How bloody siege of Mecca Grand Mosque 45 years ago split Muslim world

“Fellow Muslims, we announce today the coming of the Mahdi… The one who shall reign with justice and fairness on earth after it has been filled with injustice and oppression… Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah are now in our hands,” an aide of preacher Juhayman al-Utaybi declared over the public-address system of the Grand Mosque in 1979, shocking thousands of pilgrims at Islam’s holiest place. That would be the beginning of an armed fight in Saudi Arabia that would drench the mosque and the city of Mecca in blood, and change the course of the history of the Muslim world.
That was November 20, 1979, and Islam’s holiest site, that houses the Kaaba, had been taken over by more than 200 armed militants. The weeks-long siege of the Grand Mosque, led by Juhayman, an anti-monarchy Islamist, would see gunbattle inside the mosque and in the holy city.
The Sunni kingdom and the House of Saud were shocked, hurt and, most importantly, left humiliated, to let this happen to the ‘House of Allah’, of which they believed to be the custodians.
No wonder Masjid al-Haram’s armed seige came to become a watershed moment for the Muslim world. It turned Saudi Arabia into a hardcore Sunni nation, creating a huge rift with post-revolution Iran. The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the same year as the seige of Mecca, turned a moderate Iran into a radical Shia country.
The creation of two radical power centres — a Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia — split the Muslim world in the middle.
It might seem like an uncanny coincidence, but the year 1979 brought seismic shifts across the Ummah. Pakistan took a sharp turn under Zia-ul-Haq’s rule. Afghanistan was plunged into war by the Soviet invasion. This came even as Iran saw a revolution and Saudi Arabia the siege of the Grand Mosque.
Before getting into the days of bloodshed in Mecca and the Grand Mosque, here’s a look at how the event, 45 years ago, still dictates events in the Middle East.
Following the siege, which marks 45 years next week, Saudi Arabia took a sharp turn to the right and embraced radical Sunni Islam.
The challenge to the authority of Saudi royals followed a bitter ideological, discreet and real war with Shia Iran across the Gulf. The decades-long conflict not only split the Muslim world but continues to impact the region and the wider world to this day.
The Saudi-Iran divide is also visible in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. While Iran has attacked Israel with drones and missiles, Saudi Arabia has smoked the peace pipe with the Jewish nation. The Shia-Sunni divide also came out in the open during the Syrian Civil War, the Yemeni Civil War and the Lebanese conflict.
While Iran remains a hardline Islamic country, Saudi Arabia, under King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seeing rapid social and economic reforms. This, in many ways, is connected to the siege of the Grand Mosque and weeks of bloodshed in 1979.
It was the first day of Muharram and the year 1400 in the Islamic calendar, November 20, 1979, when the siege began. To mark the important day, a sea of city-dwellers and foreign pilgrims made their way to the Grand Mosque.
“Hidden in this human sea were hundreds of grim-faced rebels, many of them sporting red checkered headdresses. Some had been inside the mosque for days, reconnoitring its maze of corridors and passageways. Others were bussed in during the night by a friendly religious academy. Yet others drove their own cars to Mecca this morning, arriving at the last minute and accompanied by children and wives to allay guards’ suspicions,” wrote Ukrainian author Yaroslav Trofimov in his book, The Siege of Mecca.
Leading the 200 militants was Juhayman al-Otaybi, the Saudi anti-monarchy Islamist who had a deep-seated hatred for the House of Saud and saw it as diluting the practise of Islam in the country.
Juhayman’s actions began just after the Fajr (dawn) prayer concluded. Weapons and grenades emerged from under the robes and the coffins that were brought to the Mosque to be blessed.

Juhayman served in the Saudi Arabian National Guard from 1955 to 1973. (AFP Image)

“Suddenly, gunshots. The sound shattered the peace, echoing across the courtyard. Another shot. Scared pigeons flew away. A man with a rifle was walking toward the Kaaba. Worshippers were stunned. Why a gun in such a sacred place? Even the guards carried only sticks. Violence was haram, forbidden, in the holy sanctuary,” wrote Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas in her book, Black Wave.
“The leader of the group then appeared, flanked by militants armed with rifles, pistols, and daggers,” added Ghattas.
The pilgrims were left scared, shocked and perplexed. The guards who tried to put up resistance were shot down. The mosque gates were chained and guarded, the seven minarets were protected by snipers and the armed men were in total control of the Mosque.
It was then Juhayman emerged as he and his men, heavily armed, marched toward the Kaaba and the Mosque’s imam to seize the microphone. Soon, “the coming of the Mahdi” was proclaimed.
Juhayman’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, was announced to be the Mahdi, the redeemer, who it is believed would arrive before Judgement Day. The Mahdi is a prophesied Islamic leader believed to appear to restore justice and guide people back to the true path of Islam.
“For the next hour, the Grand Mosque’s loudspeakers relayed the uprising’s shocking message to the world’s one billion Muslims, announcing that an ancient prophecy had been fulfilled at last and that the hour of final reckoning was being struck,” wrote Trofimov in The Siege of Mecca. “Thus began a drawn-out battle that would drench Mecca in blood, marking a watershed moment for the Islamic world and the West.”
The rebels made their demands clear. Cut ties with the West, stop oil exports, expel all foreigners, and remove the House of Saud and its clerics for failing to uphold Islam’s purity, according to Ghattas’ book, Black Wave.
The Saudi leadership’s reaction to the mosque’s seizure was slow.
Crown Prince Fahd was in Tunisia, and Prince Abdullah, head of the National Guard, was in Morocco. It fell to the ailing King Khaled and Defence Minister Prince Sultan to coordinate a response that would be befitting the sanctity of Masjid al-Haram.

A picture from the siege of 1979. Fumes above the Great Mosque can be seen. (AFP Image)

The initial Saudi push to break into the Mosque resulted in failure as more personnel were shot by the rebels who held positions of advantage.
The Saudi Arabian Army and Saudi Arabian National Guard were mobilised, helicopters hovered over the Grand Mosque, and artillery fire tried to knock down the snipers atop the minars. Even that did not yield any results.
Mecca city was evacuated and power supply to the Holy Mosque was cut as the fight intensified. The Saudi forces gained some advantages in a week.
Qahtani, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, was, however, shot and killed in the first week.
The killing of the “Mahdi” disheartened the militants, but they kept fighting like Juhayman, their leader.
Several hostages, seeing the Mahdi was dead, got the courage and managed to escape the mosque.
The rebel forces led by Juhayman had weakened by then.
The situation inside was grim with killings and food was scarce too, with dates running out.
“The smells surrounded us from the dead or the injuries that had rotted,” an anonymous trapped witness told the BBC.
The siege would continue for 14 days, and would only end with the French elite GIGN operatives and commandos joining the Saudi forces and efforts to end the siege. The Saudis turned to French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
“Juhayman ran out of ammunition and food in the last two days,” said Nasser al-Hozeimi, one of Juhayman’s followers, to the BBC. “They were gathered in a small room and the soldiers were throwing smoke bombs at them through a hole they made in the ceiling… That’s why they surrendered. Juhayman left and all of them followed.”
“The [French-GIGN] commandos pumped gas into the underground chambers, but perhaps because the rooms were so bafflingly interconnected, the gas failed and the resistance continued. With casualties climbing, Saudi forces drilled holes into the courtyard and dropped grenades into the rooms below, indiscriminately killing many hostages but driving the remaining rebels into more open areas where they could be picked off by sharpshooters,” writes American journalist Lawrence Wright in the book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
But with news of French help came the suspicion, the threat, of non-Muslims entering the Grand Mosque.
However, GIGN commanding officer Christian Prouteau later refused, stating that while GIGN commandos trained the Saudi forces and devised the attack plan, they did not participate in the action or set foot in the mosque.
Finally, after two weeks of siege, on December 4, the armed rebels were caught, and the hostages were freed. An official toll put the dead at 153 and 560 wounded.
A defeated Juhayman was brought before the cameras, and just over a month later, 63 rebels were executed publicly in eight cities across Saudi Arabia. Juhayman was the first to be executed, according to the BBC.

The rebels led by Juhayman al-Otaybi were arrested and executed. (AFP Image)

In the two decades before the siege, Saudi Arabia underwent rapid modernisation under the rule of King Faisal and his successors.
The discovery of vast oil reserves came as a boon. The kingdom turned wealthy. This newfound wealth funded infrastructure development, western education, but also brought Western influences, technological advancements, and shifts in lifestyles.
To many, the change was an eyesore. Conservative religious groups saw this as a dilution of Islamic values and a compromise of the purity of the Saudi Arabian religious foundation. The royal family had become corrupt, indulgent, and too cosy with the United States, they said.
Conservative groups sprang up in Medina, then spread across Saudi Arabia like a desert storm. Many chose to take up arms.
With a call for a return to a “pure” form of Islam, Juhayman al-Otaybi, the man who led the 1979 Grand Mosque siege, arrived in Mecca.
Juhayman was no ordinary preacher. From a tribe of fighters and known for his deep hatred of Saudi authority, Juhayman could lead the siege to topple the House of Sauds because he had worked as a National Guard corporal.
Through his fiery newsletters, he had gained a strong following among radical elements, drawing in those who shared his discontent.
“The world was twelve months away from the tumultuous events that would cover the mosque’s marble courtyard with blood, spilled guts, and severed limbs,” wrote Trofimov in The Siege of Mecca.
After ending the siege of Mecca, the Saudi authorities should have cracked down on the extremist elements. However, it did the exact opposite.
The Saudi Kingdom gave in to the radicals. Juhayman’s brutal brand of Islam was encouraged and nurtured as it spread since 1979.
Saudi Arabia banned photographs of women in newspapers. Women disappeared from television screens. Cinemas and music shops were shut. The school curriculum was overhauled, with more hours devoted to Islamic studies. Gender segregation extended everywhere and the religious police (just like in Iran) gained sweeping powers.
When Saudi Arabia could not house these radicals, they were safely sent to safe havens in the Af-Pak region. Peshawar became the hub of Saudi-Sunni madarsas, mosques and academies.
“Today, hordes of his spiritual heirs are busy blowing up aeroplanes, tourist hotels, and commuter trains on four continents, with self-satisfied smiles of true believers curling on their lips,” wrote Trofimov in The Siege of Mecca.
“The significance of the Mecca uprising was missed at the time, even by the sharpest observers. The West was preoccupied with too many other threats. The seizure of the Grand Mosque, the first large-scale operation by an international jihadi movement in modern times, was dismissed as a local incident, an anachronistic throwback to Arabia’s Bedouin past,” adds Trofimov.
The Grand Mosque siege of 1979 wasn’t just a local event. It set the stage for a new era of radicalism that would ripple across the world even today. It also divided the Muslim world and added to the crisis in the Middle East.