Book Review: The Seige of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda by Yaroslav Trofimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author writes with the typical post 9/11 bias especially in his introduction. As soon as you can get over this part then the investigative journalistic style is quite impressive. The information packed into the book about the haram and the Kingdom is very impressive. Juhayman and his group are the proto- group for many of the movements that come out of the discontent that people felt for the current regime. The fact that they were an mahdist sunni group and not a shia group but their actions coincided with the revolution in Iran all make for and interesting read.


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