It’s the world’s second-tallest tower, with a clockface visible 30 km away and searchlights shooting 10 km into the sky, featuring hotel suites costing up to $7,000 a night during the Hajj, all perched atop a massive high-end shopping mall and directly overlooking Islam’s holiest site. The Abraj al-Bait is the mammoth anchor of a slew of luxury slabs going up all over Mecca – towers for which the historic parts of the city are being razed.