Sacrilege in Mecca

Agony and hysteria as zealots seize the Sacred Mosque

It was as great a sacrilege to devout Muslims as an attack on Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre would be to Christians, or a profanation of the Wailing Wall would be to Orthodox Jews. Last week, a day before the beginning of the Islamic New Year, a mysterious band of Muslim fanatics seized the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, taking an unknown number of hostages. At week's end, the situation at the Sacred Mosque was unclear. Government officials in Riyadh said that Saudi armed forces, including the crack National Guard commanded by Prince Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, were in "complete control" of the mosque. Other sources, however, suggested that some of the invaders were holding out.

News of the incident set off a wave of anger and hysteria throughout the Muslim world. There were outrageous rumors, later spread by no less a figure than Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, that the U.S. and Israel were behind the attack. Enraged mobs from Turkey to Bangladesh attacked American diplomatic missions and staged anti-American demonstrations. Most serious was the rioting in Pakistan, where two American servicemen were killed in the burning of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. The attack on the Sacred Mosque probably had no direct connection with the recent events in Iran.

Yet the violent antiWestern, anti-American reaction of the mobs reflected the uncertain currents of emotional fervor that the Ayatullah has helped loose within the volatile world of Islam.

The Sacred Mosque is a gigantic holy place that can hold as many as 300,000 worshipers. At the center of its courtyard, which is 40 acres in size, is the Ka'ba. Muslims believe that this cube-shaped structure, covered always by a black cloth embroidered in gold, was erected to God by Abraham and that it was cleansed of idols by the Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 630. The Ka'ba is the chief focus of prayer and ritual during the hajj, the annual pilgrimage that this year drew more than 2 million Muslims to Mecca.

Last Tuesday marked the eve of the first day of the year 1400, according to the Islamic calendar. Accounts of the mosque takeover vary, but it appears that a band of about 200 armed men entered the courtyard, filled with 50,000 worshipers, shortly before the start of dawn prayers. The men wore the traditional black robes and red-and-white checked headdresses of the National Guard irregulars. They carried coffins--a common enough sight, since mourners often bring coffins to the mosque for dawn prayers before burial. These coffins apparently contained pistols, rifles, submachine guns, hand grenades and daggers.

The group was led by a man in his early twenties, whose name was said to be Mohammed Abdullah al-'Utaibah. At the beginning of the call to prayer, the young man asked the imam who was leading the service to declare him the new Mahdi--the Islamic messiah. According to the belief of some Muslims, the Mahdi is supposed to appear during the new century. The imam refused; in the ensuing scuffle his assistant was shot and killed.

"We are the followers of the Savior," cried the invaders, as they charged across the great square and surrounded the Ka'ba.

A similar attack was attempted that morning at the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, 200 miles to the north, but that assault failed because authorities learned of it in advance.

When word of the invasion reached Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's King Khalid ordered the cutting of all telephone and telex lines to the outside world until he could establish whether the gunmen were connected with any outside group. Then, as required by Islamic law, his government sought the permission of the 'ulama, the religious leadership, to make a counterattack. Reason: the Shari'a (Islamic canon law) prohibits the shedding of blood in holy places, but the rule can be suspended if the clergymen agree that there is sufficient justification. After several hours of deliberation, the 'ulama gave the King unprecedented powers to stage a battle within the Sacred Mosque.

Government helicopters by then had begun dropping tear gas on the besieged holy place. In the great courtyard, the attackers were haranguing their hostages to proclaim Mohammed Abdullah al-'Utaibah the promised messiah. But they fled in panic to the upper floors of the mosque and its seven minarets when National Guard troops suddenly burst through the gates of the mosque and armored vehicles with artillery and machine guns quickly encircled the Ka'ba. To minimize damage to the mosque, the government had ordered its troops to move in with knives and to use them in hand-to-hand combat, with the backing of snipers and expert marksmen.

During the three days of the siege, the identity of the attackers remained unknown. The first rumor that spread through the Arab world was that the invaders were Iranian Shi'ites who had been influenced by Khomeini's recent calls for a general uprising by Muslim fundamentalists. Others speculated that the terrorists were members of an extreme Mahdist sect aligned with the Shi'ites. Still others said they were not Shi'ites at all but fanatical Sunni purists known as Wahhabis. At week's end, with the Riyadh regime saying nothing publicly, the best guess of Western intelligence experts was that the attackers were members of the 'Utaibah tribe, a migratory Sunni group that still wanders with its herds of goats and sheep between Mecca and Riyadh. The group apparently is small in number and represents no serious political threat to the House of Saud.

Events in Mecca were being followed closely and with great concern in Tunisia, where 20 Arab heads of state, plus Palestine Liberation Organization Chief Yasser Arafat, had gathered for their annual meeting. An honor guard wearing plumed gold helmets presented arms with drawn swords as the leaders trooped into Tunis' Palais de Congres for a summit that one Kuwaiti delegate predicted would be a "love feast." He meant that there would be no public arguments about divisive subjects and that the leaders would merely reaffirm their opposition to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for signing the Camp David accords with Israel.

News of the attack on the mosque ended any love feast. Crown Prince Fahd, who headed the Saudi delegation, briefly debated whether to fly home to Riyadh to help resolve the crisis. The Saudis were quick to suspect the troublemaking hand of Libya's Muammur Gaddafi, who had shunned the summit meeting because, he said, he "no longer believes in heads-of-state conferences." In the delegates' lounge, one persistent rumor was that the CIA had staged the Mecca siege in order to justify the sending of U.S. Navy vessels to the Persian Gulf in the current Iranian crisis. For most Muslims, it was hard to imagine that a group of their own fellow believers would desecrate Islam's holiest shrine. Contemplating the early rumor that Khomeini-inspired Iranian Muslims had been involved, one Saudi delegate gloomily speculated that a holy war was breaking out between the Sunni and Shi'ite branches of Islam.

That prospect, of course, is most unlikely, but there is no doubt that the predominantly Sunni Saudis are seriously worried about the potential impact of the Ayatullah's revolution on political alignments in the Middle East. One solid piece of evidence:

the moderate, pro-Western Saudis are in the process of forging new bonds of friendship with the radically socialist, violently anti-Israeli regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Both countries are alarmed that some of Khomeini's followers are talking about exporting the Shi'ite revolution to vulnerable neighboring countries--Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia has a minority Shi'ite population centered in the Eastern Province, where most of its oil is produced. Iraq has a Sunni leadership, in Hussein's Baath Party, ruling a restless, predominantly Shi'ite population. So Hussein is as anxious as the Saudis to maintain the status quo.

Anything that smacks of domestic turbulence upsets the Saudis, and they tried hard last week to play down the significance of the attack on the Sacred Mosque. When it was over, an official in Riyadh said, punishment of the zealots would be "swift and final"--meaning, presumably, execution by the sword.

Two years to the day after his historic visit to Jerusalem, the main object of the Arab summit's scorn, Anwar Sadat, raised the red, white and black flag of Egypt at the foot of historic Mount Sinai. The mountain, and 600 sq. mi. in the eastern Sinai, had just been returned to Cairo's sovereignty by Israel, but ceremonies observing the event were very low keyed. Premier Menachem Begin had declined Sadat's invitation to join him at the mountain, saying he was too busy, and the Egyptian President had scrapped earlier plans for a star-studded entertainment extravaganza. In fact, he did not even lay the cornerstone for his oft-promised shrine honoring Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Sadat simply asked the world's people "to observe the teachings of God and the tradition of his messengers for the promotion of fraternity and the elimination of bloodshed."

Sadat and his official party, which included former U.S. Envoy Robert Strauss, were then driven to nearby St. Catherine's monastery. There the Egyptian President was shown the site where Moses, according to tradition, saw God in a burning bush; Sadat was given a three-foot tendril snipped from a plant growing on the spot. Upon his departure, the site of the flag-raising ceremonies swiftly emptied.

The monks were left to their silence and their prayers.

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