Towards the end of the 1979 annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by the followers of Islam, there was an armed uprising by militants led by a Saudi preacher Juhayman Al-Utaybi. Under cover of the presence of thousands of pilgrims, hundreds of rebels took control of the Grand Mosque. The Saudi government kept a tight control on news of the insurrection, since this was before the introduction of live satellite TV, mobile phones and the internet. Only Muslims are allowed in Mecca, which also hampered the use of outside help to quell the insurgents. Trofimov, a writer and journalist, obtained interviews with some few remaining participants who were teenagers at the time, and suffered only imprisonment for their part in the uprising. Trofimov traces the unrest from discontent with the Saudi rulers for their departure from the strict observance of Islamic beliefs. The ruling family promised to make reforms in order to gain permission from the clerics to use arms against the rebels, since this is holy ground. Ironically, Trofimov portrays these reforms as helping to provide aid for future Muslim revolutionaries, among them the Al Qaeda organization. The book describes the desert and rural culture that the rebels came from and illuminating the ideals they fought and died for.
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