International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism by region

Further information: International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism, Salafi movement, Ahl-i Hadith, Wahhabi movement, Salafi jihadism, Islamism, and Sufi-Salafi relations
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Following the embargo by Arab oil exporters during the Israeli-Arab October 1973 War and the vast increase in petroleum export revenue that followed,[1][2][3] the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunni Islam[4] favored by the conservative oil-exporting Kingdom of Saudi Arabia[1][5][6] and other Gulf monarchies achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam."[7] The Saudi interpretation of Islam not only includes Salafiyya (often referred by outsiders as "Wahhabism")[1] but also Islamist/revivalist Islam,[8] and a "hybrid"[9][10] of the two interpretations (until 1990s).

From 1982 to 2005 (the reign of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia), over $75 billion is estimated to have been spent in efforts to spread Salafiyya Islam. The money was used to established 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1500 mosques, and 2000 schools for Muslim children in Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries.[11][12] The schools were "fundamentalist" in outlook and formed a network "from Sudan (the spread of Salafism played a key role in the Sudanese civil war that ended with the creation in 2011 of Christian-majority South Sudan) to northern Pakistan".[13] By 2000 Saudi Arabia had also distributed 138 million copies of the Quran worldwide. [14]

In the 1980s, religious attaches in the Kingdom's ~70 embassies around the world worked to "get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the dawah salafiyya".[1][15]

The Saudi Arabian government funds a number of international organizations to spread fundamentalist Islam, including the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and various royal charities.[Note 1] Supporting proselytizing or preaching of Islam (da'wah), has been called "a religious requirement" for Saudi rulers that cannot be abandoned "without losing their domestic legitimacy" as protectors and propagators of Islam.[16]

In the words of journalist Scott Shane, "when Saudi imams arrived in Muslim countries, or in Muslim communities in Europe or the Americas, wearing traditional Arabian robes, speaking the language of the Quran — and carrying a generous checkbook — they had automatic credibility."[17]

In addition to the Salafi interpretation of Islam, other strict and conservative interpretations of Sunni Islam directly or indirectly assisted by funds from Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf include those of Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. Salafism and forms of Islamism are said to have formed a "joint venture",[8] sharing a strong "revulsion" against Western influences,[18] a belief in strict implementation of injunctions and prohibitions of sharia law,[2] an opposition to both Shiism and popular Islamic religious practices (the cult of `saints`),[8] and a belief in the importance of armed jihad.[10]

Later the two movements are said to have been "fused",[9] or formed a "hybrid", particularly as a result of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union,[10] and resulted in the training and equipping of thousands of Muslims to fight against Soviets and their Afghan allies in Afghanistan in the 1980s.[10] (The alliance was not permanent and the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden broke with Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Revivalist groups also disagreed among themselves -- Salafi Jihadi groups differing with the less extreme Muslim Brotherhood, for example.[19])

The funding has been criticized for promoting an intolerant, fanatical form of Islam that allegedly helped to breed radicalism.[20] The volunteers mobilized to fight in Afghanistan (such as Osama bin Laden) who became "exultant" at their success against the Soviet superpower, went on to fight Jihad against Muslim governments and civilians in other countries.[21]

  1. ^ a b c d Wagemakers, Joas (2021). "Part 3: Fundamentalisms and Extremists – The Citadel of Salafism". In Cusack, Carole M.; Upal, M. Afzal (eds.). Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 21. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 333–347. doi:10.1163/9789004435544_019. ISBN 978-90-04-43554-4. ISSN 1874-6691.
  2. ^ a b Kepel, Gilles (2006). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I.B. Tauris. p. 51. ISBN 9781845112578. Well before the full emergence of Islamism in the 1970s, a growing constituency nicknamed `petro-Islam` included Wahhabi ulemas and Islamist intellectuals and promoted strict implementation of the sharia in the political, moral and cultural spheres; this proto-movement had few social concerns and even fewer revolutionary ones.
  3. ^ JASSER, ZUHDI. "STATEMENT OF ZUHDI JASSER, M.D., PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY. 2013 ANTI–SEMITISM: A GROWING THREAT TO ALL FAITHS. HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES" (PDF). FEBRUARY 27, 2013. U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. p. 27. Retrieved 31 March 2014. Lastly, the Saudis spent tens of billions of dollars throughout the world to pump Wahhabism or petro-Islam, a particularly virulent and militant version of supremacist Islamism.
  4. ^ Musa, Mohd Faizal (2018). "The Riyal and Ringgit of Petro-Islam: Investing Salafism in Education". In Saat, Norshahril (ed.). Islam in Southeast Asia: Negotiating Modernity. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. pp. 63–88. doi:10.1355/9789814818001-006. ISBN 9789814818001. S2CID 159438333.
  5. ^ Hasan, Noorhaidi (2010). "The Failure of the Wahhabi Campaign: Transnational Islam and the Salafi madrasa in post-9/11 Indonesia". South East Asia Research. 18 (4). Taylor & Francis on behalf of the SOAS University of London: 675–705. doi:10.5367/sear.2010.0015. ISSN 2043-6874. JSTOR 23750964. S2CID 147114018.
  6. ^ "6 common misconceptions about Salafi Muslims in the West". OUPblog. 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  7. ^ Kepel, Gilles (2003). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I.B. Tauris. pp. 61–2. ISBN 9781845112578.
  8. ^ a b c Roy, Olivier (1994). The Failure of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. p. 117. ISBN 9780674291416. Retrieved 2 April 2015. The Muslim Brothers agreed not to operate in Saudi Arabia itself, but served as a relay for contacts with foreign Islamist movements. The MBs also used as a relay in South Asia movements long established on an indigenous basis (Jamaat-i Islami). Thus the MB played an essential role in the choice of organisations and individuals likely to receive Saudi subsidies. On a doctrinal level, the differences are certainly significant between the MBs and the Wahhabis, but their common references to Hanbalism ... their rejection of the division into juridical schools, and their virulent opposition to Shiism and popular religious practices (the cult of 'saints') furnished them with the common themes of a reformist and puritanical preaching. This alliance carried in its wake older fundamentalist movements, non-Wahhabi but with strong local roots, such as the Pakistani Ahl-i Hadith or the Ikhwan of continental China
  9. ^ a b Gold, Dore (2003). Hatred's Kingdom : How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. Regnery. p. 237. ISBN 9781596988194.
  10. ^ a b c d Kepel, Gilles (2004). The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West. Harvard University Press. p. 156. ISBN 9780674015753. Retrieved 4 April 2015. In the melting pot of Arabia during the 1960s, local clerics trained in the Wahhabite tradition joined with activists and militants affiliated with the Muslims Brothers who had been exiled from the neighboring countries of Egypt, Syria and Iraq .... The phenomenon of Osama bin Laden and his associates cannot be understood outside this hybrid tradition.
  11. ^ Ibrahim, Youssef Michel (August 11, 2002). "The Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define". cfr.org. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014. ... money that brought Wahabis power throughout the Arab world and financed networks of fundamentalist schools from Sudan to northern Pakistan.
  12. ^ According to author Dore Gold this funding was for non-Muslim countries alone. Gold, Dore (2003). Hatred's Kingdom : How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. Regnery. p. 126.
  13. ^ Ibrahim, Youssef Michel (August 11, 2002). "The Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define". Council on foreign relations. Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 4, 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  14. ^ House, Karen Elliott (2012). On Saudi Arabia : Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future. Knopf. p. 234. A former US Treasury Department official is quoted by Washington Post reporter David Ottaway in a 2004 article [Ottaway, David The King's Messenger New York: Walker, 2008, p.185] as estimating that the late king [Fadh] spent `north of $75 billion` in his efforts to spread Wahhabi Islam. According to Ottaway, the king boasted on his personal Web site that he established 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1500 mosques, and 2000 schools for Muslim children in non-Islamic nations. The late king also launched a publishing center in Medina that by 2000 had distributed 138 million copies of the Koran worldwide.
  15. ^ Lacey, Robert (2009). Inside the Kingdom : Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia. Viking. p. 95. ISBN 9780670021185. The Kingdom's 70 or so embassies around the world already featured cultural, educational, and military attaches, along with consular officers who organized visas for the hajj. Now they were joined by religious attaches, whose job was to get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the dawah wahhabiya.
  16. ^ House, Karen Elliott (2012). On Saudi Arabia : Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future. Knopf. p. 234. To this day, the regime funds numerous international organizations to spread fundamentalist Islam, including the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and various royal charities such as the Popular Committee for Assisting the Palestinian Muhahedeen, led by Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, now minister of defense, who often is touted as a potential future king. Supporting da'wah, which literally means `making an invitation` to Islam, is a religious requirement that Saudi rulers feel they cannot abandon without losing their domestic legitimacy as protectors and propagators of Islam. Yet in the wake of 9/11, American anger at the kingdom led the U.S. government to demand controls on Saudi largesse to Islamic groups that funded terrorism.
  17. ^ Shane, Scott (2016-08-25). "Saudis and Extremism: 'Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  18. ^ Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (PDF). I.B.Tauris. p. 141.
  19. ^ Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: On the Trail of Political Islam. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 220. ISBN 9781845112578. Retrieved 6 July 2015. Hostile as they were to the `sheikists`, the jihadist-salafists were even angrier with the Muslim Brothers, whose excessive moderation they denounced ...
  20. ^ Armstrong, Karen (27 November 2014). "Wahhabism to ISIS: how Saudi Arabia exported the main source of global terrorism". New Statesman. Retrieved 12 May 2015. A whole generation of Muslims, therefore, has grown up with a maverick form of Islam [i.e. Wahhabism] that has given them a negative view of other faiths and an intolerantly sectarian understanding of their own. While not extremist per se, this is an outlook in which radicalism can develop.
  21. ^ Pabst, Adrian. "Pakistan must confront Wahhabism". Guardian. in the 1980s ... during the Afghan resistance against the Soviet invasion, elements in Saudi Arabia poured in money, arms and extremist ideology. Through a network of madrasas, Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi Islam indoctrinated young Muslims with fundamentalist Puritanism, denouncing Sufi music and poetry as decadent and immoral.


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