The Majalla: Let’s move on to the main idea that was adopted by Juhayman for his movement, and that is the seizure of the Holy Mosque in Mecca. Who was the source of this idea at the beginning? And how did the idea of seizing the Holy Mosque occur to the Salafist group?
The case of entering the Holy Mosque in Mecca is originally linked to the expected Mahdi issue. They entered the Mosque because they had a scenario for the course of the group, after swearing allegiance to Mohammed Abdullah Al-Mahdi (Muhammad Abdullah Al Qahtani).
They adopted the scenario from the apocalyptic books of Dissentions and Signs of Doomsday. This scenario states that “The man swears allegiance at the corner of the Mosque, and this man performs a sit-in there and then an army comes from Tabuk only to be destroyed. Then this man comes out of the Holy Mosque, travels to Medina and fights the Antichrist.”
Later on, he leaves Medina and travels to Palestine and fights the Jews there and kills them. Jesus Christ then comes back to break the cross and kill the swine. Afterwards, they will go to Syria and pray at the Umayyad Mosque and then Doomsday will occur.
This is the scenario of the group according to the books of Dissentions and Signs of Doomsday.
But three days later, it became clear that Al-Mahdi was killed in the Holy Mosque. Juhayman also refused to believe that Mahdi was killed, and refused to declare that Mahdi was killed. He forced the group to deny his killing, boycotted them and poured his wrath on those who said Mahdi was killed.
He also said that Mahdi could not be killed, but he was only surrounded at the Holy Mosque and would eventually come out. Of course this was an illogical vision, and almost occurred to them because of their obsession with the idea of salvation through the Mahdi.