Unleashing the Beast

Five

5 T HE M AHDI , I SLAM ' S M ESSIAH

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake (Matthew 24:9). On November 20, 1979, some 50,000 Muslims were celebrating the 1,400 th year of Islam in Mecca. As the crowds were beginning morning prayers, a group of 350 armed men and their followers suddenly burst into the Harem, the Grand Mosque that encloses the Ka'ba, the large black stone, at Islam's holiest site. They demanded that one of their holy men, Abdullah al-Qahtani, be declared the Mahdi. When the chief Imam refused their demands and pronounced them as heretics fighting suddenly broke out