1979: The Year of the Islamist Revolution (2022) Movie Script
1
It was the summer of 1979.
The revolution in Iran was
progressing well for Khomeini and
his Islamist followers.
Their
revolutionary allies, the leftists,
were being gradually
sidelined and intimidated.
And those who protested against
Khomeini's new restrictions on press
freedom were also attacked.
Khomeini was taking
control of the streets.
And yet most ordinary Iranians
continue to trust in his leadership.
Meanwhile in the Senate,
an appointed assembly of experts was
rewriting the constitution to give
total power to the supreme leader.
Things couldn't be going
better for the Islamists,
and thoughts were now turning abroad
and to the possibility of worldwide
Islamic revolution.
Many people say that there's a
revival of Islam at the moment.
Yes, there is a revival of Islam, and
you will see more among the Muslims
throughout the world,
the revival of Islam, and
many Islamic revolutions
probably throughout the world.
Feeling self-confident,
Iran sent several frigates from its
powerful navy in a show of force off
the coast of Iraq.
Some of the leadership were already
eyeing the Shiite communities there,
and those on the
other side of the Gulf.
That month,
the respected Ayatollah Mohammed
Sadiq Rouhani called for the
annexation of Bahrain to Iran.
And the senior cleric, Ayatollah
Montazeri, whose son was already
broadcasting revolutionary
radio messages into the Gulf,
warned all neighbouring Muslim
countries to "learn a lesson from
the fate of the Shah."
And those countries had
reason to be worried.
Many devout Sunnis and Shias,
culturally adrift in the rapidly
changing world of the 1970s, were
finding inspiration in what the
Iranian Islamists were doing.
The Iranian earthquake was
sending shockwaves through an already
unstable Middle East.
In Afghanistan, a
revolution was also under way.
Islamist and religiously conservative
rebel forces were trying to
overthrow the
Soviet-backed Communist government.
Those deemed collaborators
were sometimes treated harshly.
Morale was high.
Even though their enemy was being
reinforced by thousands of Soviet
advisers,
the rebel leadership boasted
that they relished the challenge.
"The Russians have
taken part in the war now,
and there have been in Panjshir,
in Paktia, and also in Kunar areas,
some of the Russian
advisors have been killed."
Even as the rebels
advanced towards Kabul,
fellow Islamists in Egypt were
beginning to take on the American
ally, President Sadat.
Sadat was holding the annual
parade that commemorated his victory
against Israel six years earlier.
He hoped these displays would help
maintain support among the Egyptian
public following his
peace with Israel.
In August, Sadat had even
tried to win
over the head of
the Brotherhood with a place
on the Shura Council.
But the offer had been rejected.
So instead, he was now suppressing
the Islamists on student campuses.
But would that be enough?
Exactly two years later,
at this same celebration,
he'd have his deadly answer.
In response to the
death of his Arab enemy,
Khomeini would put Sadat's assassin
Khaled al-Islambouli on a postage
stamp and have murals
painted of him in Tehran.
But that was all to come.
Back in 1979,
Khomeini was looking for new alliances
to help forge a new Middle East.
He sent Deputy Prime
Minister Sadeq Tabatabai to Syria.
A meeting would be an important step
in the developing relationship with
the Alawite leadership.
It was also sent to Lebanon,
with its large Shia population.
It was another cornerstone of
Iran's developing foreign policy.
He held a press conference where he
denied that Tehran wanted to incite
Islamic revolutions in the Arab
world.
It did little to allay the
fears of Iran's Gulf neighbors.
In a meeting that wasn't filmed,
but was a precursor to the foundation
of the GCC two years later.
Foreign ministers from six Gulf
countries met in Taif, Saudi Arabia.
The leaders were briefed by
their security services on Iran's
interference in the
region,
and they started
coordinating regional security.
Ashura,
so important to the local Shia
communities, was fast approaching.
Concern, given its part in the
downfall of the Shah, a year ago.
And before Ashura was the Hajj,
would Islamist zeal bubble up
in the sanctity of the moment?
They would have to
keep their eyes open.
Over in Afghanistan,
the government had received
escalating Soviet support.
But the situation hadn't stabilized.
The army was collapsing under the
increasingly brutal pressure of the
Mujahideen.
Morale was now so bad that the
air force had to put down a major
rebellion by army units.
The desperate government summoned
tribal leaders to Kabul to urge them
to explain their
policies to their populations.
President Amin
addressed the gathering.
But the tribal leaders knew that
events were already overtaking Amin.
Hajj was now approaching.
Pilgrims like Sheikh Zayed,
founder of the UAE, arrived.
And travelling Being incognito,
so did dignitaries from Iran,
including the future
supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Iranian pilgrims had all been
encouraged by Khomeini to spread the
ideology of their revolution.
There were some concerns expressed
by the Saudis that Iran would try to,
Iranian provocateurs
would try to do things.
They monitored the pilgrims coming
in from Iran very closely, the best
they could.
As some of the Iranian pilgrims
traveled by bus through Saudi
Arabia,
they spread propaganda challenging
the religious legitimacy of the
Saudi government.
Some audiences were
particularly receptive.
Islamist forces were gaining
traction, but no violence had
erupted here, at least for now,
more needed to be done to capture the
imaginations of pilgrims like these.
A series of dramatic events in the
next last weeks of 1979 would help
the Islamists in their ambitious
task.
Among the vast crowd was a
43-year-old Saudi citizen, Juhayman
al-Otaybi.
He was not an Islamist,
but an extreme Sunni conservative
with four or five hundred followers.
For Juhayman,
the end of time would be at the very
imminent end of the Islamic century.
He was now praying for God's help
in proclaiming his brother-in-law
as the Mahdi.
Over in Iran,
an event was beginning that would
be as momentous as what was about to
happen in Mecca.
Islamist students and militia
were storming the American embassy,
officially foriegn soil.
They took 66
American staff as hostages.
They wanted the return of the deposed
Shah from the US, where he was sick.
The event caught the
imagination of the Iranian public.
Anti-Western
sentiment unified leftists,
religious
conservatives, and Islamists alike.
The fact that it was against all
the laws of international diplomacy
didn't bother Khomeini.
He issued a statement calling it a
second revolution, bigger than the
one that had toppled the monarchy.
He even labelled the U.S.
"the great Satan."
Most members of Iran's provisional
government resigned in protest
against a situation
provoking war with America.
But Khomeini simply
ordered Mohammad Beheshti,
one of his closest supporters,
to lead an interim government.
The full authority of the new
state was slipping into the hands of
Khomeini.
The hostage situation
may have risked war,
but 800 million Muslims around the
world were now following the events
at the Embassy, many in
awe at Iranian audacity.
But over in Egypt, Sadat was
incredulous at what was happening.
He angrily left from a a press
conference in which he had railed
against Khomeini,
criticisms he would repeat
on international television.
The man is lunatic, really,
because he is full of hatred.
Islam never preaches hatred at all.
The country is in chaos, no one
rules, there is no government, and
then this hostage, disgraceful
thing that has taken place,
especially when there has been women
among them, for the sole reason that
he wants to prove himself as a
revolutionarist against the United
States.
He is not a Muslim.
He is a lunatic.
Khomeini was not a lunatic.
In fact, the longer
the crisis continued,
the better it was for him.
The siege was
a distraction from the governmental
chaos, and a rallying cry in
the run-up to the vote on the
constitution, a vote that would
finally confirm him as supreme
leader.
Meanwhile, in the village of
Al-Mudassir, Juhayman al-Otaybi,
with a group of 350 hardline,
traditionalist followers, was
jamming weapons into coffins.
They then drove them to Mecca to
smuggle them into the Holy Mosque.
Tomorrow, they would announce
that the Mahdi
had come and call
on Muslims to swear allegiance.
Although their Mahdi was destined to
be killed, and their plot to fail,
this group would have their
part in this year of revolution.
These ultra-conservatives wanted the
country to join their Mahdi and rise
up against the Al-Saud dynasty,
a dynasty that pursued modernizing
policies, like the introduction of
television and football,
and the education of women.
Their operation started at dawn.
It was the first day of
a new Islamic century.
Juhayman then broadcast
his manifesto to Mecca.
He then proclaimed the Mahdi.
Most of the pilgrims fled,
but the attackers shut the
gates, keeping hundreds hostage.
Frontal assaults by the
police and army failed.
They suffered heavy casualties,
and a military
helicopter was even shot down.
Unfortunately, at
this critical moment,
most of the government was away in
Tunis, at an Arab League meeting.
They were trying to ease pressure
on their ally, President Sadat.
A news blackout was imposed.
Borders were closed, and
key ministers rushed back.
Meanwhile,
the American embassy was
sending what
information it
could back to Washington.
The 20th was a long day.
Washington, of course, very concerned.
It didn't seem to be a foreign hand,
but who knew what was
behind these people?
No one ever heard of
this particular group.
Shinsuke very much believed it was
necessary to show some muscle to
bolster our friends the Saudis.
So we were serious
about protecting them.
America's nuclear
aircraft carrier, Kitty Hawk,
and several other ships
were ordered to the Gulf.
Make sure Iran would put on notice,
wouldn't tolerate any interference,
any more interference, they already
had our hostages.
Meanwhile, rumors about what was
happening in Mecca started to leak.
In Tehran,
vast crowds took to the streets,
blaming America for the sacrilege.
They were the largest
since the fall of the Shah.
They had been spurred into action by
a statement from Khomeini, read out
on Radio Tehran.
It is not far-fetched to assume that
this act has been perpetrated by the
criminal American imperialists.
These conspiracies are propagated to
undermine the solid ranks of Muslims.
Muslims should not
cease their alertness.
They should expect such despicable
acts from American imperialism and
American Zionism.
In Islamabad, in neighboring
Pakistan,
within hours of the broadcast,
militant Muslim students were
storming the American embassy.
They were furious that the Americans
may have taken over the Kaaba.
Among the Pakistani students,
intelligence reports later revealed
were Iranians and Palestinians.
They attacked our embassy and set
it on fire, almost murdered our
embassies out there.
It came beyond a Mecca issue,
it became a regional issue.
Every day we'd wake up, didn't
know what new issue might develop.
Pakistani security services, were
unable to bring order for two days.
In Mecca, the ongoing
attacks were not breaking through.
The authorities were reluctant to
bring in heavy weapons or armored
vehicles because of the prohibition
against the use of arms in the mosque.
We've got pictures which were
horrifying in terms of the damage
done to this holy place with fires
and with damage to minarets, it was
horrific, very traumatizing.
So we knew, in fact, that
things were in a bad, bad way.
The longer the siege went on,
the more cause it gave to
any who questioned the
legitimacy of the regime.
But the Saudi government
now had a new problem.
It was the run-up to Ashura.
And in the eastern
province of Saudi Arabia,
recent propaganda from Iraq had
roused the local Shia community.
Youths were taking to the streets.
They listen to calls by foreign
clerics to take inspiration from
Khomeini.
The situation intensified overnight.
For several dramatic days,
bloody street violence
rocked the eastern province.
Demonstrators chanting "Khomeini"
burned the British bank in Qatif, as
well as the offices of
the Saudi National Airline.
They attacked police,
seized weapons from soldiers,
and even occupied the old city in
downtown Khatif, from which they
held off the Saudi military.
When the fighting died down,
the result was roughly 20
protesters and 10 soldiers dead.
Hundreds were injured,
and thousands arrested.
While never likely to
topple the government,
the uprisings had been a clear sign.
Young Shias were being
radicalized across the Middle East,
and Saudi legitimacy
was being questioned.
What was a far greater threat
to the government was the
ongoing siege in Mecca.
It is to this day the biggest
hostage crisis of all time.
By now the government had received
a fatwa allowing them to use all
necessary force to defeat the
rebels.
They had successfully taken
out the snipers in the minarets
and broken the perimeter.
And they had regained control of
the central courtyard of the mosque.
The following day,
they broadcast images of
officials circling the Kaaba,
to reassure the nation.
But the hardest
battle was still to come.
The military had to flush out
Juhayman and his remaining followers.
They had fortified themselves
securely in the mosque's vast
cellars.
The best option was tear gas,
but it was difficult to deploy in
these circumstances, and they they
felt they couldn't ask
the Americans for help.
The Saudis,
I think, were very wise in not
trying to involve us in any way.
Remember, though, we were at the
time being challenged
by Iran next
door as being the great Satan.
Our credentials were being assailed
in Islamabad by groups who were
calling us also apostates.
we had a Zionist
America plan to seize Mecca.
Fortunately,
the French had agreed to help, and
three officers had flown into Jeddah
the day before.
But how much could they do?
And how long would it take?
The failure to end the siege was a
public humiliation that threatened
the stability of the state.
America's ambassador, John West,
had already cabled back his
fears to Washington, fears the Saudi
government would also have
been secretly harboring.
In some ways,
the fact that the incident is sparked
by a religious group is disturbing.
The basic power and mass appeal of
a fanatic Muslim religious movement
has been clearly demonstrated in
Iran.
The bottom line question is
whether the Mecca Affair is the first
manifestation of religious ferment.
In Iran, it was the night before
the referendum on the Constitution,
a vote that would determine
the destiny of the
country and of the region.
The embassy hostage
crisis had been kept stoked,
and those who would vote against
the Constitution were portrayed as
supporting the enemy, America.
Many who voted would later feel that
they had been deceived by Khomeini.
The constitution was, of
course, overwhelmingly approved.
Khomeini's victory didn't just give
him the role of supreme leader and
bring about Sharia law.
It made an obligation of
state his dream of pan-Islamism.
It was a foundation for "ensuring
the continuation of the revolution at
home and abroad."
At a later press conference,
a spokesman for the Revolutionary
Council explained the new position.
And this is not only
an Iranian revolution,
but this is the revolution
for whole Islamic countries.
So we can speak on behalf of
all the Islamic countries.
In an interview from his home in Qom,
Khomeini expressed his
desire to lead the Muslim world.
Within days,
revolutionary troops will be sent
to fight in the Lebanese civil war.
It would be the groundwork for the
formation of Hezbollah, or the Party
of God.
All the rebels in Mecca had
finally been killed or taken prison.
The French advisors had helped the
Saudi military flush them out of the
cellars, using vast
quantities of tear gas.
But King Khalid had
been publicly humiliated.
It had taken two weeks to defeat
rebels who had defiled the Holy
Mosque, and the government
had required foreign help.
Osama bin Laden, then a young
student at nearby Jeddah University,
would later comment that
the Saudi ruling family
had desecrated the Haram.
This crisis could have
been solved peacefully.
The enemy of God did what
no pilgrim has ever done.
I remember to this day the impact
of their armored vehicles on the
Haram's floor tiles.
Even as they visited the wounded,
King Khalid and his advisors
knew that they needed to win back
credibility as good Muslims.
They could hardly forget the
fate of the Shah just a few months
previously.
Juhayman and the prisoners
could be executed and other
rebels could be imprisoned.
The sheer problem in the eastern
province could be eased with social
and economic reform.
But what had been happening, not just
here in Mecca but across the Middle
East,
indicated that something much
more fundamental was needed.
A few days later,
American diplomats in Jeddah started
inquiring about Saudi government
thinking.
We visited a number of media
representatives for frank talks on
the aftermath of the events.
It should be noted that the
media people concerned represent the
spectrum of religious beliefs.
from the extremely
religious, to some less so,
and to one, by Saudi
standards, a virtual atheist.
Sociologically, they
are all modernists,
for the development of a modern
industrial economy, and for the
necessary changes in society.
All appear gloomy.
They see the Mecca incident not just
as a rebellion by religious fanatics
disturbed at the
degeneracy of society,
but as a symptom of the tensions
created by the conflict between
modernization and traditionalism,
the corruption and hypocrisy of the
higher levels of the society, and
the unwillingness of the religious
conservatives to modify their belief
that they must control the lives of
everybody.
All are gloomy that the ruling powers
move the nation onto those paths
which lead to that open
society they professed to desire.
They were right to be gloomy.
Over the decade following the attack,
the Saudi government abandoned
liberalization for conservatism.
It implemented a stricter enforcement
of Sharia and gave the ulama, or
senior clerics, more power.
There was a ban on women
presenters on television,
and a ban on cinemas,
theatre and musical concerts.
Gender segregation was
enforced at every level,
and the school curriculum altered to
focus on religious studies.
Most importantly, as the dust
settled in a desecrated Mecca,
the Saudi government decided
it have to boost its Islamic
credentials internationally.
It would donate
billions on Muslim causes.
Much would be spent
with little oversight.
Significant amounts would
filter through to Islamist groups.
It would have huge consequences for
the entire Muslim world.
But one more event would give the
Islamist groups what they needed to
become a truly
popular global movement.
In Moscow,
the Central Committee of the
Communist Party were gathering at
the Kremlin.
They had concluded that the Afghan
government was unable to hold back
the rebel coalition of Islamists and
religious conservatives.
They were going to meet to
discuss introducing
Soviet
troops into Afghanistan.
A mighty army would cower
their rebels into submission.
It was a momentous decision.
The protocol of that session
was handwritten and referred to
Afghanistan as 'A' and the
invasion simply as 'Measures'.
It was so secret that the document
was not shown to anybody and was
kept in a special safe.
Tens of thousands of Soviet troops
were ordered to cross the border
into Afghanistan.
And 4,000 rapid deployment troops
were flown in by Soviet transport
planes to impose a a new
leadership for the country,
but instead of intimidating the
opposition, it strengthened them.
The Soviet invasion
appalled ordinary Afghans.
Muslims everywhere wanted to help
the Afghans repel the Soviet invader
from Muslim land.
Bin Laden,
the Saudi student and millionaire's
son, would become their poster boy.
During 1979,
he had been attending the
prayer group of a teacher at Jeddah
University, Abdullah Azzam.
Azzam persuaded Bin
Laden to go to Afghanistan.
Together, they would be joined
on the battlefield
by 30,000
international volunteers.
Few people around the world saw
the danger this movement posed,
happy that it was attacking the
sponsor of international leftism,
the USSR.
The cause of the Mujahideen, like
that of Iran's Islamic Revolution,
would catch the imagination of
millions of Muslims and change
history.
Afghan fighters did most
of the fighting and dying.
But the 30,000 volunteers
would return home heroes,
inspiring others with
their tales of glorious jihad.
The years after 1979 saw the
rise of the Dawah Party in Iraq,
the birth of Hezbollah and
Hamas, and the rise of the Taliban.
It saw the Chechen
Civil War, the Bosnia War,
the civil wars in Sudan and in
Algeria,
and of course,
the rise of Al Qaeda.
Islam ever since has been
tarnished by terrorism.
It was the summer of 1979.
The revolution in Iran was
progressing well for Khomeini and
his Islamist followers.
Their
revolutionary allies, the leftists,
were being gradually
sidelined and intimidated.
And those who protested against
Khomeini's new restrictions on press
freedom were also attacked.
Khomeini was taking
control of the streets.
And yet most ordinary Iranians
continue to trust in his leadership.
Meanwhile in the Senate,
an appointed assembly of experts was
rewriting the constitution to give
total power to the supreme leader.
Things couldn't be going
better for the Islamists,
and thoughts were now turning abroad
and to the possibility of worldwide
Islamic revolution.
Many people say that there's a
revival of Islam at the moment.
Yes, there is a revival of Islam, and
you will see more among the Muslims
throughout the world,
the revival of Islam, and
many Islamic revolutions
probably throughout the world.
Feeling self-confident,
Iran sent several frigates from its
powerful navy in a show of force off
the coast of Iraq.
Some of the leadership were already
eyeing the Shiite communities there,
and those on the
other side of the Gulf.
That month,
the respected Ayatollah Mohammed
Sadiq Rouhani called for the
annexation of Bahrain to Iran.
And the senior cleric, Ayatollah
Montazeri, whose son was already
broadcasting revolutionary
radio messages into the Gulf,
warned all neighbouring Muslim
countries to "learn a lesson from
the fate of the Shah."
And those countries had
reason to be worried.
Many devout Sunnis and Shias,
culturally adrift in the rapidly
changing world of the 1970s, were
finding inspiration in what the
Iranian Islamists were doing.
The Iranian earthquake was
sending shockwaves through an already
unstable Middle East.
In Afghanistan, a
revolution was also under way.
Islamist and religiously conservative
rebel forces were trying to
overthrow the
Soviet-backed Communist government.
Those deemed collaborators
were sometimes treated harshly.
Morale was high.
Even though their enemy was being
reinforced by thousands of Soviet
advisers,
the rebel leadership boasted
that they relished the challenge.
"The Russians have
taken part in the war now,
and there have been in Panjshir,
in Paktia, and also in Kunar areas,
some of the Russian
advisors have been killed."
Even as the rebels
advanced towards Kabul,
fellow Islamists in Egypt were
beginning to take on the American
ally, President Sadat.
Sadat was holding the annual
parade that commemorated his victory
against Israel six years earlier.
He hoped these displays would help
maintain support among the Egyptian
public following his
peace with Israel.
In August, Sadat had even
tried to win
over the head of
the Brotherhood with a place
on the Shura Council.
But the offer had been rejected.
So instead, he was now suppressing
the Islamists on student campuses.
But would that be enough?
Exactly two years later,
at this same celebration,
he'd have his deadly answer.
In response to the
death of his Arab enemy,
Khomeini would put Sadat's assassin
Khaled al-Islambouli on a postage
stamp and have murals
painted of him in Tehran.
But that was all to come.
Back in 1979,
Khomeini was looking for new alliances
to help forge a new Middle East.
He sent Deputy Prime
Minister Sadeq Tabatabai to Syria.
A meeting would be an important step
in the developing relationship with
the Alawite leadership.
It was also sent to Lebanon,
with its large Shia population.
It was another cornerstone of
Iran's developing foreign policy.
He held a press conference where he
denied that Tehran wanted to incite
Islamic revolutions in the Arab
world.
It did little to allay the
fears of Iran's Gulf neighbors.
In a meeting that wasn't filmed,
but was a precursor to the foundation
of the GCC two years later.
Foreign ministers from six Gulf
countries met in Taif, Saudi Arabia.
The leaders were briefed by
their security services on Iran's
interference in the
region,
and they started
coordinating regional security.
Ashura,
so important to the local Shia
communities, was fast approaching.
Concern, given its part in the
downfall of the Shah, a year ago.
And before Ashura was the Hajj,
would Islamist zeal bubble up
in the sanctity of the moment?
They would have to
keep their eyes open.
Over in Afghanistan,
the government had received
escalating Soviet support.
But the situation hadn't stabilized.
The army was collapsing under the
increasingly brutal pressure of the
Mujahideen.
Morale was now so bad that the
air force had to put down a major
rebellion by army units.
The desperate government summoned
tribal leaders to Kabul to urge them
to explain their
policies to their populations.
President Amin
addressed the gathering.
But the tribal leaders knew that
events were already overtaking Amin.
Hajj was now approaching.
Pilgrims like Sheikh Zayed,
founder of the UAE, arrived.
And travelling Being incognito,
so did dignitaries from Iran,
including the future
supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Iranian pilgrims had all been
encouraged by Khomeini to spread the
ideology of their revolution.
There were some concerns expressed
by the Saudis that Iran would try to,
Iranian provocateurs
would try to do things.
They monitored the pilgrims coming
in from Iran very closely, the best
they could.
As some of the Iranian pilgrims
traveled by bus through Saudi
Arabia,
they spread propaganda challenging
the religious legitimacy of the
Saudi government.
Some audiences were
particularly receptive.
Islamist forces were gaining
traction, but no violence had
erupted here, at least for now,
more needed to be done to capture the
imaginations of pilgrims like these.
A series of dramatic events in the
next last weeks of 1979 would help
the Islamists in their ambitious
task.
Among the vast crowd was a
43-year-old Saudi citizen, Juhayman
al-Otaybi.
He was not an Islamist,
but an extreme Sunni conservative
with four or five hundred followers.
For Juhayman,
the end of time would be at the very
imminent end of the Islamic century.
He was now praying for God's help
in proclaiming his brother-in-law
as the Mahdi.
Over in Iran,
an event was beginning that would
be as momentous as what was about to
happen in Mecca.
Islamist students and militia
were storming the American embassy,
officially foriegn soil.
They took 66
American staff as hostages.
They wanted the return of the deposed
Shah from the US, where he was sick.
The event caught the
imagination of the Iranian public.
Anti-Western
sentiment unified leftists,
religious
conservatives, and Islamists alike.
The fact that it was against all
the laws of international diplomacy
didn't bother Khomeini.
He issued a statement calling it a
second revolution, bigger than the
one that had toppled the monarchy.
He even labelled the U.S.
"the great Satan."
Most members of Iran's provisional
government resigned in protest
against a situation
provoking war with America.
But Khomeini simply
ordered Mohammad Beheshti,
one of his closest supporters,
to lead an interim government.
The full authority of the new
state was slipping into the hands of
Khomeini.
The hostage situation
may have risked war,
but 800 million Muslims around the
world were now following the events
at the Embassy, many in
awe at Iranian audacity.
But over in Egypt, Sadat was
incredulous at what was happening.
He angrily left from a a press
conference in which he had railed
against Khomeini,
criticisms he would repeat
on international television.
The man is lunatic, really,
because he is full of hatred.
Islam never preaches hatred at all.
The country is in chaos, no one
rules, there is no government, and
then this hostage, disgraceful
thing that has taken place,
especially when there has been women
among them, for the sole reason that
he wants to prove himself as a
revolutionarist against the United
States.
He is not a Muslim.
He is a lunatic.
Khomeini was not a lunatic.
In fact, the longer
the crisis continued,
the better it was for him.
The siege was
a distraction from the governmental
chaos, and a rallying cry in
the run-up to the vote on the
constitution, a vote that would
finally confirm him as supreme
leader.
Meanwhile, in the village of
Al-Mudassir, Juhayman al-Otaybi,
with a group of 350 hardline,
traditionalist followers, was
jamming weapons into coffins.
They then drove them to Mecca to
smuggle them into the Holy Mosque.
Tomorrow, they would announce
that the Mahdi
had come and call
on Muslims to swear allegiance.
Although their Mahdi was destined to
be killed, and their plot to fail,
this group would have their
part in this year of revolution.
These ultra-conservatives wanted the
country to join their Mahdi and rise
up against the Al-Saud dynasty,
a dynasty that pursued modernizing
policies, like the introduction of
television and football,
and the education of women.
Their operation started at dawn.
It was the first day of
a new Islamic century.
Juhayman then broadcast
his manifesto to Mecca.
He then proclaimed the Mahdi.
Most of the pilgrims fled,
but the attackers shut the
gates, keeping hundreds hostage.
Frontal assaults by the
police and army failed.
They suffered heavy casualties,
and a military
helicopter was even shot down.
Unfortunately, at
this critical moment,
most of the government was away in
Tunis, at an Arab League meeting.
They were trying to ease pressure
on their ally, President Sadat.
A news blackout was imposed.
Borders were closed, and
key ministers rushed back.
Meanwhile,
the American embassy was
sending what
information it
could back to Washington.
The 20th was a long day.
Washington, of course, very concerned.
It didn't seem to be a foreign hand,
but who knew what was
behind these people?
No one ever heard of
this particular group.
Shinsuke very much believed it was
necessary to show some muscle to
bolster our friends the Saudis.
So we were serious
about protecting them.
America's nuclear
aircraft carrier, Kitty Hawk,
and several other ships
were ordered to the Gulf.
Make sure Iran would put on notice,
wouldn't tolerate any interference,
any more interference, they already
had our hostages.
Meanwhile, rumors about what was
happening in Mecca started to leak.
In Tehran,
vast crowds took to the streets,
blaming America for the sacrilege.
They were the largest
since the fall of the Shah.
They had been spurred into action by
a statement from Khomeini, read out
on Radio Tehran.
It is not far-fetched to assume that
this act has been perpetrated by the
criminal American imperialists.
These conspiracies are propagated to
undermine the solid ranks of Muslims.
Muslims should not
cease their alertness.
They should expect such despicable
acts from American imperialism and
American Zionism.
In Islamabad, in neighboring
Pakistan,
within hours of the broadcast,
militant Muslim students were
storming the American embassy.
They were furious that the Americans
may have taken over the Kaaba.
Among the Pakistani students,
intelligence reports later revealed
were Iranians and Palestinians.
They attacked our embassy and set
it on fire, almost murdered our
embassies out there.
It came beyond a Mecca issue,
it became a regional issue.
Every day we'd wake up, didn't
know what new issue might develop.
Pakistani security services, were
unable to bring order for two days.
In Mecca, the ongoing
attacks were not breaking through.
The authorities were reluctant to
bring in heavy weapons or armored
vehicles because of the prohibition
against the use of arms in the mosque.
We've got pictures which were
horrifying in terms of the damage
done to this holy place with fires
and with damage to minarets, it was
horrific, very traumatizing.
So we knew, in fact, that
things were in a bad, bad way.
The longer the siege went on,
the more cause it gave to
any who questioned the
legitimacy of the regime.
But the Saudi government
now had a new problem.
It was the run-up to Ashura.
And in the eastern
province of Saudi Arabia,
recent propaganda from Iraq had
roused the local Shia community.
Youths were taking to the streets.
They listen to calls by foreign
clerics to take inspiration from
Khomeini.
The situation intensified overnight.
For several dramatic days,
bloody street violence
rocked the eastern province.
Demonstrators chanting "Khomeini"
burned the British bank in Qatif, as
well as the offices of
the Saudi National Airline.
They attacked police,
seized weapons from soldiers,
and even occupied the old city in
downtown Khatif, from which they
held off the Saudi military.
When the fighting died down,
the result was roughly 20
protesters and 10 soldiers dead.
Hundreds were injured,
and thousands arrested.
While never likely to
topple the government,
the uprisings had been a clear sign.
Young Shias were being
radicalized across the Middle East,
and Saudi legitimacy
was being questioned.
What was a far greater threat
to the government was the
ongoing siege in Mecca.
It is to this day the biggest
hostage crisis of all time.
By now the government had received
a fatwa allowing them to use all
necessary force to defeat the
rebels.
They had successfully taken
out the snipers in the minarets
and broken the perimeter.
And they had regained control of
the central courtyard of the mosque.
The following day,
they broadcast images of
officials circling the Kaaba,
to reassure the nation.
But the hardest
battle was still to come.
The military had to flush out
Juhayman and his remaining followers.
They had fortified themselves
securely in the mosque's vast
cellars.
The best option was tear gas,
but it was difficult to deploy in
these circumstances, and they they
felt they couldn't ask
the Americans for help.
The Saudis,
I think, were very wise in not
trying to involve us in any way.
Remember, though, we were at the
time being challenged
by Iran next
door as being the great Satan.
Our credentials were being assailed
in Islamabad by groups who were
calling us also apostates.
we had a Zionist
America plan to seize Mecca.
Fortunately,
the French had agreed to help, and
three officers had flown into Jeddah
the day before.
But how much could they do?
And how long would it take?
The failure to end the siege was a
public humiliation that threatened
the stability of the state.
America's ambassador, John West,
had already cabled back his
fears to Washington, fears the Saudi
government would also have
been secretly harboring.
In some ways,
the fact that the incident is sparked
by a religious group is disturbing.
The basic power and mass appeal of
a fanatic Muslim religious movement
has been clearly demonstrated in
Iran.
The bottom line question is
whether the Mecca Affair is the first
manifestation of religious ferment.
In Iran, it was the night before
the referendum on the Constitution,
a vote that would determine
the destiny of the
country and of the region.
The embassy hostage
crisis had been kept stoked,
and those who would vote against
the Constitution were portrayed as
supporting the enemy, America.
Many who voted would later feel that
they had been deceived by Khomeini.
The constitution was, of
course, overwhelmingly approved.
Khomeini's victory didn't just give
him the role of supreme leader and
bring about Sharia law.
It made an obligation of
state his dream of pan-Islamism.
It was a foundation for "ensuring
the continuation of the revolution at
home and abroad."
At a later press conference,
a spokesman for the Revolutionary
Council explained the new position.
And this is not only
an Iranian revolution,
but this is the revolution
for whole Islamic countries.
So we can speak on behalf of
all the Islamic countries.
In an interview from his home in Qom,
Khomeini expressed his
desire to lead the Muslim world.
Within days,
revolutionary troops will be sent
to fight in the Lebanese civil war.
It would be the groundwork for the
formation of Hezbollah, or the Party
of God.
All the rebels in Mecca had
finally been killed or taken prison.
The French advisors had helped the
Saudi military flush them out of the
cellars, using vast
quantities of tear gas.
But King Khalid had
been publicly humiliated.
It had taken two weeks to defeat
rebels who had defiled the Holy
Mosque, and the government
had required foreign help.
Osama bin Laden, then a young
student at nearby Jeddah University,
would later comment that
the Saudi ruling family
had desecrated the Haram.
This crisis could have
been solved peacefully.
The enemy of God did what
no pilgrim has ever done.
I remember to this day the impact
of their armored vehicles on the
Haram's floor tiles.
Even as they visited the wounded,
King Khalid and his advisors
knew that they needed to win back
credibility as good Muslims.
They could hardly forget the
fate of the Shah just a few months
previously.
Juhayman and the prisoners
could be executed and other
rebels could be imprisoned.
The sheer problem in the eastern
province could be eased with social
and economic reform.
But what had been happening, not just
here in Mecca but across the Middle
East,
indicated that something much
more fundamental was needed.
A few days later,
American diplomats in Jeddah started
inquiring about Saudi government
thinking.
We visited a number of media
representatives for frank talks on
the aftermath of the events.
It should be noted that the
media people concerned represent the
spectrum of religious beliefs.
from the extremely
religious, to some less so,
and to one, by Saudi
standards, a virtual atheist.
Sociologically, they
are all modernists,
for the development of a modern
industrial economy, and for the
necessary changes in society.
All appear gloomy.
They see the Mecca incident not just
as a rebellion by religious fanatics
disturbed at the
degeneracy of society,
but as a symptom of the tensions
created by the conflict between
modernization and traditionalism,
the corruption and hypocrisy of the
higher levels of the society, and
the unwillingness of the religious
conservatives to modify their belief
that they must control the lives of
everybody.
All are gloomy that the ruling powers
move the nation onto those paths
which lead to that open
society they professed to desire.
They were right to be gloomy.
Over the decade following the attack,
the Saudi government abandoned
liberalization for conservatism.
It implemented a stricter enforcement
of Sharia and gave the ulama, or
senior clerics, more power.
There was a ban on women
presenters on television,
and a ban on cinemas,
theatre and musical concerts.
Gender segregation was
enforced at every level,
and the school curriculum altered to
focus on religious studies.
Most importantly, as the dust
settled in a desecrated Mecca,
the Saudi government decided
it have to boost its Islamic
credentials internationally.
It would donate
billions on Muslim causes.
Much would be spent
with little oversight.
Significant amounts would
filter through to Islamist groups.
It would have huge consequences for
the entire Muslim world.
But one more event would give the
Islamist groups what they needed to
become a truly
popular global movement.
In Moscow,
the Central Committee of the
Communist Party were gathering at
the Kremlin.
They had concluded that the Afghan
government was unable to hold back
the rebel coalition of Islamists and
religious conservatives.
They were going to meet to
discuss introducing
Soviet
troops into Afghanistan.
A mighty army would cower
their rebels into submission.
It was a momentous decision.
The protocol of that session
was handwritten and referred to
Afghanistan as 'A' and the
invasion simply as 'Measures'.
It was so secret that the document
was not shown to anybody and was
kept in a special safe.
Tens of thousands of Soviet troops
were ordered to cross the border
into Afghanistan.
And 4,000 rapid deployment troops
were flown in by Soviet transport
planes to impose a a new
leadership for the country,
but instead of intimidating the
opposition, it strengthened them.
The Soviet invasion
appalled ordinary Afghans.
Muslims everywhere wanted to help
the Afghans repel the Soviet invader
from Muslim land.
Bin Laden,
the Saudi student and millionaire's
son, would become their poster boy.
During 1979,
he had been attending the
prayer group of a teacher at Jeddah
University, Abdullah Azzam.
Azzam persuaded Bin
Laden to go to Afghanistan.
Together, they would be joined
on the battlefield
by 30,000
international volunteers.
Few people around the world saw
the danger this movement posed,
happy that it was attacking the
sponsor of international leftism,
the USSR.
The cause of the Mujahideen, like
that of Iran's Islamic Revolution,
would catch the imagination of
millions of Muslims and change
history.
Afghan fighters did most
of the fighting and dying.
But the 30,000 volunteers
would return home heroes,
inspiring others with
their tales of glorious jihad.
The years after 1979 saw the
rise of the Dawah Party in Iraq,
the birth of Hezbollah and
Hamas, and the rise of the Taliban.
It saw the Chechen
Civil War, the Bosnia War,
the civil wars in Sudan and in
Algeria,
and of course,
the rise of Al Qaeda.
Islam ever since has been
tarnished by terrorism.