Fear that expansion of three of city's oldest mosques will also destroy key historic sites.
Three of the world's oldest mosques are about to be destroyed as Saudi Arabia embarks on a multibillion-dollar expansion of Islam's second holiest site.
Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried, will start once the annual Hajj pilgrimage ends next month. The development will turn the mosque into the world's largest building, with the capacity for 1.6 million worshippers.
Most of the expansion of Masjid an-Nabawi will take place to the west of the existing mosque, which holds the tombs of Islam's founder and two of his closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar. The Saudis have announced no plans to preserve or move the three mosques there, which have existed since the seventh century and are covered by Ottoman-era structures, or to commission archaeological digs before they are pulled down.
Dr Irfan al-Alawi of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation says: "There are ways they could expand which would either avoid or preserve the ancient Islamic sites but instead they want to knock it all down."
