Trofimov, Yaroslav 1969-

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Trofimov, Yaroslav 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born July, 1969, in Kiev, Ukraine; married; children: one. Education: New York University, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Jay Mandel, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Writer and journalist. Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, foreign correspondent, 1999—. Former reporter for Bloomberg News; worked as a reporter in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.

WRITINGS:

Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2005, revised edition (with new afterword), Picador (New York, NY), 2006.

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Yaroslav Trofimov was born in the Ukraine but moved to Madagascar as a child. He attended New York University and worked as a reporter in the United States, France, and the former Soviet Union before he traveled to the Middle East in 1994, just as the Oslo peace process was about to begin. Trofimov learned Arabic and Hebrew and covered suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and shootings as he traveled from Lebanon to Gaza to the Persian Gulf. In 1997 he moved to Rome, Italy, where he wrote about business and politics, first for the Bloomberg News and then for the Wall Street Journal. Within hours of the September 11, 2001, attacks Trofimov's editor asked him to return to the Middle East. Although Rome was his base, his assignments were located across a wide swath of the Middle East and Africa. His book Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu documents his three years in Muslim countries including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, and Mali.

Steve Coll remarked in the Washington Post Book World that "Trofimov is an intrepid, Arabic-speaking traveler who moves in landscapes few other Westerners traverse. As a roving foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, he has often produced newspaper stories rich in detail and nuance, and he has established himself as one of the best in the business." In wartime Iraq, Trofimov was a "unilateral" journalist, moving freely and at great risk through the country, rather than being "embedded" under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon. Because of his unique experiences and journalistic style, he unearths information and offers insights seldom seen in the work of more traditional contemporary journalists.

Trofimov writes of people's reactions, ranging from resentment to celebration, to the United States' invasion of Iraq, and reports on the cultures he finds, such as in Mali, where Islam and indigenous religions peacefully coexist. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "Trofimov puts just the right blend of cultural perspective and personal experience into his tour." A Kirkus Reviews critic noted that the view that the Iraq conflict was the beginning of an endless divide between the West and Islam is felt most by wealthier Muslims and that "hating Americans has been de rigueur for years now; even the staff of the Jeddah Chuck E. Cheese, by Trofimov's account, is likely to assume that any Westerner is a Zionist spy." The reviewer called Faith at War "essential for readers walking the minefield of U.S.-Arab relations."

In The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda, Trofimov recounts a largely ignored episode in Middle Eastern history that he sees as the foundational event behind much of the anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world today. In what Washington Post Book World critic Thomas W. Lippman called a "remarkable feat of reporting," Trofimov mines obscure documentary resources, locates and interviews long-lost participants in the events around the siege, and delves into the hidden interior of a secretive and repressive government to tell the story of an event with serious repercussions that are still felt today.

In November 1979, a large group led by Saudi cleric Juhayman al Uteybi violently seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Uteybi's purpose was to protest the Saudi government's corruption and its "illegitimacy as an ally of the West," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor. They sought to "instigate an apocalyptic confrontation with the Saudi crown and expel the kingdom's American allies," reported Robert Collins in the London Sunday Times. The invaders captured dozens of pilgrims at the site and occupied the mosque, considered Islam's holiest location, for nearly three weeks. "On the surface of things, the occupiers of the mosque shocked the Saudi establishment and the global umma, or Muslim community, by their sacrilegious wielding of weapons in the holiest sanctuary of Islam. Yet at the same time they were also tapping into an undercurrent of anger against the perceived hypocrisy of the Saudi dynasty that would later inspire young Osama bin Laden and a generation of radicals who vowed to topple their own ‘un-Islamic’ governments," remarked Christian Caryl in Washington Monthly.

The Saudi military was unable to break the siege, and the occupation resulted in considerable bloodshed. It was only after the intervention of Pakistani and French forces that the mosque was retaken, aided by blueprints provided by Osama bin Laden's brother, who had recently been involved in renovations at the site. Bin Laden himself was profoundly disturbed by the way the Saudi government handled the situation—"the way the Saudi regime repressed it made a lasting impact on the young Osama bin Laden. It was one of the factors that caused him to see the House of Saud as apostates and enemies of Islam," Trofimov stated in an interview on the Siege of Mecca Web site. "On the other hand, the Saudi government reacted to that uprising by trying to buy off the radical clerics, and by financing their campaign to spread ultra-orthodox Islam around the world—a proselytizing effort that produced many of Al Qaeda recruits in subsequent decades," Trofimov continued.

In the aftermath of the uprising, in which Uteybi and many of his followers were executed by beheading, the Saudi government maintained strict secrecy. However, "Saudi rulers, terrified by what Uteybi represented, essentially gave in to his demands that the country's drift toward liberalization be reversed. Women were taken off television, theaters were closed, and huge amounts of cash were disbursed to the country's most xenophobic, reactionary preachers and teachers. Therein lie the roots of the terrorism that arose from Saudi Arabia two decades later and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center," commented Lippman. For Trofimov, the siege of the mosque at Mecca laid the foundation for the creation and rise of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the deadly Islamic fundamentalism that threatens the world today. "It has taken nearly thirty years to comprehend these events in their proper context, and Trofimov does excellent work in narrating them in that light," commented the Kirkus Reviews critic. A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that "casual readers will be well served by this introduction to Muslim fundamentalist terrorism."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Trofimov, Yaroslav, Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005, review of Faith at War, p. 345; June 15, 2007, review of The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda.

Library Journal, April 1, 2005, Ethan Pullman, review of Faith at War, p. 112.

Publishers Weekly, April 18, 2005, review of Faith at War, p. 56; June 4, 2007, review of The Siege of Mecca, p. 42.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2007, review of The Siege of Mecca.

Sunday Times (London, England), January 6, 2008, Robert Collins, review of The Siege of Mecca.

Washington Monthly, December, 2007, Christian Caryl, "Mecca Deal: How a Botched Saudi Hostage Crisis Paved the Way for Al-Qaeda," review of The Siege of Mecca, p. 68.

Washington Post Book World, May 29, 2005, Steve Coll, review of Faith at War, p. 3; October 21, 2007, Thomas W. Lippman, "A Missing Link in Terror's Chain," review of The Siege of Mecca, p. 8.