Author Archives: Guest

This is a cross-post by Shiraz Maher from Standpoint Magazine.

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So the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is back in with government. It was not all that long ago that the Department for Communities and Local Government cut ties with the group after its Deputy Secretary General, Daud Abdullah, signed the Istanbul declaration which you can read in full here.

Framed as a ‘statement’ addressed to ‘all rulers and peoples concerning events in Gaza’, it condemns those who have ‘given up the choice of jihad in the way of Allah as an effective means in defeating the occupation’.

The document did not stop there. It also issued a number of ‘legal judgements’ which include:

This is a guest post by Raziq

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Juhayman al-Otaibi was a jihadist born and raised in Saudi Arabia.  He and his followers occupied the Grand Mosque of Mecca in the final months of 1979. After a bloody siege that lasted 3 weeks, he was eventually defeated and later executed along with 67 of his followers. This was the first major attempt by militant Islamists to take power and Juhayman’s legacy was not easily quashed. His message would continue to inspire future militants, including Osama bin Laden.

In this article I will be looking at the background of Juhayman and the events leading up to the siege of Mecca.

Saudi Arabia had been a backwater for many centuries, with the main source of income coming from pilgrims who visited every year during the Hajj season.  After the discovery of vast reserves of oil in the 1930s, Saudi Arabia was suddenly thrust into the global limelight and had unimaginable wealth.  This led to the country embarking on extensive building programs.  The Saudis were careful to balance conservative traditions with this process of modernisation.