by Kim Ghattas
fifteen hundred Israeli citizens: Cooper, Fall of Heaven, 313.
as “real nut cases”: Cody, “PLO Now Dubious.”
angry phone call: J. Al-e Ahmad, The Israeli Republic: An Iranian Revolutionary’s Journey to the Jewish State, translated edition (New York: Restless Books, 2017), 7.
He had stayed in a kibbutz: L. Sternfeld, “Pahlavi Iran and Zionism: An Intellectual Elite’s Short-Lived Love Affair with the State of Israel,” Ajam Media Collective, March 7, 2013.
Persian and Shia culture: Secor, Children of Paradise, 8.
The meeting in Jerusalem recommended: A. al-Ouywaysi, “The General Islamic Conference: 1953–1962” (Jerusalem: n.p., 1989), available online at https://www.slideshare.net/islamicjerusalem/the-general-islamic-conference-for-jerusalem-19531962.
No one in official circles: “Nawab Safavi La Yazal Fi al Qahera” (Navvab Safavi is still in Cairo), Akhbar El-Yom, January 16, 1954.
The man who paid for the plane: Mansour, “Shahed Ala Asr with Youssef Nada.”
“we felt like members of the same family”: S. Fuchs, “Relocating the Centers of Shi’i Islam: Religious Authority, Sectarianism, and the Limits of the Transnational in Colonial India and Pakistan,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2015, available online at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e6ab/53a27fd3a8a2d90f78701edb48a552301cec.pdf, quoting Sayyid Murtażā Ḥusayn, Ayatullāh Khumaynī Qum se Qum tak (Lahore: Imāmiyyah Publications, 1979), 535.
According to some accounts: Author interview with Rashed Ghannoushi, leader of Tunisian party Ennahda, Tunis, March 2018; M. Rassas, Ikhwan al-Muslimin wa Iran al-Khumayni–al-Khamina’i [The Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeini–Khamenei] (Beirut: Jadawillil-Nashr was al-Tawzi, 2013); Mansour, “Shahed Ala Asr with Youssef Nada.”
listened to Hawwa’s plea: S. Hawwa, Hathihi Tajroubati wa Hathihi Shahadati [This is my experience, this is my testimony] (Cairo: Wahba, 1987).
North Tehran looked like Beverly Hills: A. Sooke, “The $3 Billion Art Collection Hidden in Vaults,” BBC television news report, aired December 7, 2018.
Husseini had joked with Bazergan: Author interview with Husseini, Beirut, January 2018.
“once more fall back into the hands”: J. Kifner, “Ayatollah Taleghani Backs Away from a Showdown with Khomeini,” New York Times, April 20, 1979.
“Disrespect to Taleghani is disrespect to the nation”: Ibid.
Hezbollah, or the Party of God: Moin, Khomeini, 211.
still dominated the streets: This section is based on M. Ayatollahi Tabaar, Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), chapter 5.
broad powers: J. Kifner, “Iran’s Constitutional Vote Overshadows News of the Shah,” New York Times, December 3, 1979, 1.
The Brothers who had visited Khomeini: Mansour, “Shahed Ala Asr with Youssef Nada.”
3: Bleeding Heart
Sami Angawi overslept: Author interview with Angawi, Jeddah, February 2018.
Saudi Arabia’s oil revenues: S. Mackey, The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 7.
Every major American hotel chain: A. Vassiliev, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Time (London: Saqi Books, 2016), 418.
five hundred feet long with a carved square stone: R. Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, vol. 2 (New York: Dover, 1964), 273–75.
he ordered the destruction: “Arabia: Tomb of Eve,” Time, February 27, 1928.
as Wahhabism: Z. Sardar, Une Histoire de La Mecque: De la naissance d’Abraham au XXIe siècle [A history of Mecca: from Abraham’s birth until the 21st century] (Paris: Payot, 2014), 272.
“And fight not with them”: Quran, 2:191, from English Translation of the Holy Quran, M. M. Ali, trans., and Z. Aziz, ed. (Wembley, UK: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore Publications, 2010).
The call to prayer: In addition to interviews with Sami Angawi and Turki al-Faisal, I relied extensively on and merged details from various sections of the following works for my descriptions of events in this chapter: Y. Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam’s Holiest Shrine (New York: Anchor Books, 2007); R. Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia (New York: Viking, 2009); L. Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).
“Ahmad al-Luhaybi! Up to the roofs”: N. Al-Huzaymi, Ayyam Ma’ Juhayman [My days with Juhayman] (Beirut: Arab Network for Research and Publishing, 2012), 132.
redistribution of oil wealth: T. R. Furnish, Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 62.
This was the first time: M. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 139–40.
managed to escape to his nearby office: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 27.
the Al-Sauds had also set out to homogenize: M. Yamani, “Changing the Habits of a Lifetime: The Adaptation of Hejazi Dress to the New Social Order,” in N. Lindisfarne-Tapper and B. Ingham, eds., Languages of Dress in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 2013).
with gray stone replacing: Z. Sardar, Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Skeptical Muslim (London: Granta Books, 2004).
“Beware! (Mecca is a sanctuary)”: M. Khan, The Translation of the Meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhari (London: Darussalam Publications, 1997), vol. 9, book 83.
a mere “domestic incident”: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 117.
“Mecca Mosque Seized by Gunmen”: P. Taubmannov, “Mecca Mosque Seized by Gunmen Believed to Be Militants from Iran,” New York Times, November 21, 1979.
“It is not farfetched”: “Khomeyni’s Office Says U.S. May Be Behind Attack in Mecca,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, November 21, 1979.
“Death to the American dogs”: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 109.
Writing in his diary: J. West, “John West: In His Own Words,” South Carolina Political Collections, available online at https://delphi.tcl.sc.edu/library/digital/collections/jwest.html.
“key industrial plants, airports”: “Gunmen Still Hold Mecca Mosque,” New York Times, November 22, 1979.
The grand sheikh of Al-Azhar: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 120; H. Tannernov, “Attack in Mecca Attributed to Khomeini Influence,” New York Times, November 22, 1979.
“The moment I met this guy”: “Iranian Pilgrim Tells of Mecca Attack,” New York Times, November 22, 1979.
in Pakistan, the headlines stated: “Haram Sharif Under Full Control of Saudi Forces,” Dawn, November 23, 1979.
had taken theology and turned it: W. Wahid Al Ghamedi, Hekayat al-Tadayyon al-Saudi [The story of Saudi piousness] (London: Tuwa Media & Publishing Limited, 2015), 66.
and tried to kill him: C. Allen, God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2007), 51.
One virulent critic … was a young: Condensed from Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 20.
they described Juhayman’s men: Ibid., 151, citing Arab News, November 26, 1979.
Juhayman … broke away from: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 35–42.
barely one Saudi riyal: Al-Huzaymi, Ayyam Ma’ Juhayman, 67.
added approving remarks to the pamphlets: T. Hegghammer and S. Lacroix, “Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The Story of Juhayman Al-ʿutaybi Revisited,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 39, no. 1 (February 2007): 111.
Bin Baz stepped in to support: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 42.
with three hundred kilograms: Ibid., 207.
The king circled the Ka’aba seven times: Ibid., 225.
For centuries, scholars from the four different schools: Sardar, Une Histoire de La Mecque, 353–54.
from several hundred to around thirty-five: Interview with Sami Angawi, Jeddah, February 2018.
4: Darkness
They chanted “Death to Al-Saud”: Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, 17–18 and 199–200.
>
There was a little-known history of protest in the Eastern Province: T. Matthiesen, “Migration, Minorities, and Radical Networks: Labour Movements and Opposition Groups in Saudi Arabia, 1950–1975,” International Review of Social History 59, no. 3 (December 2014): 473–504.
al-Sa’id described it as a people’s revolt: Hegghammer and Lacroix, “Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia,” 103–22.
the tiny Saudi Communist Party: Matthiesen, “Migration, Minorities, and Radical Networks,” 473–504.
the Saudi government tried to address: T. Matthiesen, The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 110–11.
“If we did this…” “Naif Briefs Journalists on Renegades,” Arab News, January 14, 1980.
foreign women eating in public: Embassy Jidda, “Public Morality in Riyadh,” Wikileaks Cable: 1979JIDDA04261_e, dated June 6, 1979, http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979JIDDA04261_e.html; Embassy Jidda, “Saudi Ulema Ban Table Soccer: Paper Criticizes Decision,” Wikileaks Cable: 1979JIDDA00058_e, dated January 1, 1979, http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979JIDDA00058_e.html.
“the boy from the Al-ash-Sheikh family”: Vassiliev, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, 59.
Women presenters were yanked off television: E. Cody, “Saudis, Shaken by Mosque Takeover, Tighten Enforcement of Moslem Law,” Washington Post, February 5, 1980.
They felt so empowered: Private anecdote from Saudis interviewed in Riyadh and Jeddah, February 2018.
the king quietly asked him: Anonymous Saudi source speaking to author in Saudi Arabia, February 2018.
King Khaled would praise the sahwa: King Khaled, speech given during 1981 Islamic Summit in Mecca, available online at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=35R5jPlSHt4.
“no different from opium”: J. Kifner, “Khomeini Bans Broadcast Music, Saying It Corrupts Iranian Youth,” New York Times, July 24, 1979.
crates of vintage champagne: Associated Press, “Iranian Guards Dump Costly Wines, Liquor,” Globe and Mail, June 14, 1979.
“naked women”: G. Jaynes, “Bazargan Goes to See Khomeini as Iran Rift Grows,” New York Times, March 9, 1979.
“In the dawn of freedom, there is an absence of freedom”: G. Jaynes, “Iran Women March Against Restraints on Dress and Rights,” New York Times, March 11, 1979.
the hijab (headscarf) would never become mandatory: E. Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “The Post-Revolutionary Women’s Uprising of March 1979: An Interview with Nasser Mohajer and Mahnaz Matin,” Iran Wire, June 12, 2013.
they were depicted as the work of monarchists: Ibid.
Some women were so angry: J. C. Randal, “Militant Women Demonstrators Attack Khomeini Aide Who Heads Iran,” Washington Post, March 13, 1979.
Foucault recognized Islam as a “powder keg”: J. Afary and K. B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 107.
Seven hundred qualified scholars: Secor, Children of Paradise, 69–71.
Sciences were left alone: Ibid.
“More than 7,900 Iranian political prisoners”: Ibid., 91.
After his stop in Tripoli: Condensed from Cooper, The Fall of Heaven, 352, 371; and Bird, The Good Spy, 206. Both books relied on personal interviews and declassified CIA documents.
deeply distressed: Ibid.
US intelligence files … implicated: Bird, The Good Spy, 226.
referred to King Faisal as Amir el Mu’meneen: H. Fürtig, Iran’s Rivalry with Saudi Arabia Between the Gulf Wars (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2006).
little girls and boys draped in the Saudi and Iranian flags: D. A. Schmidt, “Shah of Iran and Saudis’ King Seek Persian Gulf Cooperation,” New York Times, November 14, 1968.
Sent Prime Minister Bazergan a congratulatory message: “Wali al-Ahd Youhani Bazergan” [Crown Prince congratulates Bazergan], Al Nadwa (Mecca), February 14, 1979.
“making Islam, not heavy armament, the organizer”: N. Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Cambridge, UK: Belknap Press, 1985), 308, citing Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), April 25, 1979.
“the camel grazers of Riyadh”: R. Khomeini, Kashf al-Asrar, as translated in Moin, Khomeini, 62.
The overtures of all the Gulf countries: M. Heikal, “‘Mini-Shahs’ Trust Evolution to Avert Revolution in the Gulf,” Dawn, December 30, 1979.
“demote the Iranian Revolution”: Ibid.
Saudi funding for WAMY: Pew Research Center, Religion and Public Life, “Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe,” September 15, 2010, available online at https://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/15/muslim-networks-and-movements-in-western-europe/.
At five o’clock on the morning of December 25: United States Embassy Afghanistan Office of the Defense Attaché, “Soviet Airlift to Kabul,” declassified cable, December 26, 1979.
military training: P. Niesewand, “Guerrillas Train in Pakistan to Oust Afghan Government,” Washington Post, February 2, 1979.
The Saudis had also been pushing the US: H. Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), 199.
Saudi intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal: Wright, Looming Tower, 114.
The Muslim Brotherhood organized protests: R. Lefevre, Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 48.
hit-and-run acts: P. Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1989), 317.
The violence was not all Islamist: The analysis of the events surrounding the Aleppo incident and the Brotherhood uprising is based on M. Seurat, Syrie, l’État de Barbarie [Syria: the state of barbarism] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2012), 89–90 and 134–36. Written before his death in 1985, these articles were compiled in a book posthumously.
“The people die like rain”: S. Pickering Jr., “Pedagogica Deserta: Memoir of a Fulbright Year in Syria,” American Scholar 50, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 163–77.
Sa’id Hawwa: Lefevre, Ashes of Hama, 48.
Shia-Alawite geographical axis: Seurat, Syrie, l’État De Barbarie, 134.
He rounded some of them up: Author interviews in Baghdad, March 2018, with former Islamist and counterterrorism expert Husham Hashmi and with Mahmoud Mashhadani, organizing member of al-Muwahidoun, jailed in 1979 and 1989.
a surprise twenty-four-hour visit: “Tafahum tam bayna al Saudia wal Iraq ala daam masa’i tawhid al saf al arabi” [Total understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on closing Arab ranks], Asharq al-Awsat, August 7, 1980.
Crown Prince Fahd called for a holy war: “Saudi Prince Issues Call for Holy War with Israel,” Globe and Mail, August 15, 1980.
a $14 billion loan: “Al-qard al-kuwaiti lil-iraq jiz’ min qard khaliji dakhm” [Kuwait loan to Iraq is part of massive Gulf loan], Al Ra’i al-A’am (Kuwait), April 16, 1981.
5: I Killed the Pharaoh
He disapproved of cinema: All descriptions and details of Ibrahim’s journey from student life to prison are based on author interview with Nageh Ibrahim, Alexandria, Egypt, October 2017; and with G. Khoury (writer), posed online April 9, 2014; “Al-Mashhad: Nageh Ibrahim” [television series episode], Al-Mashhad, BBC Arabic.
Friday on university campuses: Author interview with Nageh Ibrahim; R. Solé, Sadate (Paris: Tempus Perrin, 2013), 263.
the focus of many jokes: Ibid., 241.
calling him “my friend Kissinger”: Ibid., 132.
he had a Swiss watch: Ibid.
for his children and grandchildren: Ibid., 264.
allowed Islamist groupings to run: Ibid., 112; interview with Emad Abu Ghazi (former socialist, imprisoned in 1981, later minister of cultural affairs in 2011), October 2018.
sense of belonging in the city: S. Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam, and Democracy (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1996), chapter 1.
socialist summer camps were renamed: Author interview with Emad Abu Ghazi, leftist activist and former minist
er.
rage had quickly replaced the initial: Solé, Sadate, 171; and “Al-qahira: al-sadat najaha mi’a fil mi’a. ‘Ada’oul thalathouna ‘aman ‘ouzila fi thalathin sa’a” [Sadat’s victory: 30 years of hostility erased in 30 hours], An-Nahar, November 22, 1977; “Al-sadat yabda’u rihlatil ‘ari wal khiyanah” [Sadat begins his trip of shame and treachery], Al-Thawra, November 20, 1977; “Khutwatul sadat khurujon ‘ala ‘iradatil ‘umat il-arabiyya” [Sadat’s move a departure from the Arab nation’s will], Tishreen, November 19, 1977.
“trip of treachery and shame”: “Dimashq tastaqtibu al-‘amala al-‘arabiy didda khiyanat al-sadat” [Damascus to lead Arab action against Sadat’s treason], Tishreen, November 21, 1977); and “Al-sadat yabda’u rihlatil ‘ari wal khiyanah” [Sadat begins his trip of shame and treachery].
secretly King Khaled had prayed: M. Heikal, Autumn of Fury (London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1983), 98.
billions of dollars: T. W. Lippman, “Post-Camp David Split Sours Egypt’s Ties to Saudi Arabia,” Washington Post, December 9, 1978.
“empty out-bidding”: “Saudi Arabians Stand Firm: Arabs in Disarray on Punishing Sadat,” Globe and Mail, March 30, 1979.
He dismissed the leaders of Gulf monarchies: Solé, Sadate, 237.
who had “turned Islam into a mockery”: “Al-’islamu din-ul hob wal samahat wal ’ikha’ wa laysa abadan ahqada al-khomeiny” [Islam is a religion of love, forgiveness and compassion, and not Khomeini’s hatred], Al-Ahram, December 26, 1979.
“The success of the Islamic revolution”: Y. M. Ibrahim, “Iranian Leaders Consider Egypt Ripe for Islamic Uprising,” New York Times, February 25, 1979.
Khomeini went further: M. Wallace, 20th Century with Mike Wallace: Death of the Shah and the Hostage Crisis, Arts and Entertainment Network, History Channel (television network), 2002.
raised many questions for Islamists: Embassy Cairo, “Some Further Egyptian Reactions to Khomeini’s Return,” Wikileaks Cable: 1979CAIRO02483_e, dated February 3, 1979, http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979CAIRO02483_e.html.
control of its finances: T. Moustafa, “Conflict and Cooperation Between the State and Religious Institutions in Contemporary Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 1 (February 2010): 3–22.