Imam Luqman Ahmad Mosque Without Borders

THE 1979 SIEGE OF THE HOLY KA’BAH IN MECCA, REFLECTIONS OF A MEMORY.

In forty-five years, I never talked much about the 1979 siege, and bombardment of the Ka’bah in Mecca, not even to my family, or my children, most of whom are grown now. In fact, I never told anyone this full story ever. I only discussed it with other brothers who were there at the time, or were indirect participants one way or another. The last time I spoke of this event had to be 35 years ago or more.

There is only one person still alive that I keep in touch with, who was in Mecca with me at the time of the Siege of the Ka’bah. He’s on Facebook. I tagged him in this post, and I’m sure he will read this but I won’t mention his name, unless he wants me to.

But recently I have been thinking about the siege of the Ka’bah in 1979 and the impact that it had on me. It was an ordeal that I lived through, although it didn’t seem like an ordeal at the time. It seemed more of an adventure.

I was living in Mecca at the time, a student , at King Abdul-Aziz University, now called Umm al-Qura University, and a student at the haram of Mecca as well, where the Ka’bah stood.

As young students of knowledge, we preferred the circles of knowledge at the Haram over our classes at the University. Our teachers at the university used to sometimes chide us and say ظلموكم! [They wronged you!], talking about the quality of Islamic education we were getting at Umm al-Qura, then, King Abdul-Aziz University. Many of them considered it below standard especially since some of the Shuyookh at Umm al-Qura at the time were Azharian scholars who went to al-Azhar during the Ottoman period. I had a teacher in hadith at Umm al-Qura, his name was Shaykh bin Humayd. We would study one hadith a week in his hadith class. He said that when he attended al-Azhar University at the turn of the century, they would have to memorize 12 ahaadeeth by Thuhr time (noon). I had another Shaykh, Sayyid Saabiq, also a traditional Azharian scholar, who held the same sentiment. He was the one who held the most lasting impression on me.

So the crowd I hung with who were mainly Egyptians, used to supplement our education at the University with the halqaat (circles) of knowledge at the Haram, where they taught the traditional way, the same way they had for centuries. I remember how hurt I was when during the siege, no one was allowed to go near the Ka’bah.

I had a neighbor on the mountain, a Saudi named Suleiman al-Hazmi, he was like my best friend, our wives were friends, we were both students at Umm al-Qura. I think he’s a Shaykh in Mecca now. Allah knows best. To pass the time we started memorizing Buloogh al-Maraam, a book of fiqh by hadith. In later years, I used to teach classes from that book as primary text.

The 1979 siege of the Ka’bah began when Juhayman al-Otaybi, a 43-year-old former Saudi National Guard corporal and radical preacher from the Otaibah tribe, whose grandfather fought alongside Ibn Saud, took about 500 of his followers and stormed the Ka’bah after Salatul Fajr.

It just so happened that I did not go to the Haram for Fajr that morning, I only lived about 4 minutes away once I got to my car. I lived on a mountain, and my car was parked at the bottom of the mountain. We didn’t even lock our cars or even take our keys back then in Mecca. I prayed at home that morning and I could hear the athaan of the Haram from my house. It was just a regular day. It was a Tuesday.

Then I heard someone talking from the microphone at the Ka’bah, I didn’t make out what what they were saying , but it was different. I didn’t think anything of it
However, word got back to neighborhood and the mountain that something was amiss at the Haram al-Mecci, the Sacred House! If wasn’t until my father in law, Shaykh Ali Mu’allif Umar came over our house not too long after and explained to my wife and I what was going on, that I had an incline to what was happening at Baitullah.

I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t worried, I wasn’t excited, I wasn’t sad, I was just there, but my senses were heightened. I knew that whatever was going to happen, I was in Mecca, and there were 70,000 angels that visited the haram every day, Allah is God, and I was ready. I was 20 years old at the time.

He denounced the Al Saud dynasty from the microphone of the Haram, as corrupt, Westernized, and un-Islamic, advocating for a return to “pure” Wahhabi (now called Salafi) Islam, abolition of technology like TV, and expulsion of non-Muslims . From before the siege there were people from their group in our neighborhood in Mecca, they would preach about wahhabism, and try to attract adherents.

I heard that they had training camps where they were studying, I was invited but I wasn’t interested at all. I wasn’t interested in no secret knowledge, never have been. My Shaykh and mentor, Shaykh Ali, warned me to stay away from them, so I did, and there was something about them that didn’t seem right anyway. They’d walk right up to you and ask you where is Allah? And start questioning you about aqeeda. I was never a fan of religious extremism, even as a child growing up Muslim in Philadelphia.

Anyway, Juhayman declared his brother-in-law, Muhammad al-Qahtani, as the awaited Mahdi that would return at the end of a century as mentioned in hadith. It just so happened that the year was 1400 AH/1979 CE. I remember the day when they took over the Haram. It was November 20th 1979.

I didn’t learn of the details of what happened until later. They had between 300–600 militants (including women and children) with them according to the news papers. Juhayman smuggled weapons and food, mainly dates, into the mosque over a period of weeks, hiding arms in coffins and underground chambers. It was reported that sympathetic Saudi National Guard members aided this operation .

At 5:30 AM during dawn (Fajr) prayers, militants chained the gates shut, killed two guards with concealed rifles, and seized the Grand Mosque’s microphone. Over 50,000–100,000 pilgrims were trapped inside .

Juhayman’s aide announced al-Qahtani as the Mahdi, demanding the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy and an end to Western influence. Snipers took positions on the mosque’s seven minarets, transforming the site into a fortress .

The attack caught the Muslim world by surprise Saudi police, armed only with batons, retreated at first. With Crown Prince Fahd in Tunisia and Prince Abdullah in Morocco, the ailing King Khalid and Defense Minister Prince Sultan assumed crisis management . The siege lasted two weeks, and we didn’t know if the man who took over the Ka’bah was the awaited Mahdi or not.

We decided to wait and see how it played out. According to hadith, they would flee Makkah to Madinah, soldiers in pursuit, and the ground would open up and swallow the soldiers. If that happened, we had a plan. Needless to say, that never happened.

The Saudi forces launched hasty attacks but were repelled by militants using the mosque’s intricate layout (galleries, minarets, underground tunnels). Rebels ambushed troops with carpets set ablaze for cover. Casualties mounted rapidly, there were still pilgrims in the haram. After a week of stalemate, Saudi Arabia sought French help. The GIGN (elite counterterrorism unit) provided training, tactical advice, and non-lethal tear gas to dislodge militants. Pakistani advisors also assisted in planning .

Saudi forces drilled holes into courtyards, dropped grenades into underground chambers, and used gas to flush out rebels. Al-Qahtani was killed early in the fighting, demoralizing the militants. Juhayman surrendered on December 4 after running out of food and ammunition . For two weeks we could hear jets overhead, explosions, and the occasional gunfire, but for some reason, the attainment of knowledge was business as usual.

The men and women who stormed the Ka’bah were not terrorists. They were not heathens. They were not corrupt, or debauched individuals. They were practicing Muslims who loved the religion of Islam. I had a neighbor, about 15 years old, I can’t remember his name. He was one of those who were beheaded when it was all over. He had such good character, he was beloved in our neighborhood, always helping people on the mountain, always in the masjid, always with a smile and friendly salaam.

There was another brother, he was from Philadelphia. In fact he was from Germantown, the area that I’m from. His name was Farooq Abdul-Rahmaan رحمه الله He was a Philly O.G. who was studying with his family in Mecca. He took me under his wing when I first came to Mecca because I was from his hood. He gave me my fist tafsir, the tafseer of ibn Kathir. It was three volumes, the abridged version, the covers of the volumes were red with gold lettering.

I remember his wife was a good cook, she was from Philly too. I used to go to their apartment all the time and eat and listen to the brothers. I was the youngest. The brothers used to fawn over me like I was a kid, and I was, compared to them, just a kid. They were impressed with me because I already spoke fluent Arabic when I came to Mecca.

A couple of nights before their assault on the Ka’bah, I was over his apartment, they were talking about something, they were mentioning the Mahdi and other things and the conversation got heated at times but it was clear they wanted to keep me out of the conversation. I left, I’m not sure who I left with. The conversation was above my head.

Brother Farooq had went to the Ka’bah for Salatul Fajr on the day of the assault as he normally does. I remember his apartment was walking distance to Bait al-Haram. If we were at his apartment and the salat came in, we would go to the Ka’bah. It was rumored that he was a part of the group that stormed the haram.

Farooq had a younger brother named Mikaal, he was there with us in Mecca, also from Philly. He was a med student in the U.S. and he left medical school to study Islam in Mecca. Eventually he went to the Haram to see about Farooq. As he got close, he encountered a wounded soldier. He began treating him as per his medical training, and got blood on his clothing. They saw him bloody and figured he was one of the combatants, and he was taken into custody.

It took six months of talks and negotiations between the state Department, the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, and the Saudi Government, to get him released. Sometimes I would ride with my father in law, who was taught computer science at Umm al-Qura, to the consulate in Jeddah on the matter, but I was kept out of it. I was just a kid really. Him, and brother Bilal Abdul-Aleem, another American brother, who also taught at the University were the main laisons for Mikaal’s release.

Mikaal stayed in the Kingdom long after I left. When he returned in the late eighties, we were very close. He died of mysterious circumstances in Philly about 1990. I’m not sure of the exact year. He was at my house in North Philly shortly before his death.

Years later Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cited 1979 as the year Saudi Arabia “derailed” into extremism, justifying his recent social reforms (e.g., allowing women to drive) as a return to pre-1979 moderation .

The Crown Prince was right because after that, the Saudis ditched the term ‘Wahhabi’ and started using the term Salafi, they doubled down on the Wahhabi/Salafi rhetoric, and they flooded the world with books, and tapes, and Salafi puritanical propaganda. Some of it sound, and other parts of it was not completely sound, and downright harmful to the people and their religion.

Salafi propaganda, for all the good it may have done, has inflicted generational damage upon the Black American Muslim convert community. That, and my experience of the seige is what prompted me to write the book ‘The Devil’s Deception of the Modern-day Salafi Sect’, because he certainly deceived them that day on November 20th, 1979. The book. Is available on Amazon by the way.

Every day Muslims are casualties to religious extremism every day in the America.

Imam Luqman Ahmad
Imamabulaith@yahoo.com

Taken from a book I have yet to write for my children, their children, and their children in sha Allah. May Allah give me tawfiq to finish it one day. Ameen.