The Mecca Uprising: An Insider's Account of Salafism and Insurrection in Saudi Arabia

by David Commins (Editor), David Commins (Editor), Nasir al-Huzaimi (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2020

  $26.61

  On 20th November 1979, the Salafi Group, led by a charismatic figure named Juhaiman al-Utaibi, seized control of the Scared Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in the Muslim World. The Salafi Group was not trying to establish an Islamic state. Instead, its members believed they were players in a prophetic script about the End of Time. After a two-week siege, the Saudi government recaptured the mosque, threw the survivors into prison, and had them publicly executed. The Mecca Uprising had profound effects on Saudi Arabia and the Muslim World. To head off opposition from religious activists and to buttress the ruling family's legitimacy as the guardians of Islam, the government acted on two main fronts. First, by increasing funding for the country's religious establishment, and second, to curtail Western cultural influence. The Mecca Uprising offers an insider's account of the religious subculture that incubated the Mecca Uprising, written by a former member of the Salafi Group.