Who are Johayman Al-Otaybi and Mohammed Abdullah Al-Qahtani?

Johayman Bin Mohammed Bin Seif Al-Otaybi served as member of the Saudi National Guard for 18 years. He met Mohammed Abdullah Al-Qahtani in the Medina and soon became friends with him, for they held the same extremist ideologies. Both of them declared the state as infidel, challenged leaders who failed to rule by the Holy Book and refused the civil aspects of society including the press and all radio and television channels. Their friendship grew stronger after Al-Qahtani married Al-Otaybi’s sister and the two set out to spread their doctrines in secret among worshipers of the Medina’s small mosques. Many Muslims greeted their preaching positively and the two succeeded at drawing thousands of followers.

Prophet Muhammad said: “God sends to mankind at the end of every one-hundred years one who regenerates the matter of their religion.” Holding firmly to this belief and following a vision he had in his dreams, Al-Qahtani declared his brother-in-law to be the Mahdi who will liberate the Arabian Peninsula and the entire world from oppressors and talked him into believing the legend.

Massacre

On November 20, 1979 and as soon as morning prayers ended, Johayman Al-Otaybi who had made his way through the crowd, yelled to worshippers that the Mahdi, Mohammed Abdullah Al-Qahtani, had appeared calling on them to obey him. Meantime, militants who numbered close to 200 and who hailed from 12 different countries set down what was thought to be coffins brought for a blessing at the Grand Mosque, opened them up and took out a huge cache of arms and ammunition. The militants managed to bolt all doors to the Mosque, trapping around 100,000 worshipers inside and forcing many of them to pledge allegiance to the alleged Mahdi.

At first, the Saudi authorities attempted to find an amicable solution to the seizure but Al-Otaybi refused to surrender or to release the hostages detained inside the mosque, estimated at 60,000 people. He argued that his action was aimed at correcting the situation created by the ruling Al Saud Family, which had lost its legitimacy, because it was corrupt, ostentatious and had destroyed Saudi culture by an aggressive policy of Westernization. Against the failure of peaceful arrangements, the Saudi government issued a fatwa authorizing security forces to storm into the Grand Mosque. The battle began on January 4 after a two-week seizure by radical militants.

Fatalities and Injuries

According to a report issued by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, heavy gunfire exchanged between the Saudi forces and the militants resulted in the death of 12 officers, 115 soldiers and 26 pilgrims including 3 women. Another 49 officers, 413 soldiers and 109 pilgrims of different nationalities were injured.

On the opposite side, the attack ended with the fall of the alleged Mahdi thus triggering the biggest shock among militants who had thought him to be invincible. On January 9, 1980, in the public squares of four major Saudi cities, including Mecca, Grand Mosque militants were beheaded by sword on orders of the king Khaled Bin Abdul Aziz, thus bringing to end the first religious terrorism incident which reverberated throughout the Muslim world due to both its timing on the dawn of the new century of Hijri and the bloodshed it provoked in the Grand Mosque.