MLO Knitting

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda by Yaroslav Trovimov, narrated by Todd McLaren, is one of those books that opens up the reader’s eyes to a reality that may not have been realized earlier. Both the author and narrator are excellent.

In 1979, the USA was embarrassed by the capture of the US Embassy in Tehran by revolutionary forces serving Ayatollah Khomeini. In those days, the US held to the House of Saud as a stable influence in the Middle East – showing a typical lack of historical context in understanding any area of the world. (The USA is horribly undereducated at all levels to understand foreign affairs and their ramifications.)

The Sauds, in an attempt to consolidate their religious authority invested in the power of Wahabi Islam – a sect of Sunni Islam that is ultra-conservative. The Sauds ignored warning signs that there was a growing apocalyptic cult within the group led by a young Muslim student known as Juhayman.

Juhayman believed he was the Mahdi – the rescuer of Islam who will come to defeat all the infidels, including apostate Muslims. Muslims are not all equal under the Wahabi philosophy. Anyone who does not practice as they say is apostate.

As the Mahdi, Juhayman believed it was his duty to take over the holiest site within Islam -the Grand Mosque in Mecca. This is a place that pilgrims from all over the Moslem world come to pray as part of the pillars of Islam. Juhayman believe that since only God was authorized to defend the Mosque, none could stand against him. He would be able to show the corruption of the House of Saud and return Islam to its pure form. Or, at least, the form that Wahabis wanted it to take.

Because no one would believe that someone would ever attack this most holy of sites within Islam, none believed Juhayman and his men would actually attempt such a thing despite leaders such as Bin Baz (premiere mullah within Saudi Arabia at the time) hearing rumblings of such plans. Bin Baz had actually intervened to keep some of these young men out of jail. They easily took the Grand Mosque and held it for days on end.

The attempts to quietly end the siege were met with Saudi troops dying due to being met by superior fighters – including African-American converts to Islam that had joined Juhayman. Few outside of Saudi America knew what was happening because not only had they blacked out all news, the House of Saud did not inform any of their allies. (They were then surprised and angered that the USA let cat out of the bag!) Reading the tactics used made US Civil War tactics look good and intelligent!

After much loss of life, and giving the founders of Al-Qaeda everything they could want to grow into the franchise they are today, the House of Saud called in elite French troops to help them counter the siege successfully.

The afterword to this book lists every major player in Al-Qaeda today due to their involvement with the Siege of Mecca. To understand Al-Qaeda and how we got to where we are today, this book is necessary. Everyone needs to read this book!

I do have one nitpick with this book. It is clear the author blames Jimmy Carter for the situation the USA finds itself in today. The reality is that the situation has much older and varied causes than just this event. There have been a host of continuous events throughout the history of the Middle East that has made it a breeding ground for the worst kinds of extremism. There are too many people fighting over too little arable land in the Middle East.