I was ten years old when the Saudi radio broadcasted news about the seizure of the Holy Mosque by dozens of armed men led by Juhayman al-Otaibi. The radio said that these men had announced the coming of the Mahdi who would fill the earth with justice and end all the evils that dominated the face of the earth. In my hometown of Buraidah, the government quickly started to deploy armed security forces in neighbourhood alleys and the main streets. People started whispering inside their homes and with their friends. They talked about how Juhayman had used his black magic to make the demons of the underworld help him in his escape during the siege. They gossiped on how he transformed himself into different shapes: sometimes turning into an insect, and at other times turning into a spider to climbe walls, or turning into a beetle. Security men were tired of chasing him and even when they finally cuffed his hands and feet, he supposedly would have managed to uncuff himself and flee. But he was finally captured after God almighty disabled his magic. While the Saudi television showed a video clip of Juhayman in shackles and lying on a bed, I did not left my mothers' side. I was afraid and terrified by what I saw. The sight of Juhayman was engraved in my mind for many years. His face still haunts me in my dreams and causes me to panic and fear. For me, Juhayman has become a source of intimidation; a scarecrow that some mothers use to control their children if they became disobedient, did not do their homework, or did not go to sleep early.
Before the siege ended, the identity of the dozens of perpetrators who seized the Holy Mosque - the Muslim World's largest mosque – was known to the police. They were God-fearing and devoted religious people. Most of them were Saudi citizens who came from known tribes and families. The others were Arab Muslims. That is why the people hated and despised them. Society came to be suspicious and fearful of religious people. Every bearded man wearing a short dress had lived a difficult time. He faced enormous pressure at home, in his neighbourhood, and at his work. Security forces were in a state of full alert, monitoring every movement, counting every breath, arresting anyone they found suspect. Months later, I was playing with the other boys in the market when a car stopped outside the house of the Imam of our neighbourhood mosque. A man in his late thirties with a long beard wearing a short dress stepped out of the car. We exchanged looks and whispered to one another: perhaps he is one of them. At that time, many religious people were clean-shaven, either out of fear or in obedience to the wishes of their parents. Others abandoned the manifestations of devoutness that distinguished them from other people. Parents became really worried when they saw their children showing signs of religiousness. Some affluent families sent their children to study abroad. They wanted to protect them from being affected by such ideas.
Given their resulting weakness, members of the "God Trusting Group" became the subject of mockery and derision. Across the Kingdom, people were calling them "Mohamed Luqafa" or "Mohammed the nosy-parker" who meddles in matters that does not concern him. At the height of antagonism, we, the young ones, were also infected with this hostility. If a car carrying one of the "God Trusting" members or one of their representatives passed in front of us, we would shout at them, curse them, and joke about their clothes and wide pants. Some of the girls refused to marry bearded guys. Mothers and girls were convinced that marrying one of those men would be nothing but a tale of continuous grief that only ended when they were dead and buried.
In the 1950's, a U.S. diplomat who lived in Riyadh wrote in his memoirs: "The new generation of Saudis have distanced themselves from religion. They are no longer committed to fulfilling their religious duties and prayers". Before the seizure of the Holy Mosque people held a certain maxim that said: The more a man becomes religious, the more he grows feeble- minded and stupid. This was a bit surprising in a Whabist religious society that was just emerging from a period of religious awakening and ideological resurrection that lasted for two decades until the end of the 1920's. The Holy Mosque incident was a historic opportunity to reshape society by reconciling intellectual modernity with Islam, and to dry up the springs of extremism. Liberal social behaviour and the ensuing tolerance that has flourished since the 1960's together with the dissipation of the influence of religious scholars and militants was further boosted by the events of the Holy Mosque. The moment was ripe for an intellectual openness that would speed and deepen the spontaneous religious retreat.
In the three years following the tragic incident we were like clay in the hands of a sculptor. So what happened? Unlike what was expected, it seemed that a kind of religious resurrection started to emerge. The calculations of decision makers turned out to be totally wrong. Big attempts were made at the end of the 1960's and 1980's to Islamize the Saudi society. These attempts were led by the Muslim Brotherhood. They took control of public education and universities at the time when orthodox religious scholars were failing to understand the remarkable transformation that the country was going through. This transformation was done under the leadership of King Faisal. The turtles had already laid their eggs and the seeds had already been planted. And, when the impact of Juhayman's incident was gone and his movement was dissolved, those eggs hatched and the crops were ready to be harvested. Since 1984 Saudis have been living the story of the Islamic awakening.
For nearly nine years, it was forbidden to mention the name of Juhayman. But at the end of the 1980's things changed. One of my friends announced that he was proud to be called "Abu Juhayman" (the father of Juhayman). Since 1989, Juhayman's ideas started to emerge once again. His letters were reprinted in Pakistan and smuggled from Yemen and Kuwait. In 1990 I argued with some friends about Juhayman and his group. Some of us were looking for excuses to what he did. We were clearly changing our perceptions of his ideas. In 1996 the Saudis overcame their weakness and started looking into their wound. One Saudi researcher wrote in the Al-Riyadh newspaper about the dissention of the Holy Mosque and Juhayman al-Otaibi. After two decades of disregard and deliberate inattentiveness, Juhayman became an inspiration for al Qaeda fighters.
Columnist and researcher
on political Islam.
