I was first reminded of this particular 14-day-long “Takeover in Mecca of 1979” some months ago as I thumbed through a dated copy of Sandra Mackey’s SAUDIS: INSIDE THE DESERT KINGDOM.
Unlike Trofimov, Mackey had been living in Saudi Arabia at the time. In Mackey’s book I had read for the first time that Shias (even Iran’s Khomeini) had had no role at all in the misguided Sunni millenialist takeover of Mecca. Mackey tried to pinpoint the source of discontent leading to calls to overthrow the Saudi Kingdom’s leadership as coming from several sources, including the Ikwahn movement of the 1920s.
In fact, Juhayman was a second or third generation of the groups, known as Ikwahn in Islamic and Saudi history, who were the last Arabians in the desert kingdom to take a stand against the House of Saud in the 1920s. The Ikhwan had claimed even 8 decades ago that the founder of modern Saudi Arabia was no longer loyal to the Wahabi (Safeerist) ideals and beliefs that had enabled him to capture Mecca and Medina a decade earlier.
These Ikhwan had been avid Shia haters and saw them as infidels and soon called the King of Saudi Arabia such an infidel. However, by 1927 the Ikhwan revolt had been put down.
Trofimov, however, has spent many more years than any other writer searching specifically after the events and personages involved in the 1979 siege of Mecca than did Mackey. Trofimov traveled over several years to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, other Muslim lands, Britain, the USA, and France in order to undertake this important work.
As this subject itself remains very sensitive in the Saudi Kingdom, where no books nor textbooks on the subject are permitted, it is quite amazing that this former Wall Street journalist, Trofimov, was able to do so many interviews and gain access to so many documents there.
Trofimov’s cites many important source notes in the back of his book, and his claim that he cannot cite certain sources due to the fears they may have for their lives or careers appears to be valid.
However, occasionally Trofimov does go too far and makes a claim that is too vague, such as at the end of the last chapter when he claims a fairly direct link between writings and activities of later follower of Juhayman and the 1995 bombing in a Riyadhi National Guard building. In that particular case, Trofimov simply fails to cite who the immediate link was. Normally (i.e. in other parts of his writings) Trofimov at least provides a pseudonym of the bomber in Riyadh or the name of the source who claimed the bomber to be of an avid reader of Juhayman’s writings.
Aside from such sophomoric shortfalls, Trofimov’s work is over-all sound,and his conclusions and observations from a historical perspective are outstanding.
For example, unlike many Western scholars and journalists before him, Trofimov not once makes the mistake of equating the takeover of Mecca with the events in the same November 1979 in Iran, where the U.S. Embassy was taken over by students under the spell of radical Shiasm under Ayatollah Khomeini. This distinction makes Trofimov stand out from many neo-liberal and neo-conservative writers who ignored this key point for decades.
As well, Trofimov does a wonderful job of discussing the strong rising anti-Americanism in both the Arab and Islamic worlds in 1979—i.e. in the period leading up to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which-in-turn led to many Arabs and Islamacists turning away temporarily from using America as the whipping boy of radical nationalism in favore of taking on the other Great Satan: Communist Soviet Union. Trofimov reminds us, for example of the forgotten attacks on U.S. embassies in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Libya—all in November 1979. The takeover in Pakistan and in Libya are described in great detail.
This sort of writing is much more helpful than many post-Cold War writings which failed to raise the issue of Islamic sensitivies to growing U.S. expansion into the Gulf.
BLAMING THE USA FOR THE TAKEOVER OF MECCA???By looking at the takeover or attack of 6 U.S. embassies in South Asia and the Middle East in November 1979, Trofimov’s narration makes a sound basis for the Carter Administration’s horror that the Saudi regime failed to come forward with the truth about Mecca on November 20, 1979. That is, it took nearly a week for the Saudi government and the religious Ulema to let the Islamic world know that neither the USA nor Iran had had anything to do with the Saudi homegrown dissent and millenialist disorder which led to the takeover of the Mecca Kaba, the Hajj pilgrimage destination of all Muslims worldwide.
Moreover, the subsequent Kingdom lies and manipulation of news (after the fact of Mecca’s Siege) through its media, its ministries, and official historians in the 1980s led many in the Islamic world to believe the claim that the rebellion in Mecca under Juhayman had been small and that fears of a misguided Islamic extremist takeover were simply misguided. Furthermore, Saudi regimes continued to blame Shias for many of the land’s regions ill—i.e.without taking the bull by its horns and taking on homegrown extremism in its Sunni heartland which was fostered by Ulema leaders, like Abdeliz Bin Baz.
Meanwhile, Bin Baz and many Saudi ministerial leaders were allowed to stay in office in 1979--right through this very decade & with never suffering any repercussions for failures to stem Wahabi or Juhaymen extremism over recent decades.
AFTERMATH OF SEIGE OF MECCAIn short, most of the Islamic world never really appreciated that Juhayman almost toppled the Saudi Regime in 1979. I have talked with two Egyptian brigadier generals in recent years who have noted how illusive it has been to gather facts about the Meccan takeover since 1979. For example, almost no one was informed at the time that there was any connection between the Ikhwan of the 1920s and the movement that raised its head in the Saudi Kingdom a half century later.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
