The Grand Mosque Seizure on November 20, 1979, was an armed attack and takeover by armed Islamic fundamentalist dissidents of the Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest place in Islam. The insurgents declared that the Mahdi, or redeemer of Islam, had arrived in the form of one of the insurgents' leaders, Abdullah Hamid Mohammed Al-Qahtani and called on Muslims to obey him. The seizure shocked the Islamic world as hundreds of pilgrims present for the annual hajj were taken hostag ...