for NUMBER_TOKEN billion muslims around the world there is nowhere more important than the great mosque and in particular the karma that it surrounds with the rapid expansion of islam and the ease of modern travel more people than ever can travel to the hello city of mecca and the great mosque now reflects this it has become a sprawling expanse capable of accommodating an extraordinary four million people at one time and while there may be a few large buildings you can bet that nothing larger than the great mosque ever accommodates numbers anywhere near that but who knows where things go from there saudi arabia seems determined to boost daniel hajj numbers to NUMBER_TOKEN million and considering this period accounts for just over a month it would be an unbelievable undertaking if they could pull it off and you shouldn't bet against them construction work around the great mosque has been manic for well over a decade right next to it now stands the abraj al bayt a group of seven skyscraper hotels that includes the third tallest building in the world the marker clock royal tower with a height of NUMBER_TOKEN meters that's NUMBER_TOKEN feet and a clock face that certainly gives it a bit of a big bend feel these glittering pillars of modernity were built exactly where an ottoman fort once stood if there was ever any doubt of saudi arabia's thirst for the contemporary over the historic the mosque and the immediate buildings around it recently ranked at the top most expensive buildings in the world with a quite extraordinary figure of a hundred billion dollars but it's far from finished from here the plan is to build even further north giving mecca's skyline more of a dubai-esque appearance this has now become some of the world's most expensive real estate with a NUMBER_TOKEN price tag per square feet of anything up to NUMBER_TOKEN thousand dollars to put that into perspective monaco was around four thousand dollars per square feet at the time what's clear is that in the coming decades the great mosque and the city that surrounds it will see some of the most dramatic changes anywhere on the planet the great mosque is one of those spectacular mega projects that unfortunately we can't all visit because only muslims can enter this particular holy site and yet it's one of those places that even just through images and video you can see why it pulls millions of people to it every single year so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching END_INTERACTION_TOKEN