Masjid an-Nabawi (“the Prophet’s Mosque”), which is the burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and is the second-holiest city in Islam after Mecca. Medina was Muhammad’s destination after his Hijrah from Mecca, and became the capital of a rapidly increasing Muslim Empire, first under Muhammad’s leadership, and then under the first four Rashidun caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. It served as the power base of Islam in its first century where the early Muslim community developed. Medina is home to the three oldest mosques, namely the Quba Mosque, al-Masjid an-Nabawi, and Masjid al-Qiblatayn (“the mosque of the two qiblas“). Muslims believe that the chronologically final surahs of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad in Medina, and are called Medinan surahs in contrast to the earlier Meccan surahs. Similar to Mecca, non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the sacred core of Medina (but not the entire city) or the city centre by the national government. Today, Medina (“Madinah” officially in Saudi documents), in addition to being the second most important Islamic pilgrimage destination after Mecca, is an important regional capital of the western Saudi Arabian province of Al Madinah. In addition to the sacred core of the old city, which is off limits to non-Muslims, Medina is a modern, multi-ethnic city inhabited by Saudi Arabs and an increasing number of Muslim and non-Muslim expatriate workers: other Arab nationalities (Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, etc.), South Asians (Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, etc.), and Filipinos.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Jeddah

28 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Jeddah Montage © MrJoker07/cc-by-sa-4.0

Jeddah Montage © MrJoker07/cc-by-sa-4.0

Jeddah is a city in the Hijaz Tihamah region on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. With a population currently at 4.2 million people, Jeddah is an important commercial hub in Saudi Arabia. Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca, Islam‘s holiest city, which able-bodied Muslims are required to visit at least once in their lifetime. It is also a gateway to Medina, the second holiest place in Islam. Historically, Jeddah has been well known for its legendary money changers. The largest of said money changers at the time (the late Sheikh Salem Bin Mahfouz) eventually founded Saudi Arabia’s first bank, the National Commercial Bank (NCB).   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Ta’if

27 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Historic Shubra Palace © Mmasudtu/cc-by-sa-4.0

Historic Shubra Palace © Mmasudtu/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ta’if is a city in Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia at an elevation of 1,879 m (6,165 ft) on the slopes of Sarawat Mountains (Al-Sarawat Mountains). It has a population of 1,200,000 people and is the unofficial summer capital. The city is the center of an agricultural area known for its grapes, pomegranate, figs, roses and honey. Ta’if was still little more than a medieval city when the Saudis took control of it. However, they later embarked on a project of modernizing the city. Saudi Arabia’s first public power generator was set up in Ta’if in the late 1940s. In terms of building roads to the isolated city, in 1965 the then King Faisal inaugurated the 54 mi (87 km) mountain highway between Mecca and Ta’if, and in 1974 the 400 mile Ta’if-AbhaJizan highway was started. By the 1991 Gulf War, Ta’if was such a modern city in terms of communications that it was chosen as the site of the Rendon Group‘s television and radio network, which used to feed the news to Kuwait during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Hofuf

26 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Al Hasa Oasis © Shijan Kaakkara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Al Hasa Oasis © Shijan Kaakkara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Al-Hofuf is the major urban center in the Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is also very well known for being one of the largest date producers in the world, and for its old souks and palaces. Historically, Hofuf made textiles out of wool, silk, and cotton. The town was also renowned for its fruit of the date palm, the Arabs considering the khalasi variety of dates, grown in Hofuf, as also the fardh variety of Oman, among the best. As of 1920, the city was known for making coffee pots from silver and brass.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Dammam

25 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

Dammam street market © flickr.com - edward musiak/cc-by-sa-2.0

Dammam street market © flickr.com – edward musiak/cc-by-sa-2.0

Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province, plus several government departments, are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province, and the sixth largest in Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Taif. Like the other 12 regional capitals of Saudi Arabia, Dammam is not included within any governorate; instead, it is governed as a “municipality” headed by a mayor. The origins of the name “Dammam” are disputed. Some say that it is onomatopoeic and was given to the area because of a drum positioned in a nearby keep, which was sounded (in a pattern called “damdamah”) to alert the residents of returning fishermen’s ships. Others say that the name comes from the Arabic word “dawwama” (whirlpool), which indicated a nearby sea site that dhows usually had to avoid.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia

24 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  19 minutes

Medina - Al-Masjid al-Nabawi - The Mosque of the Prophet © flickr.com - Omar Chatriwala/cc-by-2.0

Medina – Al-Masjid al-Nabawi – The Mosque of the Prophet © flickr.com – Omar Chatriwala/cc-by-2.0

Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab sovereign state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the fifth-largest state in Asia and second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert or barren landforms. The state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The state’s official language is Arabic. English is however widely used, even on street signs. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia (‘Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called “the predominant feature of Saudi culture”, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called “the Land of the Two Holy Mosques” in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. Mecca and Medina are however completely blocked for non-Muslims. A violation of this rule will lead to penalties and deportation.   read more…

The World in Dubai

15 March 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Dubai Reading Time:  10 minutes

© NASA

© NASA

The World or The World Islands is an artificial archipelago of various small islands constructed in the rough shape of a world map, located in the waters of the Persian Gulf, 4.0 kilometres (2.5 mi) off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The World islands are composed mainly of sand dredged from Dubai’s shallow coastal waters, and are one of several artificial island developments in Dubai. The World’s developer is Nakheel Properties, and the project was originally conceived by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.   read more…

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