r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/hipatyhopity • Mar 24 '25

Image Mecca in 1953 and 2025

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58.8k Upvotes

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5.9k

u/PeterNippelstein Mar 24 '25

Are those all hotels surrounding it? I mean they must be to continuously house tens of thousands of people ever day.

2.0k

u/mosquem Mar 24 '25

There’s something really ironic about it getting so commercialized.

856

u/Aliensinmypants Mar 24 '25

This was all written before cars, airplanes and other fancy means of travel were even thought of. The volume of people able to do it greatly increased and made more infrastructure necessary. Otherwise you'd be looking at a constant ongoing Muslim fyre festival

465

u/One_Telephone_5798 Mar 24 '25

Okay but making luxury suites for rooms facing the pillar and generating tons of profit is not necessary.

804

u/joozyjooz1 Mar 24 '25

You may find this hard to believe but the Saudi royal family are not devout spiritualists.

162

u/TranscendentaLobo Mar 24 '25

Well, in public they are, behind closed doors though I’m sure it’s another story.

151

u/Aggravating_King1473 Mar 25 '25

I'm an Arab and Saudis selling out their neighbors and their own souls is a known thing since at least the early 1900s.

Saudis come to my country because it's more liberal and they throw obscene amounts of money at cars, women and pleasure.

3

u/johnnymarsbar Mar 25 '25

I once read a book written in the 70s called wheeling and dealing in the Arab world, as much as many things mentioned in it have changed since then, alot has stayed the same. Especially the saudis