"While we were one day sitting with the Messenger of Allah, there appeared before us a man dressed in extremely white clothes and with very black hair. No traces of journeying were visible on him, and none of us knew him. He sat down close by the Prophet rested his knees against the knees of the Prophet... He said, "Inform me about the Hour." He (the Prophet) said, "About that the one questioned knows no more than the questioner." So he said, "Well, inform me about its signs." He said, "They are that the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress and that you will see the barefooted ones, the naked, the destitute, the herdsmen of the sheep (competing with each other) in raising lofty buildings." Thereupon the man went off. I waited a while, and then he (the Prophet) said, "O `Umar, do you know who that questioner was?" I replied, "Allah and His Messenger know better." He said, "That was Jibril. He came to teach you your religion." "
40 Hadith Nawawi 2 The Hadith of Gabriel / Hadith Jibreel

Abraj Al-Bait Towers

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers, also known as the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, is a government-owned megatall building complex. The Abraj Al Bait Towers located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is said to be the biggest (not tallest) building in the world by mass, the tallest building in Saudi Arabia and one of the tallest buildings in the world, surpassing the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia which held the title as world's tallest building between 1998 and 2003.

Constructed, at a cost of two billion dollars, by the Binladin Group, the Abraj Al Bait Towers is most notable for its prime location. The site of the structure is across the street from the entrance to the Masjid al Haram, which houses the Kabaa, the holiest site in Islam and the building towards which all Muslims face during prayer.

In early 2002 King Fahd demolished an Ottoman fortress , a few hundred feet from the Abdul Aziz gate, that had been built in 1781 on Mt. Bulbul, one of the five hills that overlooked the Kaaba. The dilapidated fortress was a modest presence that blended in with its natural surroundings. Its destruction soured relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. M. Istemihan Talay, then the Turkish minister of culture, described it as “no different from the pulling down of the Buddha monuments in Afghanistan.”

Bait in Arabic means house, in reference to Kabaa. As a result, the Abraj Al Bait Towers has a large prayer room capable of holding nearly four thousand worshippers. It contains a five-star hotel to help accommodate the over two million pilgrims who participate in hajj each year. In addition, the Abraj Al Bait Towers has a four-story shopping mall and a parking garage capable of holding over eight hundred vehicles. Residential towers l house permanent residents while two heliports and a conference center accommodate business travellers. In total, up to 65,000 people would be housed inside the Towers. The Al Bait Towers rose to a towering 485 m when completed.

Located adjacent to the Masjid Al Haram, Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower, boasts a prime location as the closest hotel to Kaaba and yet the best for Umrah and Hajj. Standing as one of the world’s tallest buildings with 76 floors, Makkah Clock Royal Tower, the focal point of the Abraj Al Bait Complex, part of the King Abdul Aziz Endowment Project, is the iconic symbol of hospitality in the Holy City.

It truly dwarfs the original site (which is quite large in its own right. It is a construction project full of superlatives: the world's largest tower clock in Mecca, the Holy City of Islam. The building at the center of the sacred site breaks over 30 world records; its giant clock face is 43 meters in size, the minute hand measures 23 meters in length and the clock drives weigh 21 tons apiece.

The main building is topped by a 93 m (305 ft.) spire with 23 m (75 ft.) high golden crescent at the top. The spire has the black observation pod at the bottom which contains a lunar gallery, a control tower and the main observation deck. The crescent was constructed in Dubai by Premier Composite Technology in April 2011. The crescent is made of fiberglass-backed mosaic gold, and it weighs up to 35 tones. Peugeot Joseph, the company official, said a team of five engineers and a hundred workers carried out the project, which cost 90 million United Arab Emirates dirham, and it took three months to build it.

The developers describe it as a gift from King Abdullah to the world, reflecting “his conviction of the importance of establishing Makkah Time as an international time reference.”