SUMMARY
JSM (al-Jamaa al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba; the Salafi Groups which Practices Hisba) was an Islamist rebel group that occupied the Grand Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on 20 November 1979. The clashes between the JSM and Saudi government forces during the occupation were severe enough to reach the threshold of an intrastate armed conflict.
The JSM originated during 1966 in Medina, a town in Saudi Arabia, and was created by a small group of religious students who believed that the mainstream schools of Islam needed to be purified from misperceptions. Following King Faisal’s ascension to the Saudi throne in 1964, the domestic social and political environment favored the emergence of local branches of Islamism; one of these was the Sahwa, the mainstream Wahhabi Islamic movement in Saudi Arabia. The other dominant branch to emerge was the “rejectionist” (sometimes neo-Salafi) branch, which was critical of the current state of Wahhabism; the rejectionist branch formed the ideological basis for the JSM. The students that created JSM were inspired by Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, a scholar who rejected all schools of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh; the study and theory of law) and promoted a direct and exclusive reliance on the Qur’an and the Sunna (the normative tradition of the Prophet Muhammed).
The JSM had no official executive leader but was governed by a consultative council, the majlis al-shura. The group also developed a complex administrative structure, and by 1976 it was present in all major Saudi cities. In the 1960s, the spiritual leader of the group was Abd al-Aziz bin Baz. After an ideological fractionalization of the group, Juhayman bin Muhammad bin Sayf al-Utaybi (usually referred to as simply Juhayman) emerged as the leader of the remaining parts of the group. The members of the group were mainly marginalized young men, many of whom came from tribal societies disadvantaged by the Saudi modernization process; a significant amount of the group’s members were also of foreign, particularly Yemeni, background.
For the first years of its existence, the JSM focused solely on moral and religious reform, and did not have an explicit political agenda. The group’s literal interpretation of religious texts led to extreme social conservatism and a rejection of modernity, and some of the group’s interpretations of Islamic tradition caused alarm among religious scholars in Medina who had previously been sympathetic to the JSM. The increasing tensions with other religious groups and figureheads led to a rift within the JSM in 1977, leaving only the youngest and most radical members, led by Juhayman. Juhayman’s name became virtually synonymous with the JSM, and his followers began calling themselves the “Brothers” (Ikhwam). Juhayman, who was born into the Utayba bedouin clan, had previously served in the Saudi National Guard. In 1977, Juhayman was forced into hiding, as Saudi authorities decided to crack down on his movement; he did not reemerge until 1979. Juhayman also accused the Government of Saudi Arabia of using religion to promote their “worldly interests”. Further fractionalization of the group occurred in 1978, when Juhayman declared Muhammad al-Qahtani, another JSM member and friend of Juhayman, as the Mahdi (an equivalent to the Judaic/Christian Messiah).
Most of the weapons used by the group were acquired from Yemeni smugglers. It has not been possible to establish any further connection between the JSM and other actors.
