Siege of Makkah - Part 5

Here I am presenting an episode of blogs written by a very dear friend of mine whom I will disclose later for various reasons which will become apparent as time progresses. This is a ten part article and will present each part as interest in it by the readers suggest so.Please note that this series of articles is neither to defame a religion, a country or a sect. It is merely a window into an already published work. The author of this article is a Canadian Muslim who has himself spent a decade living in Saudi Arabia as well. So whatever you read, first of all dont judge a book by its cover. Here is part 5:

Muharram 1, 1400 hijri was not as big a deal as January 1, 2000, but scores of Muslims made their way to Makkah anyways to see the dawn of the new hijri century from the Scared Masjid. Add to it the many hajis who had stayed behind, and there were well over 200,000 believers in the Scared Masjid at the time of fajr. If anyone was keeping count, they would have noticed that it wasn't just the number of believers that was unusually high; there were many more coffins than usual as well--most of which were full of death, not dead bodies. Given that there were some three dozen gates to the Sacred Masjid at the time, the militants were able to cover up the unusually high number of coffins by bringing a few in from every gate of the Sacred Masjid.

During the Fajr prayers, Juhayman stood just a few feet from Imam Subiel. As soon as the prayer finished, he stood up, took out his machine gun and fired in the air. Other followers around the Masjid fired similar shots to get attention. Surprisingly, this did not cause mass commotion that one would expect. If it was any other place, the 200,000 people would have made a run for the gates. But this was the Sacred Masjid--the grounds where any shedding blood is forbidden. No one expected anything violent would happen here. Many of the pilgrims, and even the locals, took it as some bizarre celebration of the new century. Some pilgrims thought that perhaps the King was coming to the Masjid and shots were fired to draw attention to His Majesty. His Majesty, however, was still in bed.

Juhayman made his way to Imam Subiel, who was getting ready to lead a funeral prayer over a coffin that did contain a dead body, and pushed him away from the microphone. He took the microphone and the declared that the promised messiah, Imam Mahdi, has arrived and is in the Masjid. He announced that the pledge of allegiance will be taken here, right next to the Ka'baa. Those who knew Arabic in the crowd were confused--those who did not understand the language were more confused by the appearance of Juhayman. His disheveled beard and long, dirty hair, with clothes that seemingly hadn't been changed in weeks were a stark contrast to the white robe and the elegant jubba of Imam Subiel.

Juhayman then passed on the microphone to the older brother of Muhammad al-Qahtani, who was known for his eloquence. Saeed narrated the many ahadith on the eventual advent of Mahdi, and recounted the many shortcomings of the illegitimate Saudi monarchy. As he was talking, Juhayman's band were closing and chaining up the doors to the Sacred Masjid.

The pilgrims were told that a pledge of allegiance will be taken for the Mahdi and that the Masjid is locked up to protect the Mahdi against the likely Saudi opposition. The pilgrims were told to cooperate and do as they were told. Among the followers of Juhayman were students from various countries, who started translating the commands in other languages.

Muhammad al-Qahtani was introduced to the pilgrims then, as Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Qurayshi. Juhayman pledged his allegiance first, followed by all of the militants one by one. Some people from among the pilgrims stood up to take the pledge willingly, others did it for the fear of their lives. They came up one by one and kissed the hands of the man they considered Mahdi. The significance of their action was, no doubt, very apparent to them and showed in their humility in front of the young man.

Soon, the pilgrims were given various orders. Some were told to leave the Masjid by climbing out of the windows. These were primarily non-Arabs who would have been a liability due to communication barriers. Others, the African pilgrims, were told to carry rolls of rugs and stack them up against the doors and to take ammunition up to the minarets where the snipers among the militants were taking positions. The Arabs were told to help militarily, or get locked up in the basement. Imam Subiel, on seeing this, took off his outer robe, tied his head scarf around his head in a turban, and made it out of the Masjid in a group a Indonesian pilgrims. Before he left, however, he called the Makkah police station to update them on the situation since the police inside the Masjid was armed in nothing more than batons.

An hour into the siege, the world outside the walls of the Masjid knew little of what was happening inside. Even after Imam Subiel's detailed explanation to the police station, no one imagined a siege involving over 200 militants. An hour later the police station sent a single patrol car to investigate the "trouble caused by a couple of people" at the Sacred Masjid. As the patrol car approached the Masjid, bullets rained from the minarets, killing the two officers inside. These were the second and the third casualty of the siege. The first one was the father-in-law of Muhammad al-Qahtani, who was killed moments earlier when a warning shot ricocheted off a pillar and killed him.

TO BE CONTINUED

A Video of Juhaymen: