Steve Coll - The Bin Ladens

Seven Arab-owned companies submitted bids by the May deadline—two from Jordan, four from Egypt, and Bin Laden’s. He passed an initial cut down to three bidders, but his submission was not initially the lowest in price. Bin Laden corresponded with the decision-making committee about switching materials so as to reduce his bid further. “First, this is a sacred Islamic project, and I am very pleased to participate in the construction of this holy Muslim site,” he wrote on July 8, 1958. He pledged to work “at any cost and provide any materials in order to do this great and honorable service to the Muslim community.” To ensure success, Bin Laden provided an aide with power of attorney and sent him to Jerusalem for the last round of negotiations. He dropped his bid further to ensure that his was the lowest. His final submission was for 276,990.2 Jordanian dinars, just below the 278,225.5 dinars proposed by the Ali Abrahim Company of Egypt. The narrow margin suggests that a decision to favor Bin Laden might have already been made privately. Bin Laden later said that he had deliberately accepted a loss on the contract, as an act of personal religious charity, so it is also possible that he was determined, on his own, to win the honor. In any event, on July 17, 1958, the committee announced that Bin Laden had won. 16

“Your highness, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Laden, it is my pleasure to inform you that the Committee for the Reconstruction of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque has awarded the work of the construction…to your company,” the committee’s Supreme Judge wrote. “I am hoping this work will be completed in accordance with God’s expectations, and I hope God will help us preserve this Islamic treasure.” 17

For the next nine years, Mohamed Bin Laden oversaw construction and renovations at the sanctuary, first on the Dome of the Rock and the grounds around it, then on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and elsewhere in Muslim areas of Jerusalem’s Old City. He emphasized that the project was an act of personal devotion. “It is well known, Your Highness, that I care a great deal about the Dome of the Rock project,” he wrote to the Supreme Judge in 1959 while bidding on a contract for lighting and electrical work. “I will execute the plan…at my own expense. In addition, I will submit receipts without including any service or labor costs…This is not for financial gain, but for its religious significance.” 18

Bin Laden’s Jerusalem workforce was multinational and multireligious; it included Italian marble specialists, Armenian Christians and Palestinian Christians, as well as Palestinian Muslims. When the call to prayer rang out, Bin Laden would join the Muslim workers in prostrated worship, but the Italians would carry on or take a coffee break. “We learned a bit of Italian,” recalled Nadir Shtaye, a workshop supervisor. “They learned a bit of Arabic.” Bin Laden imported aluminum and marble from Europe, sand and cement from Jordan, wood from Lebanon, and tiles from Turkey, all trucked in from the Jordanian port at Aqaba. He won popularity by sometimes tipping workers on top of their salaries—ten dinars per man. A photograph shows him standing near a bank of microphones at a Jerusalem press conference in the late 1950s; he is dressed in a long white Saudi robe and a fashionable pair of dark sunglasses, carrying a modern briefcase. Photographs taken by his American pilot toward the end of the project show an enormous crane rising above the sanctuary’s esplanade; nearby are turbaned workers hammering to repair the outdoor plaza, amid piles of white sand. 19

King Hussein called for a celebration at the sanctuary after the first round of work was finished. Bin Laden flew into Jerusalem on his own private airplane on August 5, 1964, accompanied by a Saudi cabinet minister and notables from Medina. The Jordanian governor of Jerusalem and his military commander met Bin Laden at the airport. About five hundred Arab dignitaries crowded onto the sanctuary platform the next morning under a hot sun. A Koran reader sang out verses, and King Hussein presented Bin Laden with a medal honoring him for his work on Jerusalem’s behalf. As was by now a ritual of public Arab oratory, the king pledged to reclaim Palestine from Israel: “Let me emphasize that the actual renovation of the Mosque and the Dome of the Holy Rock assumes significance far beyond the physical repair work,” the king said. The renovation project had also advanced the cause of “complete restoration of our full rights in our usurped land.” 20

Bin Laden asked the Saudi minister who had accompanied him to read out his speech. He began with quotations from the Koran and a disquisition on the Prophet’s Night Journey. He lavishly praised King Hussein and his family. Bin Laden then moved on to the subject of himself:

God has also honored me, as I carried out the construction project at the two great mosques of Mecca and Medina, the two holy sites which God bestowed upon the Saudi Arabian government…[They] contracted me to undertake this project and thus I was granted the honor of developing the three great mosques in Islam, which draw pilgrims from near and far. This is truly a great privilege from God, who gave it to whom He chose. 21

He told the audience that the final cost had been about 516,000 dinars, or roughly $1.5 million at contemporary rates of exchange. Bin Laden paused to “point out here the generous, large contribution made by the Saudi Arabian government,” which had covered about half the budget. He then advertised his own charity rather conspicuously:

I wish Your Majesty to know that Yours Truly sacrificed an amount of no less than 150,000 dinars, which was spent willingly for this project, without concern about the material losses. I donated for this blessed work without any thought of the losses, but rather, my goal was spiritual gain, which for me is more important than hundreds of thousands of dinars.

He told the audience that King Hussein still owed him 167,000 dinars, but that he would renounce this debt as an additional act of charity—“my contribution to this great duty.” He said that as he now moved on to work on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he intended to build a large ten-acre garden nearby, from his own funds, and he asked for God’s help. 22

Bin Laden bought a house in East Jerusalem around 1963 or 1964. It was a spacious, white-stoned, red-roofed building of the sort that sprouted all around the city during the 1950s and early 1960s. It had a spectacular view of Jerusalem in the distance, as well as sandy ground and white-stone buildings nearer at hand. The cease-fire line then prevailing between Israel and Jordan was just a short walk down the street. To the east was Mount Scopus, a U.N.-controlled no-man’s-land, and to the south lay the Israeli neighborhoods of Givat Ha-Mivtar and Ramat Eshkol. Jerusalem’s old Qalandia airport was a short drive away, from where Bin Laden could fly directly to Jeddah, Mecca, or Medina on his private plane.

Bin Laden may have married at least one Palestinian wife during the years he worked on the Jerusalem project, but he stayed in his Jerusalem house mainly on short-term visits; it was otherwise occupied by his servants, company aides, and a guard who kept watch over his cars, according to the house’s current owner, a Christian Arab who is a citizen of Israel and a former owner, a retired Israeli naval officer. 23

Israel seized East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; after that, Bin Laden never returned. The home was renovated and expanded. For a time, a Palestinian consul of Spain leased a unit. Years later, the house fell under the administration of an Israeli government department that managed land abandoned by Arab owners because of the war. The house was transferred formally to the Israeli government, sold to the naval officer, and later sold by this officer to the current owner. Throughout this time, the Bin Ladens remained firmly and prosperously centered in Jeddah, but in a practical and material way, the family could trace its history to the resonant cause—and perhaps even the unresolved legal claims—of Palestinian refugees from the 1967 war.