The attempted arson at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in August 1969 provided Saudi Arabia with the appropriate occasion to assert its new role on the Islamic stage. It convened an Islamic summit at Rabat in September 1969, and then held the first conference of foreign ministers of Islamic countries in Mecca in March 1970. It was chaired by King Faisal and was attended by twenty-three countries. The next conference, held in Jeddah, two years later was attended by thirty-one countries. Saudi Arabia thus took central position in both Arab and Islamic worlds.
