Damian Thompson published a surprising short article in The Telegraph a few weeks ago about real estate developments in Mecca and in Medina: “The Saudis are bulldozing Islam’s heritage. Why the silence from the Muslim world?” According to Thompson, the Wahhabists who control Saudi Arabia are Puritanical iconoclasts busily destroying buildings and sites associated with Mohammed and his associates. The Saudis use their oil money to finance the construction of bleak mosques to replace the beautiful Ottoman ones that they demolish. However, there is no criticism from their fellows in the Ummah. Thompson contrasts the quiet acceptance of the Wahhabists’ destruction of Islamic patrimony with the hyperbolic hysteria over harmless Israeli archeaological activity in Jerusalem.