An article in The Economist, talking about China's business relations with Saudi Arabia, mentions that the new Mashair railway (also known as the Mecca Metro) was built by the Chinese.

The dual-track railway, which links Mecca with the holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat, opened in time to ferry pilgrims for this year's hajj.

But hang on a minute. Isn't Mecca out of bounds for non-Muslims? So how did the Chinese do it?

Easy, says The Economist. "China simply converted hundreds of railway workers to Islam."

Wondering if this could be true, I dug around a bit on the internet and, sure enough, I found a report from Gulf News dated 27 September 2009 and headed: "Over 600 Chinese nationals working in Saudi embrace Islam".

According to Gulf News, the workers were given "books introducing Islam in Chinese language at their worksite at Arafat, which is outside the haram area''. Within 24 hours, hey presto! They had all apparently seen the light and converted to Islam en masse at a ceremony witnessed by Abdul Aziz al-Khudairi, undersecretary for the Mecca governorate.

Dr Abdul Aziz jubilantly described the conversions as a "direct response to critics of the government for contracting [a] Chinese company".

Clearly, miracles do happen in Saudi Arabia. Especially when contracts worth billions of dollars are at stake.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 14 Dec 2010.