WATCH: Saudi-American Rapper’s Mecca-Themed Song Stirs Controversy

JAFFA, Israel – A newly released American rap song has launched a heated debate in Saudi Arabia’s media and social networks.

“Mecca is Our Right,” recorded by the Saudi-American singer Mohamed Qadi, has so far received 200,000 hits on YouTube, almost exclusively from young Saudis, and went viral on social media. Watch the video below:

According to Arab media, the reactions to Qadi’s song were mixed. Some believe that he makes an artistic statement on the status of Mecca, while others think that the song treats the holiest of places for Muslims with disrespect and contempt, and that the way the sanctity of the city is portrayed in the video is misplaced.

Qadi himself claims that his love for Mecca is what has led him to write and perform the song in the first place. “I wanted to bring the voices of Mecca’s residents to the whole world,” he said.

Meanwhile, the song continues to arouse online discussions with a number of twitterati blaming the influence of the “promiscuous” and “decadent” American culture for Qadi’s idea, that “tarnishes” the holiest city for Islam.

One Twitter user writes in Arabic: “To love Mecca means that you should fear Allah and follow what he ordered us to follow and abandon what he ordered us to abandon.”

حب مكة يتعلق بخوفك من الله واتباع ما امرنا به رسولنا المصطفى عليه افضل الصلاة والتسليم واجتناب ما نها عنه

حبها ليس بعمل غنائي منحط#مكة_حقنا

— فــــــارس حــــــرب (@ahm1ksa_1) November 27, 2015

Another wrote: “Islam is not proud of such a guy and of rap. His decadency brought him to explain Islam through singing and through desecrating Mecca’s soil with his song.”

الاسلام لا يفتخر بمثله وبالراب حقه وصل فيه الانحطاط لشرح الاسلام بالغناء ويدنس ارض مكة بعمله الغنائي 😡☝🏻️
#مكة_حقنا

— فــــــارس حــــــرب (@ahm1ksa_1) November 27, 2015

Yet another tweeted, “What strange times. Every idiot now has a voice and fans.”

https://twitter.com/00Gls/status/672534708861992960?s=03