Preservation of Islamic Urban Heritage to Enhance the Users’ Expection in the Holy City of Makkah

Abstract

Enhancing the Urban Heritage of the urban environment to suit religion-tourism and users' expectations and return the cityscape to Islamic urban planning and design is one strategy to improve public space in the Holy City of Makkah, and it is one goal of the Saudi 2030 Vision. This paper aims to offer historical context for the foundation of the holy city, highlight key moments in the city’s urban fabric revolution chronology up to the present day, and outline plans for the city’s future growth. This will be achieved by looking through the literature on the history of the Urban Development of the HCOM. Also, this paper used descriptive methods to examine the City’s Urban fabric evolution over the last century. The findings light how the “Sharia” Islamic norms, both permitted and forbidden activities inside Makkah’s limits, impacted the city’s urban fabric. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the rules of designing public space and highlights the sustaining Islamic Urban Heritage.