Sacrilege in Mecca

Monday, Dec. 03, 1979

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News of the attack on the mosque ended any love feast. Crown Prince Fahd, who headed the Saudi delegation, briefly debated whether to fly home to Riyadh to help resolve the crisis. The Saudis were quick to suspect the troublemaking hand of Libya's Muammur Gaddafi, who had shunned the summit meeting because, he said, he "no longer believes in heads-of-state conferences." In the delegates' lounge, one persistent rumor was that the CIA had staged the Mecca siege in order to justify the sending of U.S. Navy vessels to the Persian Gulf in the current Iranian crisis. For most Muslims, it was hard to imagine that a group of their own fellow believers would desecrate Islam's holiest shrine. Contemplating the early rumor that Khomeini-inspired Iranian Muslims had been involved, one Saudi delegate gloomily speculated that a holy war was breaking out between the Sunni and Shi'ite branches of Islam.

That prospect, of course, is most unlikely, but there is no doubt that the predominantly Sunni Saudis are seriously worried about the potential impact of the Ayatullah's revolution on political alignments in the Middle East. One solid piece of evidence:

the moderate, pro-Western Saudis are in the process of forging new bonds of friendship with the radically socialist, violently anti-Israeli regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Both countries are alarmed that some of Khomeini's followers are talking about exporting the Shi'ite revolution to vulnerable neighboring countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia has a minority Shi'ite population centered in the Eastern Province, where most of its oil is produced. Iraq has a Sunni leadership, in Hussein's Baath Party, ruling a restless, predominantly Shi'ite population. So Hussein is as anxious as the Saudis to maintain the status quo.

Anything that smacks of domestic turbulence upsets the Saudis, and they tried hard last week to play down the significance of the attack on the Sacred Mosque. When it was over, an official in Riyadh said, punishment of the zealots would be "swift and final"—meaning, presumably, execution by the sword.

Two years to the day after his historic visit to Jerusalem, the main object of the Arab summit's scorn, Anwar Sadat, raised the red, white and black flag of Egypt at the foot of historic Mount Sinai. The mountain, and 600 sq. mi. in the eastern Sinai, had just been returned to Cairo's sovereignty by Israel, but ceremonies observing the event were very low keyed. Premier Menachem Begin had declined Sadat's invitation to join him at the mountain, saying he was too busy, and the Egyptian President had scrapped earlier plans for a star-studded entertainment extravaganza. In fact, he did not even lay the cornerstone for his oft-promised shrine honoring Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Sadat simply asked the world's people "to observe the teachings of God and the tradition of his messengers for the promotion of fraternity and the elimination of bloodshed."