.
I was watching the movie “The Illusionist” last night, a nice movie that stars Edward Norton, when it reminded me of things that invokes mystery. There is this small old building interior near the commercial center of Ballad on the other side of the lake in Red Sea Palace Hotel, and exactly at the rear side of the AlAzhar Hotel in Madinah road which always mystify me.
It’s been there for a long long time, in fact since I came to this country it was already there, untouched and no matter how much developments are taking place around the vicinity, the old edifice remains to be unscathed, left to it’s own device.
What’s in there? What’s this old structure? Does it have any history? It baffles me that there are so much new buildings going on around it but that piece of ancient structure remains there as is.
A local friend had given me the puzzle when I was not really noticing it before. As far as I could remember he once told me this dubiously perplexing story that several attempts were done to ravage the old structure in order to build a new building there, but he said everytime someone attempts to tear it down, trouble comes to the person who’s about to do it. Disturbing, right?
While he was telling me the story, though I don’t really subscribe to the idea, still it’s giving me the creeps, sounds like there’s an omen or sumthin’ really bizarre about this ruin ….hmmm… weird.
Then someone said that it used to be a place of worship, most probably Christian or analogous to that, during the time that Jeddah was still a very small town and most of activities are centered in Makkah.
Exactly similar story was given to me by another friend. But would I believe it? Not really, though eerily interesting.
For me at least, it looks like an old house, it has several windows so am presupposing that it maybe a residence of a prominent traditional family in the distant past?
And my skepticism actually were fortified by the latest story I’ve heard from another local acquaintance I’ve met recently.
This is his version, which is more viable for me. He said, it’s a very old building during the Ottoman rule and they cannot tear it down because there’s a legal entity who claims ownership to the structure and the land where it stands.
That explains the architectural style of the edifice. So there goes… Unless there’s another story that comes up, am holding on to the recent adaptation as a feasible story.
Unless someone else have got an alternative.
Anyone?
.
