Siege of Makkah Part1

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. Part 1 was written on the 21st of November, 2007 and thus the first part is to be taken under that context:

"Siege of Makkah" by a dear friend:


Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of the siege of Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah that caused congregational prayers to be inturrepted for the first time in Islamic history. From November 20, 1979--the first day of the first month of year 1400 AH--until December 5, 1979 the Sacred Masjid remained locked with hundreds of pilgrims trapped inside along with some 200 militants. This is the incident that led to the loss of many hundred people and destroyed large portions of the Sacred Masjid. But you will be hard pressed to find many who know much about what happened.

Most of us were not even born yet, but reading about those days I can't imagine what it must have been like.

A revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah and brought in Islamists in early February that year.

On February 17, China invaded Vietnam.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in Washington in March that year, drawing strong condemnation from around the Muslim world. Egypt subsequently got kicked out of the Arab League.

The North and South Yemen were on the verge of war in March of 1979 that was only prevented by Arab League intervention.

On April 11, Tanzanian troops invade and take over the Ugandan capital as Idi Ameen flees and takes refuge in Saudi Arabia.

In July 400 Iranian pilgrims were killed in Makkah after clashes with Saudi forces during the month of Ramadan.

In September of 1979 the prime minister of Afghanistan was killed in a palace shootout--a link in the chain of events that led to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 24, 1979.

On November 4, the infamous Iranian hostage crisis began. A number of U.S. embassy employees were held hostage until January of 1981.

And then, on November 20--first of Muharram of the new hijri century--some 200 mostly Saudi militants take over Masjid Al-Haram after the fajr prayers. The brought in weapons in coffins, stored ammunition in the basement and declared that mehdi is among them.

The next day, New York Times said on its front pages that Makkah Mosque was taken hostage by Iranian militants. In Pakistan and rest of the Muslim world, the American-Zionist lobby was blamed and the American embassy in Islamabad was set burnt down. Protesting for the sanctity of the Sacred Masjid, the students from Qauid-e-Azam University poured gasoline on an American embassy worker and watched him burn. A few days later, the American embassy in Libya met a similar fate.

And though the U.S. and Israel, or Iran for that matter, had nothing to do with the incident, many in still believe that they were to blame. And in blaming those who we don't like, we forgot who was really behind this incident, what were their reasons, and most importantly, why should we know about the incident that has been a taboo for history books all around the Muslim world.

I searched for the details on this incident for years until I found the first ever fact based account of it a few days ago. And now that I found it, I would like to share it with others I know.

TO BE CONTINUED