Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia

The Story of Juhayman Al-'Utaybi Revisited

Bibliographic Data

ID8965907
AuthorsThomas Hegghammer (0000-0001-6253-1518, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, corresponding author), Stéphane Lacroix (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris)
Year2007
Volume39
Issue1
Pages122b-122b
Publication date2007-02-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743807232556
OpenAlexW4233250811, W4253028887
LanguageEN
Citations received7

This article examines the origin and legacy of the rebel group that stormed the great Mecca mosque in November 1979. Extensive fieldwork and new primary sources show that the rebels represented a radicalized faction of a large pietistic organization established in Medina in the mid–1960s under the name al–Jama a al–Salafiyya al–Muhtasiba (JSM). The rebel faction had broken with the mother organization in 1977 and developed into an apocalyptic sect under the leadership of Juhayman al–Utaybi, who spent two years as a fugitive in the desert before the attack. Although the rebellion was crushed, the early 1990s witnessed a resurgence of Juhayman's ideas in Saudi Arabia. The article argues that the JSM, the Mecca rebels, and their heirs represent a widely ignored undercurrent of Saudi Islamism. Pietistic and isolationist, this so–called rejectionist Islamism is intellectually and sociologically distinct from the two other strains of Saudi Islamism, namely, reformism and jihadism

Ancient history · Desert (philosophy · Ideology · Jihadism · Political science · Politics · Sect · Education and Islamic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Socioeconomic Development in MENA · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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