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ISBN: 9789694025322
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Price: $5.89 / Rs495.00
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Hardback
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MECCA KA MUHASIRA
Tarikh-e-Islam ka aik Sabaq Amoz Saneha jisy jald Faraamosh kar diya gia
by Yaroslav Trofimov, Translated by Akmal Aleemi
Publication Date: 2009
Extent: 292 pages
The Book:
Yaroslav Trofimov's The Siege of Mecca (Doubleday, 2007), focusing on a largely forgotten incident in 1979, is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of al Qaeda and the roots of the massive Saudi investment in worldwide jihadist "education" over the last three decades.
At best Westerners who remember the incident will know that the Grand Mosque in Mecca, including the Kaaba, Islam's holy of holies, the ancient cube at the center of its courtyard, was seized by a band of Islamic fanatics who held off Saudi forces for two weeks. After hundreds of deaths, the Saudis were forced to ask for assistance from French commandos. The chief culprits were executed, lesser ones imprisoned and the Saudis resumed life as before. A bizarre incident, but end of story.
On the contrary, Trofimov shows that the end was actually the beginning—the beginning of the onslaught of global jihad.
The zealots who seized the mosque were led by Juhayman al Uteybi, a Bedouin, a former minor member of the Saudi National Guard. Juhayman obtained a small following through his writings denouncing the "liberalization" and "modernization" of Saudi society (e.g. shopping malls, soap operas, working women) and the corruption of Saudi rulers, disporting themselves on the coast of France and Spain out of reach of Wahhabi rules. In hopes of igniting the Moslem world, Juhayman brought in tow a 23 year old named Mohammed Abdullah, whom he "crowned" at the kaaba as the Mahdi, the promised redeemer who will assume command of the Moslem world and establish the ideal society after an apocalyptic battle with the forces of evil. (Ahmadinejad is currently promoting the Mahdi's imminent appearance in connection with his own hoped-for apocalyptic showdown with Israel.)
In regaining the Grand Mosque, the Saudi princes had a problem on their hands. The Koran and hadith specifically said that no fighting could be conducted in the sacred precincts. Their Islamic credentials under challenge by those who had seized the mosque, Saudi leaders had at all costs to bolster their Islamic legitimacy. And so, to obtain the fatwa that would bless a military assault, they summoned the 30 senior members of the Saudi Ulema Council, who used their upper hand to drive a hard bargain. Trofimov writes: "As some Saudi princes described it later, the ulema essentially asked al Saud to adopt Juhayman's agenda in exchange for their help in getting rid of Juhayman himself." That included such "reforms" as a crackdown on the employment of women and a freer hand for the goons from the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice. But by far the most important demand in terms of its impact on the West was that there be a giant outpouring of Saudi petrodollars to fund both Islamic universities in Riyadh and Medina and missionary organizations to spread Wahhabi doctrines throughout the world.
And so, while the Saudis might behead Juhayman, his ideology would fill the heads of a generation of jihadists. Trofimov notes that "it was only after decades of this indoctrination produced a new generation of al Qaeda radicals that some senior princes realized the extent of the folly." It would be Juhayman's ideological heirs who would rock Saudi Arabia with a wave of bombings and killings. Indeed several of Juhayman's direct accomplices, after a period in jail, joined al Qaeda in the late 1980s: one of them, Muhammad Amir Sulayman Saqr wound up in Afghanistan working closely with bin Laden sidekick Ayman al Zawahiri as al Qaeda's prized document forger, facilitating terrorist travel.
To this reader, one of the most satisfying features of this book is its exposure of the morally repugnant behavior of this country's moral-preener-in-chief, Jimmy Carter. The Saudis had imposed an information blackout on the seizure of Mecca and in the confusion, rumors flew.
Unsurprisingly, in Pakistan, the Moslem "street", psyched up by media and imams, believed Islam's most holy site had been invaded by Americans and "Zionists." The Americans were confused themselves: 1979 was the year Khomeini assumed control of Iran and shortly before the Mecca takeover, the American embassy in Teheran had been seized. Initially the Carter administration was convinced Khomeini must be behind the events in Saudi Arabia and to bolster American allies sent the USS Kitty Hawk and five other ships into the Persian Gulf. For the Pakistanis this was simply further evidence of U.S. responsibility for the seizure of the Great Mosque.
The Author:
Yaroslav Trofimov is an award-winning author and journalist. He has been a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal since 1999, covering the Middle East, Africa and, recently South and Southeast Asia.
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