Saudi here, this was a very good retelling of what happened, albeit pretty short and summarized missing very interesting details. I wish this show would be a little longer 28-30 mins with more in depth coverage of historical events, but overall good job. Good to see Aslan getting the recognition he deserves 🤩
Saudi here as well, there are some mistakes, for example, Juhayman's predecessor didnt rebel because of westernisation, he rebelled with the Ikhwan because the Saudis limited their raids into kuwait, jordan and other nations as King Abdulaziz wanted to consolidate his gains, they declared the King a kafir for doing so, and for dealing with the British later on.
many prominent figures in religion history are like that, Jesus failed to start a rebellion and become king of jews but became a God that's followed by many more who seek liberation from Roman rule for example
If this event didn't happen, most muslims wouldn't be practicing muslims today. Many muslims were very secular back then and a literal interpretation of the holy texts wasn't a thing yet
This is why, as a US citizen, I try to watch as much English language foreign news as possible. I'm 53, was 9 in 1979, and don't ever recall seeing this mentioned in US news. Thanks.
You do know that it was highly unlikely that any Western reporters were stationed in Saudi Arabia at that time, right? Even now, how likely is it that you get any sort of news report out of there?
Well thing have improved a lot since 1979. If this happened today it would be all over the news. At the time it was underreported everywhere even in much of the Arab and Muslim world, I know many Muslims that don't know this ever happened. It's good to see people talking about it again.
My family is from mecca, my great uncle was a security guard during the seizure and my father was a young boy who lived within a stonesthrow of the whole ordeal. I grew up hearing stories from people who actually experienced this and it was very interesting to see an official video about the topic. Thanks!
@@usmanbaloch1392wait, I’m hearing about this for the first time now. But this event actually happened during Hajj??? I assumed it took place at some other time when there’s a high number of people traveling to Mecca for Ummrah. But I would have never thought it happened during Hajj. They left that crucial part out in this video.
My favorite historian from tiktok has made it to the big leagues!! I'm happy you made this transition. You cured a lot of my historical ignorance and I'm grateful 🙏🏾
I was on a pilgrimage in 1979 this incident was unaware for us after we reached overland back to Riyadh then only we knew that there was an uprising in the holy city. I remember certain youths were distributing handbills (leaflets) we couldn't understand arabic.the news was really shocking for us .alhamdu lillah we returned safely Thank you very much for this video very much appreciated
An odd question; Al-Otaybi wanted to usher in a more conservative Islamic way of life in Saudi Arabia, so he and his cohorts stage an armed insurrection inside the Grand Mosque, spilling blood in the process. However, by Islamic law, violence is strictly forbidden inside the mosque... did it not occur to him, Al-Qahtani, and their followers that they were committing an immensely sacrilegious crime against Islam by doing this? I know this is a weird question, but it does have me perplexed. Thank you in advance for any illumination.
Very insightful, thanks. Could you do an episode on the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya? Also, it would be helpful if you could suggest some books for further reading at the end of each episode.
Thank you for this great piece! There's an awesome book about this event called "The Siege of Mecca" by Yaroslav Trofimov. Goes into great detail behind this forgotten chapter!
throughout my bachelors's degree in IR I tried my best to research on topics like this one but unfortunately such topics arent valued much in isamic countries. we like to rely on basic topics.
That’s the problem with our ummah. Majority of the Muslims don’t know of our history and accomplishments. How do we expect to rise again if we don’t know how we rose in the first place??
@@BengalTiger12 my professors used to consider such topics as conservative and based on conspiracies. Unfortunately most of our social science professors in Muslim countries are cowards
id really appreciate it if such a noble man like aslan pahari spoke on the history of the kurds: their rich history, their attempts at independence (eg treaty of sevres and the republic of mahabad), and their oppression both in the past (ottoman empire) and the present (turkey/iran). this video was great btw 👏
Good video. I think most people don't realise Saudi Arabia historically was no where near as strict as it had become in the 80s. As an example, for some tribes and regions it was common for women to be unveiled.
As a history buff, I had absolutely NO idea this event occurred, wow. The last known time I've known about Mecca under attack, was during the Crusades by Reynald.
So happy to see one of my favorite content creators doing things like this! I'd love to learn more about world affairs like the split between India and Bangladesh
There is a wonderful book by Yaroslav Trofimov, perhaps the only book of its kind, on this subject. A must read for those who wish to know more on this.
Ya just stated the facts of what happened and the history. No sides, no agenda, just good ole history. And I’m a white Latino Jew who’s agnostic and I thought this was super interesting
I knew this story about ten years ago listening to Sheikh Abdul Hamid Kishki friday sermon the first friday after the incident. He called the so called Mahdi " The Mahdi of Israel". He pointed out to a particular verse in Quran that miraculously talked about this incident.
There's also a great episode on this from the podcast Throughline called, "The Siege of Mecca" - very in-depth and excellent storytelling! Makes a good companion to this video :)
Interestingly enough, my dad owns a book called the Siege of Mecca, about this exact incident, and I read it as a teenager. It's surreal knowing of it considering how very few even mention it ever happened...
Thats an excellent journalism i did a research about this back in college i live in saudi and i had access to the national recourses here and you covered almost every point correctly except the fatwa of “ in times of necessity the forbidden becomes halal “ regarding the American or French units, also thats why saudi took a deep dive into conservative dark decades because of the majority of muslims worldwide back then were extremely conservative so we needed to become the mirror of the majority of Muslims and we went through a dark phase mostly in the 90’s called “ al sahwa “ which means the wakening till mbs came to power almost 8 years ago go and dramatically shifted the country’s vision to modernization.
That was not the first time something like this happened. Back in the tenth century, the Qarmatians took over Mecca and sacked the Kaaba. They removed most of its valuables including the black stone. The leader challenged Allah and asked where the birds were that were promised to defend the Kaaba according to hadith. The black stone was broken into pieces and ransomed back to the Muslims.
1:40 He's not his grandfather 😂 They're from two completely separate parts of the tribe. Juhaiman is *Al-Ruqi* Al-Otaibi, while Sheikh Sultan is *Al-Muqati* Al-Otaibi.
Because you are young and/or consume mainly western-oriented media. Even something like Al-jazeera is partially western-oriented as it discusses topics with an eye towards how they fit in the east-west exchange. To understand a nation I recommend going to the ‘local news’ and translating it to your native language, it is a good experience to appreciate how many struggles our brothers and sisters face across the world
This is fascinating. I’d never heard of this before. However, I was born in 1979, so that explains some of it. I’m familiar with Iran and the hostage crisis and Egypt and Israel though. Thank you for sharing this story. Wish it were more widely known in the US. Sad and unfortunate those poor worshippers were caught up in all that mess
8:50 Yes I would like to learn about the ISLAMIC OCCUPATION of Spain and Portugal from the year 711 to 1492 and how Christianity and European Civilization “triumphed” over Islam and how even after 781 years of Muslim occupation Christians kept their faith and present day Spain and Portugal are Christian countries. Care to make a video about that?
I’d watched a video on this exact event a few years ago and totally forgot about it. But throughout the video, I remember that the Saudi state ended up stopping secularisation of the country and became a very conservative repressive religious culture with a lot of surveillance and counterterrorism apparatus to ensure a repeat of this event wasn’t possible. They also had to emulate the Iranians to counter them geopolitically as the Iranians were condemning them for falling away from their previous religiosity and westernising as opposed to staying religious and therefore becoming illegitimate.
I was able to see a French documentary on this important but little-known event, with interviews with some of the French people involved in this event. French officers actually had to choose a "Muslim name" (in Saudi Arabia Abdel is more classic than Pierre or Jean :) ) and take the Islamic oath on the other hand, once at Jeddah airport, they were not taken to Mecca, but the authorities gave them all possible technical resources to advise the security forces present as closely as possible.
The fact that the dude died but his plans for a return to hyper conservitism ended up happening anyways (minus the overthrowing the government part) is baffling makes you think if that was his plan all along
In Bin Laden's CNN interview, he mentioned the American occupation of Mecca, was this what he was referring to? Or is there more untaught history I need to learn? 😅
