Mecca's Burning, Part I: Assault on the Grand Mosque

JohnQuincy ^ | 06/16/2010 | JohnQuincy

[wizkid]

On November 20, 1979, shots rang out in the courtyard of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest shrine in Islam, just as 50,000 worshippers were completing the final prayers celebrating the dawn of the new Moslem century. A roar of "Alahu Ahkbar," God is great, rose from the crowd as a bedouin preacher seized the mike from the Grand Imam and ordered his men to sniper nests in the minarets. Two weeks later, after a military siege and assault using nerve gas and artillery, the militants were all either dead or awaiting beheading. Within two months, a couple of US embassies had been stormed and torched. Mecca's Burning is a multipart post concerning the genesis of the siege, the siege itself and its continuing aftermath.

[wizkid]

"There will be in my Community a dissent and a faction, a people with excellent words and vile deeds. They will read Qur'an, but their faith does not go past their throats. They will pass through religion the way an arrow passes through its quarry. They will no more come back to the religion than the arrow will come back to its original course. They are the worst of human beings and the worst of all creation. The one who kills them or is killed by them is blessed. They summon to the book of Allah but they have nothing to do with it. Whoever kills them is closer to Allah than they. Their sign is that they shave (their heads)."

-Ahl-Al-Sunna on the Salafi (Wahabbi) movement.

[OneWingedShark]

Interesting; especially the quote.

[fish hawk]

This is a prophecy of events coming to the mosque at the Trade Towers site. (if indeed it gets built)

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

It bothers me when a quote is attributed to some supposedly fringe Muslim figure when the quote is actually directly or paraphrased from the Koran or Hadith spoken by Muhammad himself and is fundamental to all Muslim belief:

HADITH Sahih Bukhari [6:61:577] Narrated 'Ali:
I heard the Prophet saying, "In the last days (of the world) there will appear young people with foolish thoughts and ideas. They will give good talks, but they will go out of Islam as an arrow goes out of its game, their faith will not exceed their throats. So, wherever you find them, kill them, for there will be a reward for their killers on the Day of Resurrection."

[Cacique]

btt

[RebelTex]

bookmark

[wizkid]

I have changed the attribution for the quote as: Hadith used to refute Islamic extremism.

It is from the below link:

http://www.sunnah.org/publication/fajr/fajr.htm

My purpose for including the quote was to kick off the article with a reminder that religious extremism is condemned by Islam.

The article with the quote discusses the views of Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi. He is remembered as one of the leading poets and writers in the Arab world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamil_Sidqi_al-Zahawi

In any case, the quote came at the end of an extremely long article and was taken from some collations of Hadiths often used to refute Wahhabism. They are used to bolster al-Zahawi’s views as described by the article but should not have been attributed to him.

I hope that al-Zahawi’s views are not fringe because he does appear to condemn radicals. One would hate to think that the radical element is mainstream. It is even better that the quote comes from a hadith because it makes the condemnation that much stronger.

Thank you for your input.