A report on Grand Mosque seizure and Ikhwan
Juhayman's grandfather, Sultan bin Bajad al-Otaybi, had ridden with Ibn Saud in the early decades of the century, and other Otaibah family members were among foremost of the Ikhwan.
- Grand Mosque seizureInsurgents who participated in the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca referred to themselves as the 'al-Ikhwan', thus in their eyes justifying the seizure as a means to liberate the Kingdom from what they deemed as 'Western apostasy'.
- Ikhwan4 related topics with Alpha
House of Saud
3 linksRuling royal family of Saudi Arabia.
Ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia.
There have been numerous incidents, including the Wahhabi Ikhwan militia uprising during the reign of Ibn Saud.
On 20 November 1979, the Grand Mosque seizure saw the al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca violently seized by a group of 500 heavily armed and provisioned Saudi dissidents led by Juhayman al-Otaybi and Abdullah al-Qahtani, consisting mostly of members of the former Ikhwan militia of Otaibah but also of other peninsular Arabs and a few Egyptians enrolled in Islamic studies at the Islamic University of Madinah.
Saudi Arabia
2 linksCountry on the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia.
Country on the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia.
Ibn Saud gained the support of the Ikhwan, a tribal army inspired by Wahhabism and led by Faisal Al-Dawish, and which had grown quickly after its foundation in 1912.
The second event was the Grand Mosque Seizure in Mecca by Islamist extremists.
Wahhabism
2 linksSunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and activist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (c.
Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and activist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (c.
However, in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century several crises worked to erode Wahhabi "credibility" in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world – the November 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque by militants; the deployment of US troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq; and the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
As the realm of Wahhabism expanded under Ibn Saud into Shiite areas (al-Hasa, conquered in 1913) and Hejaz (conquered in 1924–25), radical factions amongst Wahhabis such as the Ikhwan pressed for forced conversion of Shia and an eradication of (what they saw as) idolatry.
Juhayman al-Otaybi
1 linksJuhayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Otaybi (جهيمان بن محمد بن سيف العتيبي; 16 September 1936 – 9 January 1980), was a Saudi terrorist and soldier who in 1979 led the seizure of the Great Mosque of Mecca, Saudi Arabia's holiest mosque, to protest against the Saudi monarchy.
Otaybi was born in al-Sajir, Al-Qassim Province, a settlement established by King Abdulaziz to house Ikhwan bedouin tribesmen who had fought for him.