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International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism by region

August 19, 2023

Further information: International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism, Salafi movement, Ahl-i Hadith, Wahhabi movement, Salafi jihadism, Islamism, and Sufi-Salafi relations

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 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 in Asia or Africa, 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]

Western Europe

Belgium

According to Hind Fraihi, a Moroccan-Belgian journalist, Saudi-trained imams and literature from Saudi Arabia glorifying jihad and advocating Islam versus non-Muslims thinking was “part of the cocktail” (other factors being "economic frustration, racism, a generation that feels it has no future”) leading to the ISIL terror cell in Belgium committing terrorist acts in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016. (Altogether 162 people were killed in the attacks.) .[17] In the capital Brussels, as of 2016, 95 percent of the courses offered on Islam for Muslims used preachers trained in Saudi Arabia, according to European Network Against Racism.[22] In February 2017 the Belgium Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (OCAD/OCAM, which evaluates terrorist and extremist threats in and to Belgium) voiced concerns over the spread of Saudi-backed Salafism in Belgium and the rest of Europe, stating “An increasing number of mosques and Islamic centres in Belgium are controlled by Wahhabism. This is the Salafist missionary apparatus.”[23]

Finland

See also: Islam in Finland

A 2017 proposal to construct a large mosque in Helsinki to "unite all Finnish Muslims", has met with resistance from among others the incoming mayor of the capital (Jan Vapaavuori). This was because it is being funded by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and may introduce "Sunni-Shia hate politics into Finland", as both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are Sunni ruled and have cracked down on Shia protestors.[24]

Germany

See also: Islam in Germany

The German government has expressed concern that religious organizations from the Middle East may be supporting German Salafists through the construction of mosques, training facilities, and the utilization of radical preachers.[25]

Iceland

See also: Islam in Iceland

In Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland where plans to build a new, larger mosque had been underway for more than a decade, there has been controversy over funding of the mosque. Following the 2015 Paris terror attacks, the President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson announced that he was "shocked to the point of paralysis" to learn from Saudi Arabian Ambassador, that Saudi Arabia planned to donate $1 million to the building of a mosque. Grímsson expressed concern that Saudi Arabian financing of the mosque would fuel radical Islam in Iceland.[26]

United Kingdom

See also: Islam in the United Kingdom

According to a report by Anthony Glees, [Note 2] extremist ideas being spread allow with donations from Saudi and Arab Muslim sources to British universities.[clarification needed] Eight universities, "including Oxford and Cambridge", accepted "more than £233.5 million from Saudi and Muslim sources" from 1995 to 2008, "with much of the money going to Islamic study centres".[27]

A 2012 article in Arab News reported

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has been the largest source of donations from Islamic states and royal families to British universities, much of which is devoted to the study of Islam, the Middle East and Arabic literature.

A large share of this money went toward establishing Islamic study centers. In 2008, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal donated £8 million (SR 48.5 million) each to Cambridge and Edinburgh for this purpose, Al Eqtisadiah business daily reported yesterday. Oxford has been the largest British beneficiary of Saudi support. In 2005, Prince Sultan, the late crown prince, gave £2 million (SR 12 million) to the Ashmolean Museum. In 2001, the King Abdul Aziz Foundation gave £1 million (SR 6.1 million) to the Middle East Center. There are many other donors. Oxford's £75 million (SR 454.6 million) Islamic Studies Center was supported by 12 Muslim countries. Ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, gave £3.1 million (SR 18.8 million) to Cambridge to fund two posts, including a chair of Arabic.

Ruler of Sharjah [in the UAE], Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, has supported Exeter's Islamic studies center with more than £5 million (SR 30 million) since 2001. Trinity Saint David, part of the University of Wales, has received donations from the ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.[28]

In June 2017, following the London Bridge terror attack, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn stated that the "difficult conversations" Prime Minister Theresa May called for should start with "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology".[29]

A July 2017 report by the Henry Jackson Society, commissioned by the government of the UK, stated that Middle Eastern nations are providing financial support to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have been linked to the spread of extremist material with "an illiberal, bigoted Wahhabi ideology".[30][31] The report said that the number of Salafi mosques in Britain had increased from 68 in 2007 to 110 in 2014.[32]

Eastern Europe/Balkans

Historically parts of the Balkans were introduced to Islam while under the domination of the Sufi-led Ottoman Empire and have majority or large minority Muslim populations. The fall of Communism and breakup of Yugoslavia, provided an opportunity for international Islamic charities to Islamization (or re-Islamization) people who had been living under an irreligious Communist government. Islamic charities—often with the backing of oil-rich Gulf kingdoms—built mosques and madrassas in Albania[33] and other Balkan countries. In Bosnia, Salafism is getting established particularly in the remote villages.[34]

Albania

A Muslim-majority country, Albania had been under anti-clerical communist control for 45 years when the Eastern bloc fell in 1991. The pro-Islamic Democratic Party was elected to power in 1992, and the government of Sali Berisha "turned to Saudi Arabia for financial support," and for assistance in "re-Islamizing" the country. Thirty NGOs and Islamic associations worked toward re-Islamization of Albania, including thirteen of the organizations formed a `Coordination Council of Arab Foundations.` Saudi Arabia sponsored `Al Haramein` and `Musafaq` (which were based in Britain) foundations which "vied" with Islamic organizations from Libya, Sudan, Iran and Turkey in "instumentalization of humanitarian aid as a means of proselytization." At least the Saudi and Sunni Islamist groups preached for creation of an Islamic society influenced by Salafiyya doctrines. Saudi NGOs built 200 mosques and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia donated one million copies of an Albanian-language version of the Quran.[35]

According to Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir, the "organized project undertaken by preachers and Islamic NGOs" was to "expunge indigenous Albanian ideas about Islam, before replacing it with a version of the faith more in conformity with the Wahhabi model. ... Islam in its most radical form was taught as the only true faith, while tolerance was seen as an indication of weakness. ... Hatred of the West was raised to the status of a creed."[35]

One of the first Islamists to come to Albania was Muhammad al Zawahiri, (the brother of Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement and Osama bin Laden's key lieutenant) as an accountant for the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). (Unbeknownst to Albanians, in addition to helping with relief and spreading correct Islam, IIRO was charged with the task of helping other members of Islamic Jihad find jobs within "charitable organizations building mosques, orphanages and clinics." By the mid-1980s, the Tirana cell of Islamic Jihad numbered 16 members, including a specialist in false identity documents, a recruit wanted on suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination. This was later exposed during an investigation carried out by the American and Albanian secret services,[35][36] In June 1998 three Egyptian Islamist accused of terrorist activities were arrested in Albania, with further arrests in September after the 1998 United States embassy bombings. )

How successful the proselytizing has been is unclear. Roy and Sfeir believe that with NGO work in the 1990s "Islamists gained an important foothold",[35] however, a 2012 Pew Research study found that only 15% of Muslims surveyed considered religion "a very important factor" in their lives—the lowest percentage in the world amongst countries with significant Muslim populations.[37][38]

Bosnia

During the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (where the approximately 43% of the population that was Muslim formed the largest religious group) received aid from Saudi groups — International Islamic Relief Organization, Saudi High Commission for Relief, Muwaffaq Foundations — as well as from non-Saudi Islamic groups. A 1996 report by the CIA stated that "all of the major and most of the minor Islamic charities are significant players in the former Yugoslavia", particularly in aiding Bosnian Muslims, delivering food, clothing, and medicine; supporting orphanages, schools, hospitals, agricultural, and refugee camps; and constructing housing, infrastructure. According to the Saudi Embassy to the US, the Saudi Joint Committee for Collection of Donations for Bosnia donated $500 million in aid to Muslims for medical care, refugee camps, education during the Bosnian War, and later reconstruction projects for mosques and religious schools.[39] In just one year (1994) Saudi nationals alone gave $150 million through Islamic NGOs for aid to Bosnia. However, a "growing body of reporting indicates that some of these charities are being used to aid Islamic extremist groups that engage in terrorism."[40]

Aid to the local Bosnian Islamist party (the SDA) gave it leverage to undermined competing local secular and more traditional Muslim groups.[41] The SDA prohibited consumption of alcohol and pork, "brought Muslim religious instruction into the schools, opened up prayer rooms, and used the leverage of its distribution of aid to pressurize the population to adopt Muslim names, to wear the veil, and grow beards."[41][36] A 1992 conference on the protection of human rights in Bosnia brought together representatives from 30 Muslims countries. It passed resolutions declaring "without ambiguity that the aim of the Bosnian conflict was the extermination of Bosnia's Muslims."[41]

"Afghan Arab" veterans fighting Serbs in Bosnia as volunteers took upon themselves Hisbah ("enjoin good and forbid wrong") including attempting to impose the veil on women and the beard on men. In addition they engaged in

causing disturbances in the ceremonies of [Sufi] brotherhoods they deemed to be deviant, .... smashing up cafes, and ... [organizing] sharia marriages to Bosnian girls that were not declared to the civil authorities.[42]

Rather than spreading strict Islamic practice, these activities were so unpopular with the Bosnian public and media they were condemned by the SDA.[42] According to Gilles Kepel, as of 2003, the only thing left of their presence were "a few naturalized Arab subjects married to Bosnian women."[42]

From the end of the Bosnian War to 2007, Saudi-financed organizations spent about $700 million in Bosnia, "often in mosques", according to analysts quoted by the New York Times.[43] "More than half a dozen new madrasas", (religious secondary schools), have been built throughout the country, as have dozens of mosques. In the capital and largest city Sarajevo, Saudi Arabia financed the King Fahd Mosque, a $28 million complex including a sports and cultural center.[43] According to a former Bosnian intelligence agent (Goran Kovacevic) interviewed by a public television network in the US, (PBS), the mosque is well financed and "the most radical mosque in the whole Bosnia-Herzegovina. ... All those guys that actually performed some kind of terrorist activity in Bosnia-Herzegovina were part of that mosque".[44] In October 2008, eight people were injured when men in hoods attacked participants at a gay festival in Sarajevo, dragging some people from vehicles and beating others while they chanted, “Kill the gays!” and “Allahu Akbar!”[43]

Salafi charity organizations also physically influenced Bosnian religious culture following the war. Saudis have helped restore some of the hundreds of mosques and monuments Serb nationalist forces destroyed during the war. While this assistance was badly needed and greatly helpful to thepersecuted Bosniaks, it involved removing the Islamic calligraphy that adorned many Balkan Muslim tombstones, which Salafis considered idolatrous and unIslamic. Critics complain that the graveyards were "often all that was left" of the local Bosnian heritage.[45]

Kosovo

One country where Saudi Arabia has been particularly successful in spreading conservative Salafism where once Sufi local Islamic beliefs held sway is Kosovo.[46] Following the NATO bombing campaign of 1999 that helped Muslim Kosovo gain independence from Orthodox Christian Serbia, the Saudi government[47] and private sources began to provide aid.[48][47] Saudi citizens donated $20 million to Kosovo in cash as well as food and medical supplies, and the Saudi Red Crescent sent medical volunteers.[48] The Saudi Joint Committee for Collection of Donations for Kosovo and Chechnya sent $45 million for humanitarian relief services (medical care, refugee camps, education, and later reconstruction of mosques and schools) to Kosovo according to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in the US.[39]

240 mosques have been built in Kosovo since the 1999 war.[46] The Saudi Joint Committee for Relief of Kosovo and Chechnya built approximately 100 mosques in rural areas, some with Quranic schools adjacent, and sent 388 foreign teachers to spread "their interpretations of Islam".[49]

Saudi-sponsored charities sponsored education, classes not only in religion but English and computers, often paying salaries and overhead costs. Families were given monthly stipends. All this was appreciated in the "poor and war ravaged" country but local Kosovar imams complained that stipends were given "on the condition that they attended sermons in the mosque and that women and girls wore the veil". “People were so needy, there was no one who did not join,” according to one Kosovo politician (Ajnishahe Halimi).[46]

According to a critical article by journalist Carlotta Gall,

corps of extremist clerics and secretive associations funded by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region using an obscure, labyrinthine network of donations from charities, private individuals and government ministries ... [They] transformed this once-tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.[46]

Conservatives came to dominate the Islamic Community of Kosovo, the national Islamic organization.[46]

Part of the Salafi influence can be found in more conservative practices, such as the refusal by some women to shake hands with or talk to male relatives. But threats — or acts — of violence against academics, journalists and politicians have also occurred. One imam in the city of Gjilan, Enver Rexhepi, was "abducted and savagely beaten by masked men" in 2004 after clashing with a Saudi trained student (Zekirja Qazimi) over whether to continue the long-standing practice of displaying the Albanian flag in his (Rexhepi's) mosque. (Qazimi believed the depiction of the dragon on the flag idolatrous.)[46] Kosovo also had "the highest number" of Muslims per capita of any country in Europe leave to fight for ISIL in the two years from 2014 to 2016. Kosovar police have identified 314 people who have left Kosovo to join the Islamic State, "including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children".[46]

After two Muslims from Kosovo killed themselves in suicide bombings in Iraq and Turkey, Kosovo intelligence began an investigation of "sources of radicalism." The Saudi charity Al Waqf al Islami and twelve other Islamic charities were shut down, and 40 people arrested.[46]

Saudi aid has also affected the architecture of Islam in Kosovo, leading to the dismantling of centuries-old Ottoman mosques whose ornamentation was offensive to Salafism, including the Hadim Suleiman Aga mosque and Library in Djakovica, Kosovo.[50] Among the destroyed buildings are "a historic library in Gjakova and several 400-year-old mosques, as well as shrines, graveyards and Dervish monasteries".[46]

According to Carlotta Gall, as of 2016 "Kosovo Central Bank figures show grants from Saudi Arabia averaging €100,000 a year for the past five years", a reduction from the decade earlier, (although payments can be diverted through another country" to obscure their origin and destination"). Picking up the slack in financing "hard-line" Islam have been donors in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — each of which average "approximately €1 million a year" in donations.[46]

Poland

 
"The Centre of a Muslim Culture" (pl. Ośrodek Kultury Muzułmańskiej) was built in 2015 in Warsaw.

Although the majority Catholic country has an Islamic population of roughly only 0.1%,[51] its indigenous Muslim population of Lipka Tatars (1,916 per 2011 census)[52] only nominally adheres to Sunni Islam. However, together with an immigration of refugees and foreign students from Muslim majority countries, the Salafiyya movement started taking roots in the country, whilst coming in conflict with the Tatar's local practicing of the faith. A Saudi donor Shaykh Abdullatif al Fozan (ranked 51 in 2013 on the Forbes' list of richest Arabs[53]) sponsored (4,000,000 euro)[54] the construction of the "Center of a Muslim Culture" in Warsaw. The building is fully equipped; has a store, a restaurant, library, prayer hall and even a gym. While officially promoting (Sunni) Islam, the Center adheres to Salafi principles. Originally, it was meant to be built as a "Centre of Arabic Studies" adjacent to the University of Warsaw, but the University's staff refused the offer.[55]

Africa

See also: Islam_in_Africa § Salafism

East Africa

Saudi leaders have endeavoured to influence, trade, resources in Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia Somalia which has also resulted in a regional rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Muslim Iran. According to the Guardian, spread of Salafism, is a, "key concern of the west, and of many local players as well".[56]

Sudan

Sudan, a poor country with a majority Muslim Arab population whose coastline lies just across the Red Sea from the Hijaz province of Saudi Arabia, has had close relations with the kingdom since the Arab Oil Embargo. However, the dominant interpretation of Islam in Sudan was very different from that of Saudis or Muslim Brotherhood.[57] Popular local Islam of the Sufi or mystical brotherhoods (the Ansar and the Khatmiya) who were each attached to a political party,[58] had great influence among the masses of Muslims. Saudi funding, investment, and labor migration from Sudan has all worked over time to change that.

Saudi provided funding for the Muslim Brotherhood[59] whose local leader, Hassan al-Turabi, enjoyed "close relations" with "some of the more conservative members of the Saudi royal family".[60]

In the fall of 1977, an Islamic bank with 60% of its start up capital coming from Saudi Arabia opened a branch in Sudan.[61] By the mid-1980s this bank (Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan) was second biggest in Sudan in terms of money held on deposit.[62] Shortly after another similar bank (Al Baraka Bank) was founded. Both provided rewards for whose affiliated with Hassan al-Turabi's Islamist National Islamic Front—employment and wealth as a reward for young militant college graduates and low interest loans for investors and businessmen unable to find loans elsewhere.[62]

In 1983 Saudis persuaded then-President Gaafar Nimeiry to institute sharia law[59] including interest-free Islamic banking. The traditional Sudanese banking system was abolished and afterwards

any enterprise that needed capital had to be part of Turabi's network to gain access to financial markets. Over time, this has concentrated economic power in the old families from the "Three Tribes" who were loyal to the new regime"[63]

and who have "transformed themselves into Islamists."

The influx of Sudanese labor migrants to Saudi as truck drivers, electricians, factory workers and sales clerks, was also significant. By 1985, according to one source, about 2/3 of the professional and skilled Sudanese workers were employed outside the Sudan, many in the Gulf States.[64] (As of 2013 there were 900,000 Sudanese migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.)[65]

Looking at the change in religious practices of a village in northern Sudan over a five-year period from 1982 to 1988, anthropology researcher Victoria Bernal found labor migration of villagers to Saudi Arabia "were catalysts for change, stimulating the rise of `fundamentalist` Islam in the village". Returning migrants "boldly" critiqued the Islamic authenticity of local practices such as "mourning rituals, wedding customs and reverence for holy men in particular." More well-to-do villagers were "building high brick or cement walls around their homes", women began wearing ankle-length robes. Traditional wedding rituals with singing and mixing of genders were called into question.[59]

According to Victoria Bernel, "Adopting fundamentalist practices" had become a "way to assert one's sophistication, urbanity and material success."[59] Migrant workers also formed connections with, and helped finance, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated National Islamic Front political party which could remit their salaries back home to families in Sudan evading taxation in exchange for a percentage (that was less than the taxation).[66] Saudi helped found the African Islamic Center (later the International University of Africa) to help train African Muslim preachers and missionaries "with the Salafist view of Islam."[67]

As Hassan al-Turabi and his National Islamic Front grew in influence and in 1989 a coup d'état by Omar al-Bashir against an elected government negotiating to end the war with the animist and Christian South established Sudan as the first Sunni Islamist state. Al-Turabi became the "power behind the throne" of the al-Bashir government from 1989 to 1999.[68] The revivalist tenure in power was not as successful as its influence on banking or migrant workers. International organizations alleged war crimes, ethnic cleansing, a revival of slavery, torture of opponents, an unprecedented number of refugees fleeing country,[69] and Turabi and allies were expelled from power in 1999. The jihad in the south ended unsuccessfully with the south seceding from Sudan (forming South Sudan) taking with it nearly all of Sudan's oil fields.[70] Turabi himself reversed earlier Islamist positions on marriage and inequality in favor of liberal positions, leading some conservatives to call him an apostate.[71][72] Al Jazeera estimates that as of 2012 10% of Sudanese are tied to Salafi groups, (more than 60% of Sudanese are affiliated with Sufism), but that number is growing.[73]

Egypt

Muslim Brethren who became wealthy in Saudi Arabia became key contributors to Egypt's Islamist movements.[74][75] Many of Egypt's future ulama attended the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi which was established as an alternative to the Egyptian government-controlled Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, who later became the grand mufti of Egypt, spent four years at the Islamic University.[76] Tantawy demonstrated his devotion to the kingdom in a June 2000 interview with the Saudi newspaper Ain al-Yaqeen, where he blamed the "violent campaign" against Saudi human rights policy on the campaigners' antipathy towards Islam. "Saudi Arabia leads the world in the protection of human rights because it protects them according to the sharia of God."[77]

Saudi funding to Egypt's al-Azhar center of Islamic learning, has been credited with causing that institution to adopt a more religiously conservative approach.[78][79]

Algeria

Political Islam and salafist "Islamic revivalism" became dominant and the indigenous "popular" or Sufi Islam found in much of North Africa greatly weakened, in large part because of the 1954-1962 Algerian War—despite the fact the victorious National Liberation Front (FLN) was interested in socialism and Arab nationalism, not political Islam.

Diminishing indigenous Islam was the dismantling of Sufi mystical brotherhoods and the confiscation and redistribution of their land in retaliation for their lack of support for the FLN during the fight against the French.[80] Strengthening revivalism was a campaign of Arabization and Islamization by the government (FLN) to suppress the use of the French language (which was still dominant in higher education and the professions), to promote Algerian/Arab identity over residual French colonial culture. To do this Egyptians were recruited by the Algerian state to Arabize and de-Frenchify the school system. Like Saudi Arabia, Algeria saw an influx of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members hired to teach Arabic and eager to escape government suppression. While the leftist FLN Algerian government was totally uninterested in Islam as a foundation for conducting worldly affairs (as opposed to building a national identity), the Muslim Brotherhood teachers very much were, and many of the generation of "strictly Arabphone teachers" trained by the Brothers adopted the beliefs of their teachers and went on to form the basis of an "Islamist intelligentsia".[81]

In addition, in the 1980s, as interest in Islam grew and devotion to the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party and secular socialism waned in Algeria, the government imported two renowned Islamic scholars, Mohammed al-Ghazali and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to "strengthen the religious dimension" of the "nationalist ideology" of the FLN. This was less than successful as the clerics supported "Islamic awakening", were "fellow travelers" of the Muslim Brotherhood, supporters of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, and had little interest in serving the secularist FLN government.[82]

Also in the 1980s, several hundred youth left Algeria for the camps of Peshawar to fight jihad in Afghanistan. As the FLN government was a close ally of the jihadists' enemy, the Soviet Union, these fighters tended to consider the fight against the Soviets a "prelude" to jihad in Algeria.[83]

When the FLN followed the example of post-Communist Eastern European government and held elections in 1989, the main beneficiary was the massively popular Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) political party which sought to establish sharia law in Algeria. "Islamist intelligentsia" formed its leadership, FIS second in command, Ali Belhadj, was a state school teacher and a prime example or this.[81] The Saudis supporting the party,[84] and the Front's other co-leader Abbassi Madani received much aid from Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies. (This did not prevent him from coming out in support of Sadam Hussein—along with most other Islamists—when Saddam invaded Kuwait, despite the adamant fear of and opposition to Saddam Hussein by the Gulf oil states.)[85]

After the FLN saw how unpopular it was and canceled the elections, a bloody civil war broke out. The Salafist-jihadis returning to Algeria supported the FIS and later provided military skill in the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA).[83]

The Algerian Civil War ended badly with an estimated 200,000 Algerians, many of them civilians, killed. FIS did not recover from the war, but by 2002 another strict/conservative Islamic force—Salafism—began to emerge.[86] To end the war, the government needed help disarming the Islamists fighters and were able to enlist the Salafis—apolitical and nonviolent[86]—as a religious counterweight and to use their religious influence to persuade the Islamists to stop fighting. In return the government has shown tolerance towards the Salafis.[87] Culturally, as of 2010 Salafis have exerted "a growing influence over society and how people dress, deal with the state and do business" in Algeria. Their putative quietism notwithstanding they have protested a government plan to make women remove their headscarves for passport photographs, pressuring shopkeepers to stop selling tobacco and alcohol.[87][86] In June 2010, a group of Salafist clerics attending an official function along with the minister of religious affairs showed their rejection of modern political systems as an illegitimate innovation or "bid‘ah" by refusing to stand for the national anthem.[87] Salafist Sheikh Abdelfettah Zeraoui explains criticism of Salafism as the work of Western powers who have pressured Muslim governments "to crack down on the Salafi current because it represents the pure Islam."[87] The Salafis connection with Saudi Arabia includes Saudi Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh who has endorsed opposition to international regulations requiring photographs for passports show a person's forehead and ears even if they are a woman. Abdelmalek Ramdani—the most prominent Salafist imam in Algeria—lives in Saudi Arabia, and prominent Salafist preachers—including Ali Ferkous, Azzedine Ramdani and Al Eid Cherifi—received religious training in Saudi Arabia.[87]

Nigeria

The Izala Society—a Salafi missionary group established 1978—has become one of the largest Islamic societies in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.[88] Izala is funded by Saudi Arabia and led by the World Muslim League. It fights what it sees as the bid’a, (innovation), practiced by the Sufi brotherhoods,[89] specifically the Qadiri and Tijan Sufi orders.[90] It is very active in education and Da‘wa (propagation of the faith) and in Nigeria has many institutions all over the country and is influential at the local, state, and even federal levels.[88]

As per Joshua Meservey of the Hudson Institute, who quantifies the rise of Salafism in Africa by basing himself on diverse scholarship, when it comes to West Africa in particular, in Ghana and Burkina Faso Salafis are said to represent more or so half of the country’s urban Muslim population, in Cameroon around 10% of Muslims are Salafis with numbers going up to 20% in some regions, while in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, as of 2014 some 60% of the youth was said to be Salafi.[91]

Central Asia and Caucasus

Scholar Vitaliĭ Vi͡acheslavovich Naumkin argues that even before the fall of Communism, Saudi Arabia had substantial influence on Islam in Central Asia because of its prestige as the location of the holy places of Hejaz, its financial resources and because of the large number of Central Asian pilgrims (and their descendants) who had gone to Saudi on hajj and decided to stay.[92]

During the Soviet–Afghan War, thousands of Soviet Central Asians were drafted into the Soviet Army to fight their co-religionists (and sometimes fellow ethics), the Afghan Mujahideen. As Islam and Central Asian peoples had been repressed by the Soviets—often brutally[93]—many were "deeply affected by the dedication" of their putative enemies. "Hundreds of Uzbek and Tajik Muslims travelled secretly to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to study in madrasahs or to train as guerrilla fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan." Many of these were influenced by the idea of armed jihad taught at Deobandi madrasahs in Pakistan where "places specifically for Central Asian radicals, who arrived without passports or visas and received a free education and a living allowance."[93] Salafism also made headway with the help of Saudi funding and Saudi-trained preachers. In the late 1980s, at the same time as the Soviets were starting to withdraw from Afghanistan there was "an explosion of interest" in Islam in Central Asia. "Thousands of mosques were built, Qurans and other Islamic literature were brought in from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and distributed free among the population."[93]

In Central Asia the label "Wahhabism" has evolved from its original meaning of followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, to become 'agitprop invective' and a ‘polemic foil in sectarian arguments' used by authoritarian governments against Islamic "reformists and ‘troublesome Muslim opponents’", or even against "any and all expressions of nontraditional Islam’. They tend to equate "Wahhabism" with local Sufi-influenced traditional religious culture.[94]

Afghanistan

Saudi and Islamist forces helped the Afghan Mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviets, with Saudi Arabian government providing approximately $4 billion in aid to the mujahidin from 1980 to 1990.[95] Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf became "important backers" for Islamic schools (madrassas) for Afghan refugees in Pakistan which appeared in the 1980s near the Afghan-Pakistan border.[96] In 1988, the Muslim World League stated that it had opened 150 Quran study centers and 85 Islamic schools for Afghan refugee students in Peshawar, a short distance across the border in Pakistan.[97]

Many were radical schools sponsored by the Pakistan JUI religious party and became "a supply line for jihad" in Afghanistan.[96] According to analysts the ideology of the schools became "hybridization" of the Deobandi school of the Pakistani sponsors and the Salafism supported by Saudi financers.[98][99]

Many of the Taliban were graduates of these schools.[100] (Eight Taliban government ministers came from one school, Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania.[101]) While in power, the Taliban implemented the "strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world."[102][103]

After the Taliban came to power the Saudis helped them in a number of ways. Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries (Pakistan and United Arab Emirates being the others) officially to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, (after 9/11 no country recognized it). King Fahd of Saudi Arabia “expressed happiness at the good measures taken by the Taliban and over the imposition of shari’a in our country," During a visit by the Taliban's leadership to the kingdom in 1997.[104]

According to Ahmed Rashid, "Wahhabi" practices might have influenced the Deobandi Taliban. One example was the Saudi religious police, according to Rashid.

`I remember that all the Taliban who had worked or done hajj in Saudi Arabia were terribly impressed by the religious police and tried to copy that system to the letter. The money for their training and salaries came partly from Saudi Arabia.`

The taliban also practiced public beheadings common in Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Rashid came across ten thousand men and children gathering at Kandahar football stadium one Thursday afternoon, curious as to why (the Taliban had banned sports) he "went inside to discover a convicted murderer being led between the goalposts to be executed by a member of the victim's family."[105]

Another activity Afghan Muslims had not engaged in before this time was destruction of statues. In 2001, the Taliban dynamited and rocketed the nearly 2000-year-old statues Buddhist Bamiyan Valley, which had been undamaged by Afghan Sunni Muslim for centuries prior to then. Mullah Omar declared "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to Allah that we have destroyed them."[106]

Uzbekistan

The leadership of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has been influenced by the Salafi and Deobandi traditions. IMU head, Juma Namangani, (who was killed in November 2001) was indirectly influenced by outside Islamic revival when serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan fighting Afghan mujahideen. He was radicalized by the experience and returning to his home in the Fergana Valley wanting to fight on the side of the Islamic revival not against it. He associated with local Islamists of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) and the local Islamic revolutionary party Adolat (transl. Justice),[93] and became a founder of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.[93] In 1995, Namangani traveled to Saudi Arabia to undergo "religious and intelligence training from Saudi intelligence".[107]

According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, the IMU

is believed to have been funded by Saudis, Pakistanis, Turks, Iranians, and Osama bin Laden. Namangani was one of the most important “foreign Taliban” commanders in northern Afghanistan during the recent fighting there. He led a pan-Islamic force of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pakistanis, Chechens, and Uighurs from Xinjiang province in China. They fought on the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but their long-range goal was to establish an Islamic state throughout Central Asia.[93]

Caucasus

Salafi proselytising has been particularly successful in the ex-Soviet Muslim-majority areas such as Dagestan and Chechnya for a number of reasons, according to Robert Bruce Ware.

  • Salafi funding, institutions, and missionaries are particularly useful because they fill the gap left by the collapse of the USSR, where traditional Islamic leaders were relatively unknowledgeable, and accustomed to surviving by subservience;[108]
  • Salafiyya fills the ideological void left by the collapse of socialism;[108]
  • the Salafi adversarial role toward the non-Muslim government (i.e. Russia's) fills the traditional role of Islam toward the Russian government and
  • it takes advantage of public resentment against the existing corrupt and incompetent governments which traditional Islamic leaders are tainted by;[108][109]
  • advocacy of sharia law and organized Salafi enforcement of it plays into the desire for protection against post-Soviet criminal predation and the arbitrary brutality of the police.[108]
Azerbaijan

Although 85% of Azerbaijanis are members of the Shiite branch of Islam,[110] (which Salafis strongly oppose), and Muslims in Azerbaijan have a tradition of secularism, Salafism has made headway among the 15% of the country that identify themselves as Sunni Muslims and primarily inhabit the northern and western regions,[110] specifically those of Dagestani ethnicity (Avars, Lezgins, Tsakhurs, Rutuls) in areas bordering Dagestan.

Salafism was proselytized and catalyzed starting with the dissolution of the Soviet Union by missionaries and funds from Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,[110] and Salafists mainly from Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1997, the Azerbaijani branch of the Kuwaiti Revival of Islamic Heritage society, built the Abu Bakr mosque in Baku, the capital. It became "one of the most successful mosques" in Azerbaijan, with 5000 people typically attending Friday prayer (compared to 300 for an average Azerbaijan mosque)[111] and the "myriad" of social opportunities it provided created an "attractive network for its relatively young believers," and was "a great impetus for the Salafi movement".[110] Its Imam for many years (Gamat Suleymanov) was a graduate of the Islamic University of Madinah of Medina Saudi Arabia.[111]

Chechnya
 
Wahhabi Mosque in Duisi, Pankisi Gorge, Georgia

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said, that the spread of Salafism must be contained noting the need to, "crack down on the ideology of Wahhabism" in mosques, on TV, on social networks, through mobile devices.[112]

Dagestan

An Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus is "particularly intense" in Dagestan.[113] As of 2011, Suicide bombers were killing an average of three policemen per week, with numerous civilians also becoming casualties. From January to June 2011, Police claimed to have killed 100 "rebels" according to Russian Interior Ministry officials.[114]

Georgia

Although Georgia is predominantly Christian, it has Muslim minorities. In the Pankisi Gorge, home to the Kists, a small Muslim ethnic group, the older generation of Sufis is gradually giving away to younger Salafis who "scorn" the old practices and pray in "new, gleaming mosques".[115][116][117] Wahhabi missionary activism entered into "a dozen Pankisi villages in the 1990s, popularized by young people educated in Arab countries". (The "Wahhabis" do not use the term but rather identify as Salafis.)[118] According to a 2015 report, "a year ago, about 70 per cent" of the younger generation were Salafis and "now almost 90 per cent of them are."[119]

South Asia

Salafi missionary activism is also occurring in South Asia through the funding of mosques, Islamic schools, cultural institutions and social services.[120] With "public and private Saudi funding", Salafi da'wa has "steadily gained influence among Muslim communities" in South Asia since the late 1970s, "significantly" changing "the nature" of South Asian Islam, and bringing an increase in "Islamist violence" in "Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, and Bangladesh".[121] According to Jammu and Kashmir Police and Indian Central intelligence officers, in 2005 the House of Saud approved a $35-billion (Rs 1,75,000 crore) plan to build mosques and madrassas in South Asia.[122]

Bangladesh

See also: Bangladesh–Saudi Arabia relations

Bangladesh has the forth or fifth largest population of Muslims of any country and about a 30% poverty rate.[123] Since the late 1970s, Saudi Arabia has funded the construction of thousands of mosques and madrasas in Bangladesh. Deobandi Hefazat-e-Islam, controls over 14,000 mosques and madrasas where up to 1.4 million students get an Islamic education without any state supervision.[124]

Bangladesh also receives a concession from Saudi on the price of oil imports. With the concession has come changes in religious practices, according to Imtiyaz Ahmed, a religious scholar and professor of International Relations at University of Dhaka,[125] "Saudi Arabia is giving oil, Saudi Arabia would definitely want that some of their ideas to come with oil." The Mawlid, the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday and formerly "an integral part of Bangladeshi culture" is no longer popular, while black burqas for women are much more so.[125] In Saudi Arabia Mawlid is officially ignored, while for women in public places all-covering black (or similar dark color) hijab is required.[125]

One way conservative Saudi religious practices are spread is through schools. Nearly 6 million Bangladeshi children attend schools at (private) Quomi madrassas. Unlike regulated state schools these madrasses are free and entirely supported by private donations, which come from both inside and outside Bangladesh.[126][Note 3] Quomi madrassas syllabus follows "orthodox Islamic teaching", being "restricted to study of Hadith and Tafsir-e-Quran (understanding and interpretation of Hadith and Quran) with emphasis on aspects of Jihad"[128]

One burka-wearing Bangladeshi told the DW journalist who interviewed Imtiyaz Ahmed that she started wearing a burqa because at her son's school (a Quomi madrassas) "the teachers scold the students whose mothers don't wear burqas. So, I asked my nephew who works in the Middle East to get me one."[125] While rising crime and desire to feel safe are factors in the popularity of burkas, religious pressure is also.

India

Between 2011 and 2013, 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived in India with $250 million to build mosques and universities and to hold seminars.[129] There is concern regarding the increasing Saudi-Wahhabi influence in the North West and in the East of India.[130][131]

According to Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2015, 140 Muslim preachers are listed as on the Saudi Consulate's payroll in New Delhi alone.[46]

In the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir (part of Indian-administered Kashmir that has been the site of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the 1999 Kargil War, and the ongoing insurgency), 1.5 of the 8 million Muslims affiliated to Salafism.[132][133] The Saudi-funded Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith has built 700 mosques and 150 schools in JK and claims that 16 percent of Kashmir's population are members.[122][133] Police in Jammu and Kashmir believe this is the result of a $35 billion plan approved by Saudi Arabia's government in 2005 to build mosques and madrassas in South Asia.[122]

Maldives

In the late 1990s, with the growth of Salafi missionary activities in Maldives, the local-traditional practices of Islam in the Maldives were getting challenged. After the 2004 tsunami, Saudi funded preachers gained influence. Within a short period of a decade fundamentalist practices dominated the culture.[134][135] It is reported that Maldives has a, "growing Wahhabist majority and an autocratic government . . . or, according to the Maldivian opposition, a pliant ally where few questions are asked and fewer are allowed".[136] In 2017, Members of the Maldivian Democratic Party have raised concerns that the decision by the government of President Abdulla Yameen to "sell" one of Maldives 26 atolls, to Saudi Arabia will aggravate Salafi preaching in the Maldives.[137]

According to Azra Naseem, a Maldivian researcher on extremism at Dublin City University, “you can't say all of Salafism is radical Islam, but it's a form of Islam that's completely brought into the Maldives from Saudi Arabia and other places. Now, it's being institutionalized, because everybody in the universities, in the Islamic Ministry, they are all spreading this form of Islam.”[138] In April 2017, Yameen Rasheed, a liberal blogger and "a strong voice against growing Islamic radicalization", was stabbed to death "by multiple assailants".[138] According to a study by the Soufan Group, the islands supply 200 fighters to extremist outfits in Syria and Iraq[139]—the world's highest per-capita number of foreign fighters.[138]

Pakistan

Pakistan has the third largest Muslim population in the world and approximately 30% of its people living below the poverty threshold.[123] Over decades, Saudi has spent billions of dollars in Pakistan, while the $ billions in remittances from the almost one million Pakistanis living and working in Saudi Arabia (as of 2010) are a vital source of income for Pakistan.[140][131] Many of the madrassas funded through Gulf finances support Deobandi and Salafi interpretations.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, Pakistanis hold the most favorable perception of the desert kingdom in the world, with 95 percent Pakistanis surveyed viewing Saudi Arabia favorably.[141] Support is also high for strict/traditional Islamic law favored by Saudi rulers in Pakistani opinion polls — stoning as punishment for adultery (82%), whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery (82%), death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion (76%).[142][17] A major source of Salafi missionary impact in Pakistan has been through the Pakistani religious parties Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) (Jamaati Ulama Islam before 1988), Jamiat Ahle Hadith and in particular the Jamaat-e-Islami. Saudis have helped fund Jamaat-e-Islami's educational networks since the 1960s.[143] The party has been active in the Saudi-founded Muslim World League[143] and "segments of the party "came to accept Wahhabism."[144][145][143][146] The constituent council of the Muslim World League included Abul A'la Maududi (founder of Jamaat-e-Islami).[147]

With the help of funding from Saudi Arabia and other sources, thousands of religious schools (madrasses) were established during the 1980s in Pakistan, usually Deobandi in doctrine and often sponsored by Jamaati Ulama Islam. "This rapid expansion came at the expense of doctrinal coherence as there were not enough qualified teachers to staff all the new schools. Quite a few teachers did not discern between tribal values of their ethnic group, the Pushtuns and the religious ideals. The result was an interpretation of Islam that blended Pushtun ideals and Deobandi views, precisely the hallmark of the Taliban."[148] Another source describes the madrasses as combining Deobandi ideology with Salafism. Saudi Arabia provides much of the school funding. Critics (such as Dilip Hiro) complained of intolerance teachings as reflected in the chant at the morning student assembly at certain radical madrassas: "When people deny our faith, ask them to convert and if they don't destroy them utterly."[145]

Another complaint about religious schools leading to extremism comes from a 2008 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks concerning southern Punjab (specifically the Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions there),

government and non-governmental sources claimed that financial support estimated at nearly $100 million USD annually was making its way to Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith clerics in the region from "missionary" and "Islamic charitable" organizations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ostensibly with the direct support of those governments.[149][150]

But the diplomat complained many of the students ended up in terrorist training camps.

The network reportedly exploited worsening poverty in these areas of the province to recruit children into the divisions' growing Deobandi and Ahl-eHadith madrassa network from which they were indoctrinated into jihadi philosophy, deployed to regional training/indoctrination centers, and ultimately sent to terrorist training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).[149][150]

One militant who has fought for Salafi Islam in Pakistan is Sufi Mohammad. Originally an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), he fought in the Afghan jihad and founded Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) in 1992. Described as an ardent Salafist who has "remained associated with Saudi-sponsored groups from the Afghan theater of 1980-88",[151] he was imprisoned on January 15, 2002, but the group has gone on to bomb girls schools, video and CD shops,[152] and the statues of Buddhas in Bamiyan.[153] It has also forced the closure of some development organizations, accusing them of spreading immorality by employing female staff.[154] Other scholars argue that outside influences are not alone in generating sectarianism and jihadist violence in Pakistan, which has roots in the country's origins in the partition of India in 1947.[17]

Southeast Asia

Brunei

Saudi Arabia is strengthening its links with Brunei particularly relation to its Islamic-status and its oil-leverage in the region.[155]

Indonesia

Since 1980, Saudi government, individual Saudis, and Saudi religious foundations and charities[156] has devoted millions of dollars to exporting Salafism to Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, historically religiously tolerant and diverse. It has built more than 150 mosques[157] (albeit in a country that has about 800,000), a huge free university in Jakarta, and several Arabic language institutes; supplied more than 100 boarding schools with books and teachers; brought in preachers and teachers; and disbursed thousands of scholarships for graduate study in Saudi Arabia.[158][159] Kuwait, and Qatar have also "invested heavily" in building religious schools and mosques throughout Indonesia.[160] Salafi radio stations, TV channels and website in Indonesia (and Southeast Asia) have undergone a "rapid rise".[160] The conservative funding sources are eager to strip traditional Indonesian Islam of local customs containing elements of Hindu ritual and Sufi mysticism.[160]

Saudi influence began around 1988, when President Suharto, encouraged a Saudi presence in Indonesia.[161] The "primary conduits" of Saudi Islamic funding in Indonesia[162] are the Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (the Indonesian Society for the Propagation of Islam, or DDII founded in 1967) and Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Islam dan Arab (the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies, or LIPIA, a branch of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh Saudi Arabia).[162] The Saudi embassy's Religious Attache Offices provides scholarships for students to go to Saudi Arabia and pays for "Attache preachers" to give Friday Khutbah sermons "across Indonesia" as well as Arabic teachers.[160] The LIPIA, an all-expenses paid Salafist university in Jakarta, has produced tens of thousands of graduates since its founding in 1980.[160] h

Both affluent and poor schools, in both Java and more remote islands are beneficiaries of Saudi largess. As of 2016, the number of "pesantren" (religious boarding schools) following the Salafi manhaj (path) had grown to about 100.[160] The libraries of other pesantren — including the prestigious Gontor pesantren in East Java — are filled with books from Saudi Arabia.[161] The Saudi religious affairs office in Jakarta provides about one million Arabic religious books translated into Indonesian every year. The titles include "Questions and Answers about Islamic Principles," by Bin Baaz, one of Saudi Arabia's most venerated interpreters of Islam.[161] As of 2003, a pew poll found Crown Prince Abdullah, was rated as one of the three leaders Indonesians trusted the most.[161]

As Salafism has expanded, some Indonesia have become alarmed at what they call the "arabization" of their country and called for an Islam with freedom of opinion and tolerance, that does not reject pluralism and democracy.[160] A graduate of LIPIA (Farid Okhbah) helped found the National Anti-Shia Alliance (ANNAS) of Indonesia. Although Shia make up only about 1% of the population of the country, Okhbah has called Shia Islam a bigger threat to Indonesia than communism in the 1960s and urged the sect be banded.[160]

According to Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta, Saudi influence “has contributed to a more conservative, more intolerant atmosphere,” and may be behind campaigns against Shia and Ahmadi Islam, but very few of the Indonesians arrested on terrorism charges in Indonesia since 2002, have any ties to Salafi institutions.[17]

However, according to a 2003 article in The New York Times, Saudis have also discreetly provided funds for "militant Islamic groups".[161] The Saudi foundation Al Haramain financed educational institutions with the approval of the Indonesian Ministry of Religion, and "served as a conduit" for money to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian Islamist organization that aims to build Islamic states in the region and has bombed many civilian targets.[161] (The spiritual guide of Jemaah Islamiyyah (Abu Bakar Bashir) has now pledged his allegiance to ISIS.)[160]

On 4 November 2016 approximately 500,000 demonstrators gathered in central Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, shutting down all the city's major arteries in the largest Islamist demonstration in Indonesian history and a political "turning point" in the nation's history.[163] Led by Muhammad Rizieq Shihab of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), whose connections with Saudi Arabia "date back three decades", the demonstrators called for the rejection of "the leaders of infidels,” referring to Basuki Tjahaja Purnama ("Ahok") the Chinese-Christian governor of Jakarta. When Shihab asked the crowd, “If our demands are not heard, are you ready to turn this into a revolution?” they screamed their affirmation. Ahok was later sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy, and in the next presidential election, candidates "played up their Islamic credentials" to appeal to the new political trend.[163]

Malaysia

In 1980 Prince Muhammad al-Faysal of Saudi Arabia offered that Malaysia $100 million for an interest-free finance corporation, and two years later the Saudis helped finance the government-sponsored Bank Islam Malaysia.[164] In 2017 it was reported that Salafi doctrines are spreading among Malaysia's elite, and the traditional Islamic theology currently taught in Government schools is shifted to a Salafi view of theology derived from the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.[165][166]

Other regions

Australia

Australia has approximately 600,000 Muslim[167] among its population of about 25 million.[168] Within Australia, Saudi funds have used to build and/or operate mosques, schools, charities, a university and Australian Islamic institutions, with estimates up to US$100 million.[169][170] This funding has generated tensions between Australian Muslim organizations.[171] In 2015, it was uncovered by WikiLeaks that the Saudi Government has provided finance to build mosques, to support Islamic community activities and to fund visits by Sunni clerics to counter Shiite influence.[172]

Canada

Canada has approximately one million Muslim out of a population of 35 million.[173] Among the institutions in Canada Saudis have funded include mosques in Ottawa, Calgary, Quebec City.[174] In Toronto, the Salaheddin Islamic Centre was funded by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia himself with a "US$5 million capital grant" and a further "US$1.5 million per year for operations", according to author Lawrence Solomon.[174] According to the National Post the Salaheddin Islamic Centre received substantial funding from donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE in 2009 and 2010.[175] One of the founders of the centre (Hassan Farhat), left Canada to join an al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq, where he allegedly commanded a squad of suicide bombers.[176][175] The centre's imam (Aly Hindy) is known for his "controversial comments" on homosexuality and Canadian law, and for refusing to sign a statement condemning the 2005 London bombings.[175]

According to a report in The Globe and Mail, the Saudi government has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to private Islamic schools in Canada. Saudi diplomatic cables from 2012 and 2013 disclosed by WikiLeaks contain conversations "about a $211,000 donation to a school in Ottawa and $134,000 to a school in Mississauga", according to the report.[177] (The schools confirmed that they had sought the donations to help expand their facilities but denied the money came with conditions.)[177]

New Zealand

New Zealand has approximately 46,000 Muslims out of a population of 4.6 million. In Christchurch (the largest city on New Zealand's South Island) the local mosque was "funded largely from private Saudi sources".[178] As of 2006 the management the mosque's association (the Canterbury Muslim Association or MAC) is "commonly labelled ‘Wahhabi’ by its opponents" (following "serious and sometimes well-publicised divisions since the early 1990s", stemming from issues including interpretation of Islamic practice). In 2003 it sought "to turn the mosque property over to a trust dominated by the Saudi al-Haramain Foundation in return for money to establish a school, and still evidently wants to establish some sort of a trust".[179] [Note 4]

From 2006 to 2013, conservative Islamic preachers associated in some way with Saudi Arabia or Salafiyya da'wa—such as Bilal Philips, Sheikh Khalid Yasin,[181] Siraj Wahhaj, Yahya Ibrahim—held workshops in mosques and university student halls "up and down New Zealand". The conservative Investigate Magazine complains that works by some of the preachers include books that urge "followers to kill Jews, Christians, pagans and Hindus".[182]

Islamic youth camps were held in 2001 on the North Island (at the Kauaeranga Forest Education Camp on the Coromandel Peninsula), where the "theme" was the restoration of the Islamic caliphate ("The Khilafah and man's role as Khalifah"); and on the South Island (Muslim students camp near Mosgiel) where the theme was ‘Islam is the Solution’[182] (a slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood).[183] The Saudi supported World Assembly of Muslim Youth held a 10-day Intensive Islamic course for "more than 300 brothers and sisters" in 2003.[182]

In November 2016 Mohammad Anwar Sahib, Imam of At-Taqwa mosque in New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, and a religious advisor for the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), created controversy when he was videoed saying, "The Christians are using the Jews, and the Jews are using everybody, because they think that their protocol is to rule the entire world....", in a speech at the mosque. In reply he stated that his statement was taken out of context and demanded an apology.[184] He was later terminated as Secretary for the Ulama Board of the FIANZ.[185]

In January 2017 Taie bin Salem bin Yaslam al-Saya'ari, a Saudi citizen who is "believed to have lived and studied in New Zealand between 2008 and 2013" and become radicalized there, was killed by Saudi security forces. Bin Yaslam al-Saya'ari is thought to have planned a July 2016 attack on the mosque where the Prophet of Islam Muhammad is buried (Al-Masjid an-Nabawi) which killed four Saudi security force members. He is said to have been inspired by another student studying in New Zealand who went to Syria to fight for the Islamic State and was also killed.[186]

United States

See also: Wahhabism and Salafi movement

In the US, where Muslims make up an estimated 1% of the population,[187] Saudi Arabia funds, at least in part, an estimated 80 percent of all mosques.[188] According to an official Saudi weekly, Ain al-Yaqeen, Saudi money helped finance 16 American mosques.[17] According to Yvonne Haddad, (a professor of the history of Islam at the Georgetown center), records of the Muslim World League show that during a two-year span in the 1980s, the League spent about $10 million in the United States on mosque construction. The Saudi royal family directly contributed to the construction of a dozen mosques, including the $8.1 million King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California.[189]

The Saudi embassy's "Department of Islamic Affairs" was founded in 1982 and was directed by Prince Muhammad ibn Faysal ibn Abd al-Rahman for many years. At its height in the late 1990s, the department had 35-40 diplomats and an annual budget of $8 million according to a Saudi official contacted by author Zeyno Baran.[190] The department provided regular financial support "to radical mosques and madrassas (religious schools)" in the United States, "including several attended by the 9/11 hijackers and otherwise linked to terrorist activities" according to author Harry Helms.[191]

As in the UK and some other countries, universities in America have received funding from petroleum exporting Muslim states. Harvard and Georgetown universities both received $20 million in 2005 from a Saudi businessman (Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud).[192] Other Saudi gifts reportedly included $20 million to the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas; $5 million to the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; $11 million to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and a half million dollars to University of Texas; $1 million to Princeton University; $5 million to Rutgers University.[193] Academic chairs for Islamic Studies were donated at Harvard Law School and the University of California Santa Barbara. Islamic research institutes at American University (in Washington), Howard University, Duke University, and Johns Hopkins University were supported by the Saudis.[194] These donations to academia have been described as aimed more at influencing Western public opinion than Muslims. Donors (such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal) have described them as intended to "promote peace and help bridge the gap between East and West";[195] Critics (primarily Western political conservatives[196][195][197] such as Daniel Pipes) believe they are incentive for "Middle East researchers, instructors and center directors" in Western countries to "behave" and "say the things the Saudis like" in exchange for large donations.[195]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ led by Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, minister of defense at the time who became king in January 2015
  2. ^ the director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies[27]
  3. ^ A report examining "the political consciousness of madrassa teachers and graduate students in Bangladesh," found that 70 of 77 respondents at madrassas replied Saudi Arabai when asked "Which country is the best friend of Bangladesh?"[127]
  4. ^ Investigate Magazine also writes that in November 2003, the al-Haramain Foundation was reported to be attempting to set up an organisation in New Zealand to establish an Islamic school and an "Islamic Bank" in a proposal involving "millions of dollars".[180]

Citations

  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.
  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. Taylor & Francis on behalf of the SOAS University of London. 18 (4): 675–705. doi:10.5367/sear.2010.0015. ISSN 2043-6874. JSTOR 23750964.
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Books, articles, documents

  • Commins, David Dean (2006). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (PDF). I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84885-014-X.
  • Varagur, Krithika (2020). The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project. Columbia Global Reports. ISBN 978-1733623766.
  • Gold, Dore (2003). Hatred's Kingdom : How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. Regnery. ISBN 9781596988194.
  • Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674010901. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.
  • Roy, Olivier (1994). The Failure of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674291416. Retrieved 2 April 2015. The Failure of Political Islam muslim world league.
  • "THE INVOLVEMENT OF SALAFISM/WAHHABISM IN THE SUPPORT AND SUPPLY OF ARMS TO REBEL GROUPS AROUND THE WORLD" (PDF). European Parliament - DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR EXTERNAL POLICIES OF THE UNION. June 2013. Retrieved 12 May 2015.

August 19, 2023
international, propagation, salafism, wahhabism, region, further, information, international, propagation, salafism, wahhabism, salafi, movement, hadith, wahhabi, movement, salafi, jihadism, islamism, sufi, salafi, relations, following, embargo, arab, exporter. Further information International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism Salafi movement Ahl i Hadith Wahhabi movement Salafi jihadism Islamism and Sufi Salafi relations 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 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 in Asia or Africa 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 Contents 1 Western Europe 1 1 Belgium 1 2 Finland 1 3 Germany 1 4 Iceland 1 5 United Kingdom 2 Eastern Europe Balkans 2 1 Albania 2 2 Bosnia 2 3 Kosovo 2 4 Poland 3 Africa 3 1 East Africa 3 2 Sudan 3 3 Egypt 3 4 Algeria 3 5 Nigeria 4 Central Asia and Caucasus 4 1 Afghanistan 4 2 Uzbekistan 4 3 Caucasus 5 South Asia 5 1 Bangladesh 5 2 India 5 3 Maldives 5 4 Pakistan 6 Southeast Asia 6 1 Brunei 6 2 Indonesia 6 3 Malaysia 7 Other regions 7 1 Australia 7 2 Canada 7 3 New Zealand 7 4 United States 8 See also 9 References 9 1 Notes 9 2 Citations 9 3 Books articles documentsWestern Europe EditBelgium Edit According to Hind Fraihi a Moroccan Belgian journalist Saudi trained imams and literature from Saudi Arabia glorifying jihad and advocating Islam versus non Muslims thinking was part of the cocktail other factors being economic frustration racism a generation that feels it has no future leading to the ISIL terror cell in Belgium committing terrorist acts in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016 Altogether 162 people were killed in the attacks 17 In the capital Brussels as of 2016 95 percent of the courses offered on Islam for Muslims used preachers trained in Saudi Arabia according to European Network Against Racism 22 In February 2017 the Belgium Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis OCAD OCAM which evaluates terrorist and extremist threats in and to Belgium voiced concerns over the spread of Saudi backed Salafism in Belgium and the rest of Europe stating An increasing number of mosques and Islamic centres in Belgium are controlled by Wahhabism This is the Salafist missionary apparatus 23 Finland Edit See also Islam in Finland A 2017 proposal to construct a large mosque in Helsinki to unite all Finnish Muslims has met with resistance from among others the incoming mayor of the capital Jan Vapaavuori This was because it is being funded by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and may introduce Sunni Shia hate politics into Finland as both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are Sunni ruled and have cracked down on Shia protestors 24 Germany Edit See also Islam in Germany The German government has expressed concern that religious organizations from the Middle East may be supporting German Salafists through the construction of mosques training facilities and the utilization of radical preachers 25 Iceland Edit See also Islam in Iceland In Reykjavik the capital of Iceland where plans to build a new larger mosque had been underway for more than a decade there has been controversy over funding of the mosque Following the 2015 Paris terror attacks the President of Iceland olafur Ragnar Grimsson announced that he was shocked to the point of paralysis to learn from Saudi Arabian Ambassador that Saudi Arabia planned to donate 1 million to the building of a mosque Grimsson expressed concern that Saudi Arabian financing of the mosque would fuel radical Islam in Iceland 26 United Kingdom Edit See also Islam in the United Kingdom According to a report by Anthony Glees Note 2 extremist ideas being spread allow with donations from Saudi and Arab Muslim sources to British universities clarification needed Eight universities including Oxford and Cambridge accepted more than 233 5 million from Saudi and Muslim sources from 1995 to 2008 with much of the money going to Islamic study centres 27 A 2012 article in Arab News reportedOver the past decade Saudi Arabia has been the largest source of donations from Islamic states and royal families to British universities much of which is devoted to the study of Islam the Middle East and Arabic literature A large share of this money went toward establishing Islamic study centers In 2008 Prince Al Waleed bin Talal donated 8 million SR 48 5 million each to Cambridge and Edinburgh for this purpose Al Eqtisadiah business daily reported yesterday Oxford has been the largest British beneficiary of Saudi support In 2005 Prince Sultan the late crown prince gave 2 million SR 12 million to the Ashmolean Museum In 2001 the King Abdul Aziz Foundation gave 1 million SR 6 1 million to the Middle East Center There are many other donors Oxford s 75 million SR 454 6 million Islamic Studies Center was supported by 12 Muslim countries Ruler of Oman Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said gave 3 1 million SR 18 8 million to Cambridge to fund two posts including a chair of Arabic Ruler of Sharjah in the UAE Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi has supported Exeter s Islamic studies center with more than 5 million SR 30 million since 2001 Trinity Saint David part of the University of Wales has received donations from the ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan 28 In June 2017 following the London Bridge terror attack opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn stated that the difficult conversations Prime Minister Theresa May called for should start with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology 29 A July 2017 report by the Henry Jackson Society commissioned by the government of the UK stated that Middle Eastern nations are providing financial support to mosques and Islamic educational institutions which have been linked to the spread of extremist material with an illiberal bigoted Wahhabi ideology 30 31 The report said that the number of Salafi mosques in Britain had increased from 68 in 2007 to 110 in 2014 32 Eastern Europe Balkans EditHistorically parts of the Balkans were introduced to Islam while under the domination of the Sufi led Ottoman Empire and have majority or large minority Muslim populations The fall of Communism and breakup of Yugoslavia provided an opportunity for international Islamic charities to Islamization or re Islamization people who had been living under an irreligious Communist government Islamic charities often with the backing of oil rich Gulf kingdoms built mosques and madrassas in Albania 33 and other Balkan countries In Bosnia Salafism is getting established particularly in the remote villages 34 Albania Edit A Muslim majority country Albania had been under anti clerical communist control for 45 years when the Eastern bloc fell in 1991 The pro Islamic Democratic Party was elected to power in 1992 and the government of Sali Berisha turned to Saudi Arabia for financial support and for assistance in re Islamizing the country Thirty NGOs and Islamic associations worked toward re Islamization of Albania including thirteen of the organizations formed a Coordination Council of Arab Foundations Saudi Arabia sponsored Al Haramein and Musafaq which were based in Britain foundations which vied with Islamic organizations from Libya Sudan Iran and Turkey in instumentalization of humanitarian aid as a means of proselytization At least the Saudi and Sunni Islamist groups preached for creation of an Islamic society influenced by Salafiyya doctrines Saudi NGOs built 200 mosques and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia donated one million copies of an Albanian language version of the Quran 35 According to Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir the organized project undertaken by preachers and Islamic NGOs was to expunge indigenous Albanian ideas about Islam before replacing it with a version of the faith more in conformity with the Wahhabi model Islam in its most radical form was taught as the only true faith while tolerance was seen as an indication of weakness Hatred of the West was raised to the status of a creed 35 One of the first Islamists to come to Albania was Muhammad al Zawahiri the brother of Ayman al Zawahiri the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement and Osama bin Laden s key lieutenant as an accountant for the International Islamic Relief Organization IIRO Unbeknownst to Albanians in addition to helping with relief and spreading correct Islam IIRO was charged with the task of helping other members of Islamic Jihad find jobs within charitable organizations building mosques orphanages and clinics By the mid 1980s the Tirana cell of Islamic Jihad numbered 16 members including a specialist in false identity documents a recruit wanted on suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination This was later exposed during an investigation carried out by the American and Albanian secret services 35 36 In June 1998 three Egyptian Islamist accused of terrorist activities were arrested in Albania with further arrests in September after the 1998 United States embassy bombings How successful the proselytizing has been is unclear Roy and Sfeir believe that with NGO work in the 1990s Islamists gained an important foothold 35 however a 2012 Pew Research study found that only 15 of Muslims surveyed considered religion a very important factor in their lives the lowest percentage in the world amongst countries with significant Muslim populations 37 38 Bosnia Edit During the 1992 1995 Bosnian War the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the approximately 43 of the population that was Muslim formed the largest religious group received aid from Saudi groups International Islamic Relief Organization Saudi High Commission for Relief Muwaffaq Foundations as well as from non Saudi Islamic groups A 1996 report by the CIA stated that all of the major and most of the minor Islamic charities are significant players in the former Yugoslavia particularly in aiding Bosnian Muslims delivering food clothing and medicine supporting orphanages schools hospitals agricultural and refugee camps and constructing housing infrastructure According to the Saudi Embassy to the US the Saudi Joint Committee for Collection of Donations for Bosnia donated 500 million in aid to Muslims for medical care refugee camps education during the Bosnian War and later reconstruction projects for mosques and religious schools 39 In just one year 1994 Saudi nationals alone gave 150 million through Islamic NGOs for aid to Bosnia However a growing body of reporting indicates that some of these charities are being used to aid Islamic extremist groups that engage in terrorism 40 Aid to the local Bosnian Islamist party the SDA gave it leverage to undermined competing local secular and more traditional Muslim groups 41 The SDA prohibited consumption of alcohol and pork brought Muslim religious instruction into the schools opened up prayer rooms and used the leverage of its distribution of aid to pressurize the population to adopt Muslim names to wear the veil and grow beards 41 36 A 1992 conference on the protection of human rights in Bosnia brought together representatives from 30 Muslims countries It passed resolutions declaring without ambiguity that the aim of the Bosnian conflict was the extermination of Bosnia s Muslims 41 Afghan Arab veterans fighting Serbs in Bosnia as volunteers took upon themselves Hisbah enjoin good and forbid wrong including attempting to impose the veil on women and the beard on men In addition they engaged in causing disturbances in the ceremonies of Sufi brotherhoods they deemed to be deviant smashing up cafes and organizing sharia marriages to Bosnian girls that were not declared to the civil authorities 42 Rather than spreading strict Islamic practice these activities were so unpopular with the Bosnian public and media they were condemned by the SDA 42 According to Gilles Kepel as of 2003 the only thing left of their presence were a few naturalized Arab subjects married to Bosnian women 42 From the end of the Bosnian War to 2007 Saudi financed organizations spent about 700 million in Bosnia often in mosques according to analysts quoted by the New York Times 43 More than half a dozen new madrasas religious secondary schools have been built throughout the country as have dozens of mosques In the capital and largest city Sarajevo Saudi Arabia financed the King Fahd Mosque a 28 million complex including a sports and cultural center 43 According to a former Bosnian intelligence agent Goran Kovacevic interviewed by a public television network in the US PBS the mosque is well financed and the most radical mosque in the whole Bosnia Herzegovina All those guys that actually performed some kind of terrorist activity in Bosnia Herzegovina were part of that mosque 44 In October 2008 eight people were injured when men in hoods attacked participants at a gay festival in Sarajevo dragging some people from vehicles and beating others while they chanted Kill the gays and Allahu Akbar 43 Salafi charity organizations also physically influenced Bosnian religious culture following the war Saudis have helped restore some of the hundreds of mosques and monuments Serb nationalist forces destroyed during the war While this assistance was badly needed and greatly helpful to thepersecuted Bosniaks it involved removing the Islamic calligraphy that adorned many Balkan Muslim tombstones which Salafis considered idolatrous and unIslamic Critics complain that the graveyards were often all that was left of the local Bosnian heritage 45 Kosovo Edit One country where Saudi Arabia has been particularly successful in spreading conservative Salafism where once Sufi local Islamic beliefs held sway is Kosovo 46 Following the NATO bombing campaign of 1999 that helped Muslim Kosovo gain independence from Orthodox Christian Serbia the Saudi government 47 and private sources began to provide aid 48 47 Saudi citizens donated 20 million to Kosovo in cash as well as food and medical supplies and the Saudi Red Crescent sent medical volunteers 48 The Saudi Joint Committee for Collection of Donations for Kosovo and Chechnya sent 45 million for humanitarian relief services medical care refugee camps education and later reconstruction of mosques and schools to Kosovo according to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in the US 39 240 mosques have been built in Kosovo since the 1999 war 46 The Saudi Joint Committee for Relief of Kosovo and Chechnya built approximately 100 mosques in rural areas some with Quranic schools adjacent and sent 388 foreign teachers to spread their interpretations of Islam 49 Saudi sponsored charities sponsored education classes not only in religion but English and computers often paying salaries and overhead costs Families were given monthly stipends All this was appreciated in the poor and war ravaged country but local Kosovar imams complained that stipends were given on the condition that they attended sermons in the mosque and that women and girls wore the veil People were so needy there was no one who did not join according to one Kosovo politician Ajnishahe Halimi 46 According to a critical article by journalist Carlotta Gall corps of extremist clerics and secretive associations funded by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region using an obscure labyrinthine network of donations from charities private individuals and government ministries They transformed this once tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists 46 Conservatives came to dominate the Islamic Community of Kosovo the national Islamic organization 46 Part of the Salafi influence can be found in more conservative practices such as the refusal by some women to shake hands with or talk to male relatives But threats or acts of violence against academics journalists and politicians have also occurred One imam in the city of Gjilan Enver Rexhepi was abducted and savagely beaten by masked men in 2004 after clashing with a Saudi trained student Zekirja Qazimi over whether to continue the long standing practice of displaying the Albanian flag in his Rexhepi s mosque Qazimi believed the depiction of the dragon on the flag idolatrous 46 Kosovo also had the highest number of Muslims per capita of any country in Europe leave to fight for ISIL in the two years from 2014 to 2016 Kosovar police have identified 314 people who have left Kosovo to join the Islamic State including two suicide bombers 44 women and 28 children 46 After two Muslims from Kosovo killed themselves in suicide bombings in Iraq and Turkey Kosovo intelligence began an investigation of sources of radicalism The Saudi charity Al Waqf al Islami and twelve other Islamic charities were shut down and 40 people arrested 46 Saudi aid has also affected the architecture of Islam in Kosovo leading to the dismantling of centuries old Ottoman mosques whose ornamentation was offensive to Salafism including the Hadim Suleiman Aga mosque and Library in Djakovica Kosovo 50 Among the destroyed buildings are a historic library in Gjakova and several 400 year old mosques as well as shrines graveyards and Dervish monasteries 46 According to Carlotta Gall as of 2016 Kosovo Central Bank figures show grants from Saudi Arabia averaging 100 000 a year for the past five years a reduction from the decade earlier although payments can be diverted through another country to obscure their origin and destination Picking up the slack in financing hard line Islam have been donors in Kuwait Qatar and the United Arab Emirates each of which average approximately 1 million a year in donations 46 Poland Edit The Centre of a Muslim Culture pl Osrodek Kultury Muzulmanskiej was built in 2015 in Warsaw Although the majority Catholic country has an Islamic population of roughly only 0 1 51 its indigenous Muslim population of Lipka Tatars 1 916 per 2011 census 52 only nominally adheres to Sunni Islam However together with an immigration of refugees and foreign students from Muslim majority countries the Salafiyya movement started taking roots in the country whilst coming in conflict with the Tatar s local practicing of the faith A Saudi donor Shaykh Abdullatif al Fozan ranked 51 in 2013 on the Forbes list of richest Arabs 53 sponsored 4 000 000 euro 54 the construction of the Center of a Muslim Culture in Warsaw The building is fully equipped has a store a restaurant library prayer hall and even a gym While officially promoting Sunni Islam the Center adheres to Salafi principles Originally it was meant to be built as a Centre of Arabic Studies adjacent to the University of Warsaw but the University s staff refused the offer 55 Africa EditSee also Islam in Africa Salafism East Africa Edit Saudi leaders have endeavoured to influence trade resources in Sudan Kenya and Ethiopia Somalia which has also resulted in a regional rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Muslim Iran According to the Guardian spread of Salafism is a key concern of the west and of many local players as well 56 Sudan Edit Sudan a poor country with a majority Muslim Arab population whose coastline lies just across the Red Sea from the Hijaz province of Saudi Arabia has had close relations with the kingdom since the Arab Oil Embargo However the dominant interpretation of Islam in Sudan was very different from that of Saudis or Muslim Brotherhood 57 Popular local Islam of the Sufi or mystical brotherhoods the Ansar and the Khatmiya who were each attached to a political party 58 had great influence among the masses of Muslims Saudi funding investment and labor migration from Sudan has all worked over time to change that Saudi provided funding for the Muslim Brotherhood 59 whose local leader Hassan al Turabi enjoyed close relations with some of the more conservative members of the Saudi royal family 60 In the fall of 1977 an Islamic bank with 60 of its start up capital coming from Saudi Arabia opened a branch in Sudan 61 By the mid 1980s this bank Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan was second biggest in Sudan in terms of money held on deposit 62 Shortly after another similar bank Al Baraka Bank was founded Both provided rewards for whose affiliated with Hassan al Turabi s Islamist National Islamic Front employment and wealth as a reward for young militant college graduates and low interest loans for investors and businessmen unable to find loans elsewhere 62 In 1983 Saudis persuaded then President Gaafar Nimeiry to institute sharia law 59 including interest free Islamic banking The traditional Sudanese banking system was abolished and afterwards any enterprise that needed capital had to be part of Turabi s network to gain access to financial markets Over time this has concentrated economic power in the old families from the Three Tribes who were loyal to the new regime 63 and who have transformed themselves into Islamists The influx of Sudanese labor migrants to Saudi as truck drivers electricians factory workers and sales clerks was also significant By 1985 according to one source about 2 3 of the professional and skilled Sudanese workers were employed outside the Sudan many in the Gulf States 64 As of 2013 there were 900 000 Sudanese migrant workers in Saudi Arabia 65 Looking at the change in religious practices of a village in northern Sudan over a five year period from 1982 to 1988 anthropology researcher Victoria Bernal found labor migration of villagers to Saudi Arabia were catalysts for change stimulating the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the village Returning migrants boldly critiqued the Islamic authenticity of local practices such as mourning rituals wedding customs and reverence for holy men in particular More well to do villagers were building high brick or cement walls around their homes women began wearing ankle length robes Traditional wedding rituals with singing and mixing of genders were called into question 59 According to Victoria Bernel Adopting fundamentalist practices had become a way to assert one s sophistication urbanity and material success 59 Migrant workers also formed connections with and helped finance the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated National Islamic Front political party which could remit their salaries back home to families in Sudan evading taxation in exchange for a percentage that was less than the taxation 66 Saudi helped found the African Islamic Center later the International University of Africa to help train African Muslim preachers and missionaries with the Salafist view of Islam 67 As Hassan al Turabi and his National Islamic Front grew in influence and in 1989 a coup d etat by Omar al Bashir against an elected government negotiating to end the war with the animist and Christian South established Sudan as the first Sunni Islamist state Al Turabi became the power behind the throne of the al Bashir government from 1989 to 1999 68 The revivalist tenure in power was not as successful as its influence on banking or migrant workers International organizations alleged war crimes ethnic cleansing a revival of slavery torture of opponents an unprecedented number of refugees fleeing country 69 and Turabi and allies were expelled from power in 1999 The jihad in the south ended unsuccessfully with the south seceding from Sudan forming South Sudan taking with it nearly all of Sudan s oil fields 70 Turabi himself reversed earlier Islamist positions on marriage and inequality in favor of liberal positions leading some conservatives to call him an apostate 71 72 Al Jazeera estimates that as of 2012 10 of Sudanese are tied to Salafi groups more than 60 of Sudanese are affiliated with Sufism but that number is growing 73 Egypt Edit Muslim Brethren who became wealthy in Saudi Arabia became key contributors to Egypt s Islamist movements 74 75 Many of Egypt s future ulama attended the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi which was established as an alternative to the Egyptian government controlled Al Azhar University in Cairo Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy who later became the grand mufti of Egypt spent four years at the Islamic University 76 Tantawy demonstrated his devotion to the kingdom in a June 2000 interview with the Saudi newspaper Ain al Yaqeen where he blamed the violent campaign against Saudi human rights policy on the campaigners antipathy towards Islam Saudi Arabia leads the world in the protection of human rights because it protects them according to the sharia of God 77 Saudi funding to Egypt s al Azhar center of Islamic learning has been credited with causing that institution to adopt a more religiously conservative approach 78 79 Algeria Edit Political Islam and salafist Islamic revivalism became dominant and the indigenous popular or Sufi Islam found in much of North Africa greatly weakened in large part because of the 1954 1962 Algerian War despite the fact the victorious National Liberation Front FLN was interested in socialism and Arab nationalism not political Islam Diminishing indigenous Islam was the dismantling of Sufi mystical brotherhoods and the confiscation and redistribution of their land in retaliation for their lack of support for the FLN during the fight against the French 80 Strengthening revivalism was a campaign of Arabization and Islamization by the government FLN to suppress the use of the French language which was still dominant in higher education and the professions to promote Algerian Arab identity over residual French colonial culture To do this Egyptians were recruited by the Algerian state to Arabize and de Frenchify the school system Like Saudi Arabia Algeria saw an influx of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members hired to teach Arabic and eager to escape government suppression While the leftist FLN Algerian government was totally uninterested in Islam as a foundation for conducting worldly affairs as opposed to building a national identity the Muslim Brotherhood teachers very much were and many of the generation of strictly Arabphone teachers trained by the Brothers adopted the beliefs of their teachers and went on to form the basis of an Islamist intelligentsia 81 In addition in the 1980s as interest in Islam grew and devotion to the ruling National Liberation Front FLN party and secular socialism waned in Algeria the government imported two renowned Islamic scholars Mohammed al Ghazali and Yusuf al Qaradawi to strengthen the religious dimension of the nationalist ideology of the FLN This was less than successful as the clerics supported Islamic awakening were fellow travelers of the Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies and had little interest in serving the secularist FLN government 82 Also in the 1980s several hundred youth left Algeria for the camps of Peshawar to fight jihad in Afghanistan As the FLN government was a close ally of the jihadists enemy the Soviet Union these fighters tended to consider the fight against the Soviets a prelude to jihad in Algeria 83 When the FLN followed the example of post Communist Eastern European government and held elections in 1989 the main beneficiary was the massively popular Islamic Salvation Front FIS political party which sought to establish sharia law in Algeria Islamist intelligentsia formed its leadership FIS second in command Ali Belhadj was a state school teacher and a prime example or this 81 The Saudis supporting the party 84 and the Front s other co leader Abbassi Madani received much aid from Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies This did not prevent him from coming out in support of Sadam Hussein along with most other Islamists when Saddam invaded Kuwait despite the adamant fear of and opposition to Saddam Hussein by the Gulf oil states 85 After the FLN saw how unpopular it was and canceled the elections a bloody civil war broke out The Salafist jihadis returning to Algeria supported the FIS and later provided military skill in the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria GIA 83 The Algerian Civil War ended badly with an estimated 200 000 Algerians many of them civilians killed FIS did not recover from the war but by 2002 another strict conservative Islamic force Salafism began to emerge 86 To end the war the government needed help disarming the Islamists fighters and were able to enlist the Salafis apolitical and nonviolent 86 as a religious counterweight and to use their religious influence to persuade the Islamists to stop fighting In return the government has shown tolerance towards the Salafis 87 Culturally as of 2010 Salafis have exerted a growing influence over society and how people dress deal with the state and do business in Algeria Their putative quietism notwithstanding they have protested a government plan to make women remove their headscarves for passport photographs pressuring shopkeepers to stop selling tobacco and alcohol 87 86 In June 2010 a group of Salafist clerics attending an official function along with the minister of religious affairs showed their rejection of modern political systems as an illegitimate innovation or bid ah by refusing to stand for the national anthem 87 Salafist Sheikh Abdelfettah Zeraoui explains criticism of Salafism as the work of Western powers who have pressured Muslim governments to crack down on the Salafi current because it represents the pure Islam 87 The Salafis connection with Saudi Arabia includes Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al Sheikh who has endorsed opposition to international regulations requiring photographs for passports show a person s forehead and ears even if they are a woman Abdelmalek Ramdani the most prominent Salafist imam in Algeria lives in Saudi Arabia and prominent Salafist preachers including Ali Ferkous Azzedine Ramdani and Al Eid Cherifi received religious training in Saudi Arabia 87 Nigeria Edit The Izala Society a Salafi missionary group established 1978 has become one of the largest Islamic societies in Nigeria Chad Niger and Cameroon 88 Izala is funded by Saudi Arabia and led by the World Muslim League It fights what it sees as the bid a innovation practiced by the Sufi brotherhoods 89 specifically the Qadiri and Tijan Sufi orders 90 It is very active in education and Da wa propagation of the faith and in Nigeria has many institutions all over the country and is influential at the local state and even federal levels 88 As per Joshua Meservey of the Hudson Institute who quantifies the rise of Salafism in Africa by basing himself on diverse scholarship when it comes to West Africa in particular in Ghana and Burkina Faso Salafis are said to represent more or so half of the country s urban Muslim population in Cameroon around 10 of Muslims are Salafis with numbers going up to 20 in some regions while in Lagos Nigeria s largest city as of 2014 some 60 of the youth was said to be Salafi 91 Central Asia and Caucasus EditScholar Vitaliĭ Vi acheslavovich Naumkin argues that even before the fall of Communism Saudi Arabia had substantial influence on Islam in Central Asia because of its prestige as the location of the holy places of Hejaz its financial resources and because of the large number of Central Asian pilgrims and their descendants who had gone to Saudi on hajj and decided to stay 92 During the Soviet Afghan War thousands of Soviet Central Asians were drafted into the Soviet Army to fight their co religionists and sometimes fellow ethics the Afghan Mujahideen As Islam and Central Asian peoples had been repressed by the Soviets often brutally 93 many were deeply affected by the dedication of their putative enemies Hundreds of Uzbek and Tajik Muslims travelled secretly to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to study in madrasahs or to train as guerrilla fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan Many of these were influenced by the idea of armed jihad taught at Deobandi madrasahs in Pakistan where places specifically for Central Asian radicals who arrived without passports or visas and received a free education and a living allowance 93 Salafism also made headway with the help of Saudi funding and Saudi trained preachers In the late 1980s at the same time as the Soviets were starting to withdraw from Afghanistan there was an explosion of interest in Islam in Central Asia Thousands of mosques were built Qurans and other Islamic literature were brought in from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and distributed free among the population 93 In Central Asia the label Wahhabism has evolved from its original meaning of followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab to become agitprop invective and a polemic foil in sectarian arguments used by authoritarian governments against Islamic reformists and troublesome Muslim opponents or even against any and all expressions of nontraditional Islam They tend to equate Wahhabism with local Sufi influenced traditional religious culture 94 Afghanistan Edit Saudi and Islamist forces helped the Afghan Mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviets with Saudi Arabian government providing approximately 4 billion in aid to the mujahidin from 1980 to 1990 95 Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf became important backers for Islamic schools madrassas for Afghan refugees in Pakistan which appeared in the 1980s near the Afghan Pakistan border 96 In 1988 the Muslim World League stated that it had opened 150 Quran study centers and 85 Islamic schools for Afghan refugee students in Peshawar a short distance across the border in Pakistan 97 Many were radical schools sponsored by the Pakistan JUI religious party and became a supply line for jihad in Afghanistan 96 According to analysts the ideology of the schools became hybridization of the Deobandi school of the Pakistani sponsors and the Salafism supported by Saudi financers 98 99 Many of the Taliban were graduates of these schools 100 Eight Taliban government ministers came from one school Dar ul Uloom Haqqania 101 While in power the Taliban implemented the strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world 102 103 After the Taliban came to power the Saudis helped them in a number of ways Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries Pakistan and United Arab Emirates being the others officially to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan before the 9 11 attacks after 9 11 no country recognized it King Fahd of Saudi Arabia expressed happiness at the good measures taken by the Taliban and over the imposition of shari a in our country During a visit by the Taliban s leadership to the kingdom in 1997 104 According to Ahmed Rashid Wahhabi practices might have influenced the Deobandi Taliban One example was the Saudi religious police according to Rashid I remember that all the Taliban who had worked or done hajj in Saudi Arabia were terribly impressed by the religious police and tried to copy that system to the letter The money for their training and salaries came partly from Saudi Arabia The taliban also practiced public beheadings common in Saudi Arabia Ahmed Rashid came across ten thousand men and children gathering at Kandahar football stadium one Thursday afternoon curious as to why the Taliban had banned sports he went inside to discover a convicted murderer being led between the goalposts to be executed by a member of the victim s family 105 Another activity Afghan Muslims had not engaged in before this time was destruction of statues In 2001 the Taliban dynamited and rocketed the nearly 2000 year old statues Buddhist Bamiyan Valley which had been undamaged by Afghan Sunni Muslim for centuries prior to then Mullah Omar declared Muslims should be proud of smashing idols It has given praise to Allah that we have destroyed them 106 Uzbekistan Edit The leadership of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan IMU has been influenced by the Salafi and Deobandi traditions IMU head Juma Namangani who was killed in November 2001 was indirectly influenced by outside Islamic revival when serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan fighting Afghan mujahideen He was radicalized by the experience and returning to his home in the Fergana Valley wanting to fight on the side of the Islamic revival not against it He associated with local Islamists of the Islamic Renaissance Party IRP and the local Islamic revolutionary party Adolat transl Justice 93 and became a founder of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan 93 In 1995 Namangani traveled to Saudi Arabia to undergo religious and intelligence training from Saudi intelligence 107 According to journalist Ahmed Rashid the IMUis believed to have been funded by Saudis Pakistanis Turks Iranians and Osama bin Laden Namangani was one of the most important foreign Taliban commanders in northern Afghanistan during the recent fighting there He led a pan Islamic force of Uzbeks Tajiks Pakistanis Chechens and Uighurs from Xinjiang province in China They fought on the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan but their long range goal was to establish an Islamic state throughout Central Asia 93 Caucasus Edit Salafi proselytising has been particularly successful in the ex Soviet Muslim majority areas such as Dagestan and Chechnya for a number of reasons according to Robert Bruce Ware Salafi funding institutions and missionaries are particularly useful because they fill the gap left by the collapse of the USSR where traditional Islamic leaders were relatively unknowledgeable and accustomed to surviving by subservience 108 Salafiyya fills the ideological void left by the collapse of socialism 108 the Salafi adversarial role toward the non Muslim government i e Russia s fills the traditional role of Islam toward the Russian government and it takes advantage of public resentment against the existing corrupt and incompetent governments which traditional Islamic leaders are tainted by 108 109 advocacy of sharia law and organized Salafi enforcement of it plays into the desire for protection against post Soviet criminal predation and the arbitrary brutality of the police 108 AzerbaijanAlthough 85 of Azerbaijanis are members of the Shiite branch of Islam 110 which Salafis strongly oppose and Muslims in Azerbaijan have a tradition of secularism Salafism has made headway among the 15 of the country that identify themselves as Sunni Muslims and primarily inhabit the northern and western regions 110 specifically those of Dagestani ethnicity Avars Lezgins Tsakhurs Rutuls in areas bordering Dagestan Salafism was proselytized and catalyzed starting with the dissolution of the Soviet Union by missionaries and funds from Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia 110 and Salafists mainly from Chechnya and Dagestan In 1997 the Azerbaijani branch of the Kuwaiti Revival of Islamic Heritage society built the Abu Bakr mosque in Baku the capital It became one of the most successful mosques in Azerbaijan with 5000 people typically attending Friday prayer compared to 300 for an average Azerbaijan mosque 111 and the myriad of social opportunities it provided created an attractive network for its relatively young believers and was a great impetus for the Salafi movement 110 Its Imam for many years Gamat Suleymanov was a graduate of the Islamic University of Madinah of Medina Saudi Arabia 111 Chechnya Wahhabi Mosque in Duisi Pankisi Gorge GeorgiaChechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that the spread of Salafism must be contained noting the need to crack down on the ideology of Wahhabism in mosques on TV on social networks through mobile devices 112 DagestanAn Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus is particularly intense in Dagestan 113 As of 2011 Suicide bombers were killing an average of three policemen per week with numerous civilians also becoming casualties From January to June 2011 Police claimed to have killed 100 rebels according to Russian Interior Ministry officials 114 GeorgiaAlthough Georgia is predominantly Christian it has Muslim minorities In the Pankisi Gorge home to the Kists a small Muslim ethnic group the older generation of Sufis is gradually giving away to younger Salafis who scorn the old practices and pray in new gleaming mosques 115 116 117 Wahhabi missionary activism entered into a dozen Pankisi villages in the 1990s popularized by young people educated in Arab countries The Wahhabis do not use the term but rather identify as Salafis 118 According to a 2015 report a year ago about 70 per cent of the younger generation were Salafis and now almost 90 per cent of them are 119 South Asia EditSalafi missionary activism is also occurring in South Asia through the funding of mosques Islamic schools cultural institutions and social services 120 With public and private Saudi funding Salafi da wa has steadily gained influence among Muslim communities in South Asia since the late 1970s significantly changing the nature of South Asian Islam and bringing an increase in Islamist violence in Pakistan Indian Kashmir and Bangladesh 121 According to Jammu and Kashmir Police and Indian Central intelligence officers in 2005 the House of Saud approved a 35 billion Rs 1 75 000 crore plan to build mosques and madrassas in South Asia 122 Bangladesh Edit See also Bangladesh Saudi Arabia relations Bangladesh has the forth or fifth largest population of Muslims of any country and about a 30 poverty rate 123 Since the late 1970s Saudi Arabia has funded the construction of thousands of mosques and madrasas in Bangladesh Deobandi Hefazat e Islam controls over 14 000 mosques and madrasas where up to 1 4 million students get an Islamic education without any state supervision 124 Bangladesh also receives a concession from Saudi on the price of oil imports With the concession has come changes in religious practices according to Imtiyaz Ahmed a religious scholar and professor of International Relations at University of Dhaka 125 Saudi Arabia is giving oil Saudi Arabia would definitely want that some of their ideas to come with oil The Mawlid the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad s birthday and formerly an integral part of Bangladeshi culture is no longer popular while black burqas for women are much more so 125 In Saudi Arabia Mawlid is officially ignored while for women in public places all covering black or similar dark color hijab is required 125 One way conservative Saudi religious practices are spread is through schools Nearly 6 million Bangladeshi children attend schools at private Quomi madrassas Unlike regulated state schools these madrasses are free and entirely supported by private donations which come from both inside and outside Bangladesh 126 Note 3 Quomi madrassas syllabus follows orthodox Islamic teaching being restricted to study of Hadith and Tafsir e Quran understanding and interpretation of Hadith and Quran with emphasis on aspects of Jihad 128 One burka wearing Bangladeshi told the DW journalist who interviewed Imtiyaz Ahmed that she started wearing a burqa because at her son s school a Quomi madrassas the teachers scold the students whose mothers don t wear burqas So I asked my nephew who works in the Middle East to get me one 125 While rising crime and desire to feel safe are factors in the popularity of burkas religious pressure is also India Edit Between 2011 and 2013 25 000 Saudi clerics arrived in India with 250 million to build mosques and universities and to hold seminars 129 There is concern regarding the increasing Saudi Wahhabi influence in the North West and in the East of India 130 131 According to Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2015 140 Muslim preachers are listed as on the Saudi Consulate s payroll in New Delhi alone 46 In the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir part of Indian administered Kashmir that has been the site of the Indo Pakistani War of 1947 the Indo Pakistani War of 1965 the 1999 Kargil War and the ongoing insurgency 1 5 of the 8 million Muslims affiliated to Salafism 132 133 The Saudi funded Jamiat Ahl e Hadith has built 700 mosques and 150 schools in JK and claims that 16 percent of Kashmir s population are members 122 133 Police in Jammu and Kashmir believe this is the result of a 35 billion plan approved by Saudi Arabia s government in 2005 to build mosques and madrassas in South Asia 122 Maldives Edit In the late 1990s with the growth of Salafi missionary activities in Maldives the local traditional practices of Islam in the Maldives were getting challenged After the 2004 tsunami Saudi funded preachers gained influence Within a short period of a decade fundamentalist practices dominated the culture 134 135 It is reported that Maldives has a growing Wahhabist majority and an autocratic government or according to the Maldivian opposition a pliant ally where few questions are asked and fewer are allowed 136 In 2017 Members of the Maldivian Democratic Party have raised concerns that the decision by the government of President Abdulla Yameen to sell one of Maldives 26 atolls to Saudi Arabia will aggravate Salafi preaching in the Maldives 137 According to Azra Naseem a Maldivian researcher on extremism at Dublin City University you can t say all of Salafism is radical Islam but it s a form of Islam that s completely brought into the Maldives from Saudi Arabia and other places Now it s being institutionalized because everybody in the universities in the Islamic Ministry they are all spreading this form of Islam 138 In April 2017 Yameen Rasheed a liberal blogger and a strong voice against growing Islamic radicalization was stabbed to death by multiple assailants 138 According to a study by the Soufan Group the islands supply 200 fighters to extremist outfits in Syria and Iraq 139 the world s highest per capita number of foreign fighters 138 Pakistan Edit Pakistan has the third largest Muslim population in the world and approximately 30 of its people living below the poverty threshold 123 Over decades Saudi has spent billions of dollars in Pakistan while the billions in remittances from the almost one million Pakistanis living and working in Saudi Arabia as of 2010 are a vital source of income for Pakistan 140 131 Many of the madrassas funded through Gulf finances support Deobandi and Salafi interpretations According to a Pew Research Center survey Pakistanis hold the most favorable perception of the desert kingdom in the world with 95 percent Pakistanis surveyed viewing Saudi Arabia favorably 141 Support is also high for strict traditional Islamic law favored by Saudi rulers in Pakistani opinion polls stoning as punishment for adultery 82 whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery 82 death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion 76 142 17 A major source of Salafi missionary impact in Pakistan has been through the Pakistani religious parties Jamiat Ulema e Islam F Jamaati Ulama Islam before 1988 Jamiat Ahle Hadith and in particular the Jamaat e Islami Saudis have helped fund Jamaat e Islami s educational networks since the 1960s 143 The party has been active in the Saudi founded Muslim World League 143 and segments of the party came to accept Wahhabism 144 145 143 146 The constituent council of the Muslim World League included Abul A la Maududi founder of Jamaat e Islami 147 With the help of funding from Saudi Arabia and other sources thousands of religious schools madrasses were established during the 1980s in Pakistan usually Deobandi in doctrine and often sponsored by Jamaati Ulama Islam This rapid expansion came at the expense of doctrinal coherence as there were not enough qualified teachers to staff all the new schools Quite a few teachers did not discern between tribal values of their ethnic group the Pushtuns and the religious ideals The result was an interpretation of Islam that blended Pushtun ideals and Deobandi views precisely the hallmark of the Taliban 148 Another source describes the madrasses as combining Deobandi ideology with Salafism Saudi Arabia provides much of the school funding Critics such as Dilip Hiro complained of intolerance teachings as reflected in the chant at the morning student assembly at certain radical madrassas When people deny our faith ask them to convert and if they don t destroy them utterly 145 Another complaint about religious schools leading to extremism comes from a 2008 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks concerning southern Punjab specifically the Multan Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions there government and non governmental sources claimed that financial support estimated at nearly 100 million USD annually was making its way to Deobandi and Ahl e Hadith clerics in the region from missionary and Islamic charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ostensibly with the direct support of those governments 149 150 But the diplomat complained many of the students ended up in terrorist training camps The network reportedly exploited worsening poverty in these areas of the province to recruit children into the divisions growing Deobandi and Ahl eHadith madrassa network from which they were indoctrinated into jihadi philosophy deployed to regional training indoctrination centers and ultimately sent to terrorist training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas FATA 149 150 One militant who has fought for Salafi Islam in Pakistan is Sufi Mohammad Originally an activist of Jamaat e Islami JI he fought in the Afghan jihad and founded Tehreek e Nafaz e Shariat e Mohammadi Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law in 1992 Described as an ardent Salafist who has remained associated with Saudi sponsored groups from the Afghan theater of 1980 88 151 he was imprisoned on January 15 2002 but the group has gone on to bomb girls schools video and CD shops 152 and the statues of Buddhas in Bamiyan 153 It has also forced the closure of some development organizations accusing them of spreading immorality by employing female staff 154 Other scholars argue that outside influences are not alone in generating sectarianism and jihadist violence in Pakistan which has roots in the country s origins in the partition of India in 1947 17 Southeast Asia EditBrunei Edit Saudi Arabia is strengthening its links with Brunei particularly relation to its Islamic status and its oil leverage in the region 155 Indonesia Edit Since 1980 Saudi government individual Saudis and Saudi religious foundations and charities 156 has devoted millions of dollars to exporting Salafism to Indonesia the world s largest Muslim country historically religiously tolerant and diverse It has built more than 150 mosques 157 albeit in a country that has about 800 000 a huge free university in Jakarta and several Arabic language institutes supplied more than 100 boarding schools with books and teachers brought in preachers and teachers and disbursed thousands of scholarships for graduate study in Saudi Arabia 158 159 Kuwait and Qatar have also invested heavily in building religious schools and mosques throughout Indonesia 160 Salafi radio stations TV channels and website in Indonesia and Southeast Asia have undergone a rapid rise 160 The conservative funding sources are eager to strip traditional Indonesian Islam of local customs containing elements of Hindu ritual and Sufi mysticism 160 Saudi influence began around 1988 when President Suharto encouraged a Saudi presence in Indonesia 161 The primary conduits of Saudi Islamic funding in Indonesia 162 are the Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia the Indonesian Society for the Propagation of Islam or DDII founded in 1967 and Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Islam dan Arab the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies or LIPIA a branch of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh Saudi Arabia 162 The Saudi embassy s Religious Attache Offices provides scholarships for students to go to Saudi Arabia and pays for Attache preachers to give Friday Khutbah sermons across Indonesia as well as Arabic teachers 160 The LIPIA an all expenses paid Salafist university in Jakarta has produced tens of thousands of graduates since its founding in 1980 160 hBoth affluent and poor schools in both Java and more remote islands are beneficiaries of Saudi largess As of 2016 the number of pesantren religious boarding schools following the Salafi manhaj path had grown to about 100 160 The libraries of other pesantren including the prestigious Gontor pesantren in East Java are filled with books from Saudi Arabia 161 The Saudi religious affairs office in Jakarta provides about one million Arabic religious books translated into Indonesian every year The titles include Questions and Answers about Islamic Principles by Bin Baaz one of Saudi Arabia s most venerated interpreters of Islam 161 As of 2003 a pew poll found Crown Prince Abdullah was rated as one of the three leaders Indonesians trusted the most 161 As Salafism has expanded some Indonesia have become alarmed at what they call the arabization of their country and called for an Islam with freedom of opinion and tolerance that does not reject pluralism and democracy 160 A graduate of LIPIA Farid Okhbah helped found the National Anti Shia Alliance ANNAS of Indonesia Although Shia make up only about 1 of the population of the country Okhbah has called Shia Islam a bigger threat to Indonesia than communism in the 1960s and urged the sect be banded 160 According to Sidney Jones the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta Saudi influence has contributed to a more conservative more intolerant atmosphere and may be behind campaigns against Shia and Ahmadi Islam but very few of the Indonesians arrested on terrorism charges in Indonesia since 2002 have any ties to Salafi institutions 17 However according to a 2003 article in The New York Times Saudis have also discreetly provided funds for militant Islamic groups 161 The Saudi foundation Al Haramain financed educational institutions with the approval of the Indonesian Ministry of Religion and served as a conduit for money to Jemaah Islamiyah a Southeast Asian Islamist organization that aims to build Islamic states in the region and has bombed many civilian targets 161 The spiritual guide of Jemaah Islamiyyah Abu Bakar Bashir has now pledged his allegiance to ISIS 160 On 4 November 2016 approximately 500 000 demonstrators gathered in central Jakarta Indonesia s capital city shutting down all the city s major arteries in the largest Islamist demonstration in Indonesian history and a political turning point in the nation s history 163 Led by Muhammad Rizieq Shihab of the Islamic Defenders Front FPI whose connections with Saudi Arabia date back three decades the demonstrators called for the rejection of the leaders of infidels referring to Basuki Tjahaja Purnama Ahok the Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta When Shihab asked the crowd If our demands are not heard are you ready to turn this into a revolution they screamed their affirmation Ahok was later sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy and in the next presidential election candidates played up their Islamic credentials to appeal to the new political trend 163 Malaysia Edit In 1980 Prince Muhammad al Faysal of Saudi Arabia offered that Malaysia 100 million for an interest free finance corporation and two years later the Saudis helped finance the government sponsored Bank Islam Malaysia 164 In 2017 it was reported that Salafi doctrines are spreading among Malaysia s elite and the traditional Islamic theology currently taught in Government schools is shifted to a Salafi view of theology derived from the Middle East particularly Saudi Arabia 165 166 Other regions EditAustralia Edit Australia has approximately 600 000 Muslim 167 among its population of about 25 million 168 Within Australia Saudi funds have used to build and or operate mosques schools charities a university and Australian Islamic institutions with estimates up to US 100 million 169 170 This funding has generated tensions between Australian Muslim organizations 171 In 2015 it was uncovered by WikiLeaks that the Saudi Government has provided finance to build mosques to support Islamic community activities and to fund visits by Sunni clerics to counter Shiite influence 172 Canada Edit Canada has approximately one million Muslim out of a population of 35 million 173 Among the institutions in Canada Saudis have funded include mosques in Ottawa Calgary Quebec City 174 In Toronto the Salaheddin Islamic Centre was funded by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia himself with a US 5 million capital grant and a further US 1 5 million per year for operations according to author Lawrence Solomon 174 According to the National Post the Salaheddin Islamic Centre received substantial funding from donors in Saudi Arabia Qatar and the UAE in 2009 and 2010 175 One of the founders of the centre Hassan Farhat left Canada to join an al Qaeda linked group in Iraq where he allegedly commanded a squad of suicide bombers 176 175 The centre s imam Aly Hindy is known for his controversial comments on homosexuality and Canadian law and for refusing to sign a statement condemning the 2005 London bombings 175 According to a report in The Globe and Mail the Saudi government has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to private Islamic schools in Canada Saudi diplomatic cables from 2012 and 2013 disclosed by WikiLeaks contain conversations about a 211 000 donation to a school in Ottawa and 134 000 to a school in Mississauga according to the report 177 The schools confirmed that they had sought the donations to help expand their facilities but denied the money came with conditions 177 New Zealand Edit New Zealand has approximately 46 000 Muslims out of a population of 4 6 million In Christchurch the largest city on New Zealand s South Island the local mosque was funded largely from private Saudi sources 178 As of 2006 the management the mosque s association the Canterbury Muslim Association or MAC is commonly labelled Wahhabi by its opponents following serious and sometimes well publicised divisions since the early 1990s stemming from issues including interpretation of Islamic practice In 2003 it sought to turn the mosque property over to a trust dominated by the Saudi al Haramain Foundation in return for money to establish a school and still evidently wants to establish some sort of a trust 179 Note 4 From 2006 to 2013 conservative Islamic preachers associated in some way with Saudi Arabia or Salafiyya da wa such as Bilal Philips Sheikh Khalid Yasin 181 Siraj Wahhaj Yahya Ibrahim held workshops in mosques and university student halls up and down New Zealand The conservative Investigate Magazine complains that works by some of the preachers include books that urge followers to kill Jews Christians pagans and Hindus 182 Islamic youth camps were held in 2001 on the North Island at the Kauaeranga Forest Education Camp on the Coromandel Peninsula where the theme was the restoration of the Islamic caliphate The Khilafah and man s role as Khalifah and on the South Island Muslim students camp near Mosgiel where the theme was Islam is the Solution 182 a slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood 183 The Saudi supported World Assembly of Muslim Youth held a 10 day Intensive Islamic course for more than 300 brothers and sisters in 2003 182 In November 2016 Mohammad Anwar Sahib Imam of At Taqwa mosque in New Zealand s largest city Auckland and a religious advisor for the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand FIANZ created controversy when he was videoed saying The Christians are using the Jews and the Jews are using everybody because they think that their protocol is to rule the entire world in a speech at the mosque In reply he stated that his statement was taken out of context and demanded an apology 184 He was later terminated as Secretary for the Ulama Board of the FIANZ 185 In January 2017 Taie bin Salem bin Yaslam al Saya ari a Saudi citizen who is believed to have lived and studied in New Zealand between 2008 and 2013 and become radicalized there was killed by Saudi security forces Bin Yaslam al Saya ari is thought to have planned a July 2016 attack on the mosque where the Prophet of Islam Muhammad is buried Al Masjid an Nabawi which killed four Saudi security force members He is said to have been inspired by another student studying in New Zealand who went to Syria to fight for the Islamic State and was also killed 186 United States Edit See also Wahhabism and Salafi movement In the US where Muslims make up an estimated 1 of the population 187 Saudi Arabia funds at least in part an estimated 80 percent of all mosques 188 According to an official Saudi weekly Ain al Yaqeen Saudi money helped finance 16 American mosques 17 According to Yvonne Haddad a professor of the history of Islam at the Georgetown center records of the Muslim World League show that during a two year span in the 1980s the League spent about 10 million in the United States on mosque construction The Saudi royal family directly contributed to the construction of a dozen mosques including the 8 1 million King Fahad Mosque in Culver City California 189 The Saudi embassy s Department of Islamic Affairs was founded in 1982 and was directed by Prince Muhammad ibn Faysal ibn Abd al Rahman for many years At its height in the late 1990s the department had 35 40 diplomats and an annual budget of 8 million according to a Saudi official contacted by author Zeyno Baran 190 The department provided regular financial support to radical mosques and madrassas religious schools in the United States including several attended by the 9 11 hijackers and otherwise linked to terrorist activities according to author Harry Helms 191 As in the UK and some other countries universities in America have received funding from petroleum exporting Muslim states Harvard and Georgetown universities both received 20 million in 2005 from a Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud 192 Other Saudi gifts reportedly included 20 million to the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas 5 million to the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of California Berkeley 11 million to Cornell University in Ithaca New York and a half million dollars to University of Texas 1 million to Princeton University 5 million to Rutgers University 193 Academic chairs for Islamic Studies were donated at Harvard Law School and the University of California Santa Barbara Islamic research institutes at American University in Washington Howard University Duke University and Johns Hopkins University were supported by the Saudis 194 These donations to academia have been described as aimed more at influencing Western public opinion than Muslims Donors such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal have described them as intended to promote peace and help bridge the gap between East and West 195 Critics primarily Western political conservatives 196 195 197 such as Daniel Pipes believe they are incentive for Middle East researchers instructors and center directors in Western countries to behave and say the things the Saudis like in exchange for large donations 195 See also EditInternational propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism Islam in Saudi Arabia Islamism Islamic fundamentalism Islamic schools and branches Muslim World League Petro Islam Salafi movement Wahhabi movementReferences EditNotes Edit led by Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz minister of defense at the time who became king in January 2015 the director of Brunel University s Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies 27 A report examining the political consciousness of madrassa teachers and graduate students in Bangladesh found that 70 of 77 respondents at madrassas replied Saudi Arabai when asked Which country is the best friend of Bangladesh 127 Investigate Magazine also writes that in November 2003 the al Haramain Foundation was reported to be attempting to set up an organisation in New Zealand to establish an Islamic school and an Islamic Bank in a proposal involving millions of dollars 180 Citations Edit 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 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 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 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 Hasan Noorhaidi 2010 The Failure of the Wahhabi Campaign Transnational Islam and the Salafi madrasa in post 9 11 Indonesia South East Asia Research Taylor amp Francis on behalf of the SOAS University of London 18 4 675 705 doi 10 5367 sear 2010 0015 ISSN 2043 6874 JSTOR 23750964 6 common misconceptions about Salafi Muslims in the West OUPblog 2016 10 05 Retrieved 2021 08 20 Kepel Gilles 2003 Jihad The Trail of Political Islam I B Tauris pp 61 2 ISBN 9781845112578 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 a b Gold Dore 2003 Hatred s Kingdom How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism Regnery p 237 ISBN 9781596988194 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 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 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 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 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 Lacey Robert 2009 Inside the Kingdom Kings Clerics Modernists Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia Viking p 95 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 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 a b c d e f 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 Commins David 2009 The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia PDF I B Tauris p 141 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 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 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 The Saudi origins of Belgium s Islamist threat 2 March 2016 OCAM warns against advance of radical Islam in Belgium 8 February 2017 Thomas Johnson Amandla 2 May 2017 Bahrain backed mosque sparks Wahhabi row in Finland Middle East Eye Retrieved 23 June 2017 Saudis support German salafist scene 12 December 2016 President of Iceland fears Saudi Arabian funding of Reykjavik Mosque will fuel Muslim extremism in Iceland 24 November 2015 a b Extremism fear over Islam studies donations 13 April 2008 British universities receive Saudi funds ARAB NEWS 30 September 2012 Retrieved 23 July 2017 Jeremy Corbyn calls for difficult conversations with Saudi Arabia and Gulf states over extremism funding 5 June 2017 Saudi Arabia has clear link to UK extremism report says BBC 5 July 2017 Retrieved 5 July 2017 Elgot Jessica 4 July 2017 Theresa May sitting on report on foreign funding of UK extremists The Guardian Retrieved 5 July 2017 Dorsey James M 6 July 2017 Saudi Arabian Extremism in the UK Inside the Henry Jackson Report The Market Mogal Retrieved 7 July 2017 Two Albanian majority countries fear growth of Islamism 21 August 2016 Muslim radicals in mountain villages spark fears in Bosnia 20 April 2016 a b c d Sfeir Antoine ed 2007 The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism Columbia University Press pp 28 30 ISBN 9780231146401 Retrieved 14 April 2015 a b Freeman Michael ed 2013 04 28 Financing Terrorism Case Studies Ashgate Publishing Ltd ISBN 9781409476832 Retrieved 14 April 2015 August 9 2012 Infographic The World s Muslims Unity and Diversity pewforum org 9 August 2012 Retrieved 14 April 2015 In the 39 countries surveyed the percentage saying religion is very important to them ranges from 15 in Albania to 98 in Senegal Infographic The World s Muslims Unity and Diversity Pew Research Center s Religion amp Public Life Project 2012 08 09 Retrieved 2020 11 12 a b Merdjanova Ina 2013 Rediscovering the Umma Muslims in the Balkans Between Nationalism and Oxford University Press p 64 ISBN 9780190462505 Retrieved 4 July 2017 CIA Report on NGOs With Terror Links wikisource org Retrieved 14 April 2015 a b c Sfeir Antoine ed 2007 The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism Columbia University Press pp 89 92 ISBN 9780231146401 Retrieved 14 April 2015 a b c Kepel Jihad 2002 p 251 a b c Bilefsky Dan 2008 12 26 Islamic Revival Tests Bosnia s Secular Cast The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2017 06 19 Is Saudi funded mosque in Sarajevo threat to Bosnia s moderate Muslims PBS NewsHour Retrieved 2017 06 19 Finn Helena Kane Cultural Terrorism and Wahhabi Islam Council on Foreign Relations Archived from the original on 4 September 2014 Retrieved 4 August 2014 a b c d e f g h i j k GALL CARLOTTA 21 May 2016 How Kosovo Was Turned Into Fertile Ground for ISIS New York Times Retrieved 1 July 2017 a b Saudi aid to Kosovo continues Saudi Embassy 31 October 1999 a b Gardner Frank World Middle East Gulf Arabs aid Kosovo refugees BBC News April 24 1999 Merdjanova Ina 2013 Rediscovering the Umma Muslims in the Balkans Between Nationalism and Oxford University Press p 65 ISBN 9780199964031 Retrieved 14 May 2015 Hadim Suleiman Aga Library Djakovica Kosovo Archnet Retrieved 13 May 2015 OpenDemocracy Why are Polish people so wrong about Muslims in their country Archived from the original on 2017 04 26 Retrieved 2017 07 20 Ludnosc Stan i struktura demograficzno spoleczna NSP 2011 PDF in Polish Forbes The World Richest Arab 2013 Muslims in Visegrad PDF Meczet ktorego nie chcial Uniwersytet Warszawski rp pl Middle East s leaders cross the Red Sea to woo east Africa 12 September 2016 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 177 the Umma Party for Ansar and the Democratic Unionist Party for Khatmiya a b c d Bernal Victoria Migration Modernity and Islam in Rural Sudan Middle East Research and Information Project Retrieved 25 June 2014 Natsios Andrew S 2012 Sudan South Sudan and Darfur What Everyone Needs to Know Oxford University Press pp 85 6 ISBN 9780199764198 Retrieved 22 April 2015 Moussa Yaqoub Muhammad Faysal Al Saoud malamih min tajriba al iqtissadiyya al islamiyya Aspects of Experience in the Islamic Economy Jeddah Saudi Publishing and Distributing House 1998 esp pp 54 55 60 quoted in Kepel Gilles Jihad 2002 p 180 a b Kepel Jihad 2002 p 180 Natsios Andrew S 2012 Sudan South Sudan and Darfur What Everyone Needs to Know Oxford University Press p 90 ISBN 9780199764198 Retrieved 22 April 2015 Warburg Gabriel R August 2006 THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN SUDAN FROM REFORMS TO RADICALISM PDF e prism org THE PROJECT FOR THE RESEARCH OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS PRISM Retrieved 28 April 2015 300 000 Sudanese expat workers could face deportation from Saudi Arabia report sudan tribune 6 November 2013 Retrieved 2 May 2015 Warburg Gabriel R August 2006 THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN SUDAN FROM REFORMS TO RADICALISM PDF e prism org THE PROJECT FOR THE RESEARCH OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS PRISM Retrieved 28 April 2015 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 181 Biography of Hassan al Turabi Human Rights Watch Retrieved 4 November 2014 Fluehr Lobban Carolyn Lobban Richard Spring 2001 The Sudan Since 1989 National Islamic Front Rule Arab Studies Quarterly 23 2 1 9 JSTOR 41858370 Bariyo Nicholas April 27 2015 Sudan s Bashir Wins Presidential Election in Vote Boycotted by Opposition Wall Street Journal Retrieved 27 April 2015 Sudan s Turabi considered apostate Sudan Tribune 24 April 2006 Retrieved 27 April 2015 Packer George 11 September 2006 The Moderate Martyr A radically peaceful vision of Islam Al Sharif Jamal Salafis in Sudan Non Interference or Confrontation 03 July 2012 AlJazeera Center for Studies Retrieved 7 April 2013 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 51 David Sagiv Fundamentalism and Intellectuals in Egypt 1973 1999 London Frank Cass 1995 p 47 Judith Miller God has Ninety Nine Names Reporting from a Militant Middle East New York Touchstone Books 1996 p 79 Murawiec Laurent 2003 Princes of Darkness The Saudi Assault on the West Rowman amp Littlefield p 56 ISBN 9780742542785 Retrieved 2 April 2015 Miller Judith 1996 God Has Ninety Nine Names Reporting from a Militant Middle East Simon and Schuster p 79 ISBN 9781439129418 Retrieved 2 April 2015 Almost two decades of such Saudi funding had made the state s largest Islamic institution even more conservative Many ulema had worked in Saudi Arabia among them Mufti Tantawi Egypt s chief sheikh who had spent four years at the Islamic University of Medina Abdelnasser Walid 2011 1994 The Attitudes Towards Selected Muslim Countries Islamic Movement In Egypt Routledge ISBN 9781136159602 it is important to refer to the position of Shikh Abdil Halim Mahmud d 1978 Shikh of al Azhar towards Saudi Arabia Shikh Mahmud had an ideological affinity with the Saudi interpretation of Islam Due to his links with Saudi Arabia he moved loser to al Ikhwan al Muslimum This position contrasted with the position of al Azhar in the 1960s Kepel Jihad 2002 p 166 a b Kepel Jihad 2002 p 162 3 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 165 a b Kepel Jihad 2002 p 164 Roy Failure of Political Islam 1994 p 119 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 172 3 a b c Boukhars Anouar Quietist and Firebrand Salafism in Algeria carnegie endowment Retrieved 20 October 2016 a b c d e Chikhi Lamine 10 August 2010 Hard line Islam steps out of shadows in Algeria Reuters Retrieved 18 October 2016 a b Ben Amara Ramzi Sharia Debates in Africa circa 2007 Retrieved 22 May 2014 Paden John N 2008 Faith and Politics in Nigeria US Institute of Peace Press p 28 Hill Jonathan N C May 2010 SUFISM IN NORTHERN NIGERIA FORCE FOR COUNTER RADICALIZATION PDF Strategic Studies Institute p 18 Meservey Joshua 25 October 2021 Salafis Sufis and the Contest for the Future of African Islam Hudson Institute Naumkin Vitaliĭ Vi acheslavovich 2005 Radical Islam in Central Asia Between Pen and Rifle Rowman amp Littlefield p 38 ISBN 9780742529304 Retrieved 9 July 2017 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan a b c d e f Rashid Ahmed 14 January 2002 They re Only Sleeping Why militant Islamicists in Central Asia aren t going to go away The New Yorker Archived from the original on 24 January 2016 Retrieved 6 February 2016 Hays Jeffrey RELIGION AND ISLAM IN CENTRAL ASIA Facts and Details factsanddetails com Retrieved 2017 07 06 Gold Hatred s Kingdom 2003 p 127 a b Jessica Stern Pakistan s Jihad Culture Foreign Affairs November December 2000 Kepel Gilles 2002 Jihad Harvard University Press p 396 note24 Kepel Jihad 2002 p 223 Ahmed Rahid Taliban p 90 Matinuddin Kamal The Taliban Phenomenon Afghanistan 1994 1997 Oxford University Press 1999 pp 25 6 Ahmed Rashid Taliban p 90 Rashid Taliban 2000 p 29 Dupree Hatch Nancy Afghan Women under the Taliban in Maley William Fundamentalism Reborn Afghanistan and the Taliban London Hurst and Company 2001 pp 145 166 Algar Hamid Wahhabism A Critical Essay p 57 Lacey Robert 2009 Inside the Kingdom Kings Clerics Modernists Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia Viking pp 200 1 I remember says Ahmed Rashid that all the Taliban who had worked or done hajj in Saudi Arabia were terribly impressed by the religious police and tried to copy that system to the letter The money for their training and salaries came partly from Saudi Arabia Ahmed Rashid took the trouble to collect and document the Taliban s medieval flailings against the modern West and a few months later he stumbled on a spectacle that they were organizing for popular entertainment Wondering why ten thousand men and children were gathering so eagerly in the Kandahar football stadium one Thursday afternoon he went inside to discover a convicted murderer being led between the goalposts to be executed by a member of the victim s family Markos Moulitsas Zuniga 2010 American Taliban How War Sex Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right Polipoint Press p 8 ISBN 978 1 936227 02 0 Muslims should be proud of smashing idols Salayeva Rena Baranick Michael J Addressing Terrorist Threats in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan Winning Hearts and Minds PDF ismor com p 196 a b c d Ware Robert Bruce 2010 Dagestan Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus NY Routledge pp 91 2 ISBN 9781317473459 Retrieved 21 May 2015 Souleimanov Emil Ehrmann Maya Fall 2013 The Rise of Militant Salafism in Azerbaijan and Its Regional Implications Middle East Policy Council XX 3 Retrieved 22 May 2015 The initial introduction of Salafism to Azerbaijan was due to outside influence however its evolution and radicalization within Azerbaijan is a local phenomenon that besides the Dagestan based Northern Caucasian insurgency has been influenced rather weakly by outside factors Foremost conservative people have cited the deterioration of traditionalist values in Azerbaijan and come to perceive Islam as a symbol of local ethnic cultural revival Furthermore Azerbaijanis have increasingly turned to Salafism as an ideological alternative of political opposition to the current regime a b c d Souleimanov Emil Ehrmann Maya Fall 2013 The Rise of Militant Salafism in Azerbaijan and Its Regional Implications Middle East Policy Council XX 3 Retrieved 22 May 2015 a b Valiyev Anar September 2 2008 Who is Behind the Bombing of the Salafi Mosque in Baku Terrorism Focus 5 31 Retrieved 22 May 2015 Chechnya s leader top cleric discuss struggle against terrorist ideology 16 April 2017 Russian forces kill seven terror suspects in Dagestan AFP 22 March 2015 Retrieved 21 May 2015 In Russia s Dagestan Salafi Muslims clash with government authorities 14 September 2011 The National Retrieved 7 May 2013 Why Georgians in a remote valley are joining ISIL 21 October 2015 Pankisi the land of the offspring 17 October 2016 Saakashvili Warns Over Wahhabism Threat in Georgia 17 February 2004 Chitanava and Eka Kochiashvili Marika 25 August 2010 A Growing Gap in Pankisi Gorge Transitions Online Retrieved 20 May 2015 Radicalisation in Georgia a self fulfilling prophecy 23 October 2015 Creating Frankenstein The Impact Of Saudi Export Of Ultra Conservatism In South Asia Analysis 30 June 2016 Pillalamarri Akhilesh 20 December 2014 The Radicalization of South Asian Islam Saudi Money and the Spread of Wahhabism Georgetown Security Studies Review Retrieved 10 November 2015 a b c Asit Jolly The Wahhabi Invasion India Today December 23 2011 a b FIELD LISTING POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LINE US Central Intelligence Agency Factbook Archived from the original on June 13 2007 Retrieved 21 July 2017 How Saudi Arabia finances radical Islam in Bangladesh 29 May 2017 a b c d Petro Islam on the rise in Bangladesh DW 2011 06 20 Retrieved 23 March 2014 Ethirajan Anbarasan Bangladesh plans 100m madrassa reform programme 31 May 2011 BBC News Retrieved 5 April 2014 Qaumi madrassas are financed by donors from inside Bangladesh and abroad Views from the Madrassa Islamic Education in Bangladesh Mumtaz Ahmad Table 4 p 53 Reforming Qaumi Madrassas of Bangladesh Bangladesh Live News www bangladeshlivenews com 2013 Retrieved 2017 06 28 How Saudi Arabia exports radical Islam 8 April 2015 Daniyal Shoaib 10 March 2015 Why a Saudi award for televangelist Zakir Naik is bad news for India s Muslims Retrieved 2013 12 03 a b Threat to National Security 1 May 2017 Tariq Mir Kashmir The Rise of a Hard Faith Archived 2016 03 04 at the Wayback Machine Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting December 13 2011 a b Pillalamarri Akhilesh 20 December 2014 The Radicalization of South Asian Islam Saudi Money and the Spread of Wahhabism Georgetown Security Studies Review Retrieved 10 November 2015 Tourists blissfully unaware of Islamist tide in Maldives 16 August 2014 Paradise jihadis Maldives sees surge in young Muslims leaving for Syria 26 February 2015 Saudis make Maldives land grab to secure oil routes to China 3 March 2017 It is difficult to see how the Chinese could do anything other than control the Maldives Ex Maldives president 7 May 2017 a b c Schultz Kai 2017 06 18 Maldives Tourist Haven Casts Wary Eye on Growing Islamic Radicalism The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2017 06 19 FOREIGN FIGHTERS An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Iraq PDF THE SOUFAN GROUP December 2015 Archived from the original PDF on 2015 12 23 Retrieved 2017 07 08 Tharoor Ishaan 6 December 2010 WikiLeaks The Saudis Close but Strained Ties with Pakistan Time Archived from the original on 28 December 2010 Retrieved 13 December 2010 Saudi Arabia s Image Falters among Middle East Neighbors Pew Research Global Attitudes Project Stoning Adulterers Pew Research Center 2011 01 18 Retrieved 2017 06 22 a b c Nasr Vali 2000 International Relations of an Islamist Movement The Case of the Jama at i Islami of Pakistan PDF New York council on foreign relations p 42 Retrieved 26 October 2014 Neamotollah Nojumi The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan Mass Mobilization Civil War and the Future of the Region New York Palgrave 2002 119 a b Hiro Dilip 2012 Apocalyptic Realm Jihadists in South Asia Yale University Press p 162 ISBN 978 0300173789 After 11 years of Islamization by Zia ul Haq the madrassa total then ballooned to 2801 with the Deobandis accounting for 64 of the total and the Barelvis only 25 per cent Situated mostly in Punjab Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the megalopolis of Karachi With the inflow of Saudi funds in these institutions the curriculum began to combine Deobandi ideology with Wahhabism as reflected in the education imparted to students in Saudi Arabia Wahhabi Islam divided the world into believers and unbelievers and enjoined the former to convert the later to the true faith This intolerance toward non Muslims in encapsulated in the line that Muslim pupils in radical madrassas chant at the morning assembly When people deny our faith ask them to convert and if they don t destroy them utterly Coll Steve 2004 12 28 Ghost Wars The Secret History of the CIA Afghanistan and Bin Laden from Penguin p 26 ISBN 9781101221433 In Pakistan Jamaat e Islami proved a natural and enthusiastic ally for the Wahhabis Maududi s writings while more anti establishment than Saudi Arabia s self protecting monarchy might tolerate at home nonetheless promoted many of the Islamic moral and social transformations sought by Saudi clergy Algar Hamid 2002 Wahhabism A Critical Essay Oneonta NY Islamic Publications International pp 49 50 Commins David 2009 The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia PDF I B Tauris pp 191 2 Jamaati Ulama Islam figured as a fairly minor part of Pakistan s religious scene until the regime of General Zia al Haq who used an Islamic policy to buttress his military dictatorship Part of his policy to Islamize Pakistan was a campaign to expand religious education with funds for thousands of new madrases Their number grew from around 900 in 1971 to over 8000 official ones and another 25 000 unofficial ones in 1988 With financial support from Saudi Arabia Deobandi madrasas were part of this vast proliferation in religious education much of it located in Afghan refugee camps that sprang up in the 1980s This rapid expansion came at the expense of doctrinal coherence as there were not enough qualified teachers to staff all the new schools Quite a few teachers did not discern between tribal values of their ethnic group the Pushtuns and the religious ideals The result was an interpretation of Islam that blended Pashtun ideals and Deobandi views precisely the hallmark of the Taliban a b Butt Yousaf 2015 01 20 How Saudi Wahhabism Is the Fountainhead of Islamist Terrorism World Post Retrieved 31 October 2015 a b S NF EXTREMIST RECRUITMENT ON THE RISE IN SOUTHERN PUNJAB wikileaks org 2008 11 13 Retrieved 6 November 2015 Hassan Abbas 12 April 2006 The Black Turbaned Brigade The Rise of TNSM in Pakistan Jamestown Foundation Retrieved 19 April 2015 Gannon Kathy Militants gaining ground in Pakistan Associated Press report at USA Today Web site November 1 2007 accessed November 7 2007 Rose Mark November 6 2007 Pakistan s Heritage at Risk Archaeology Retrieved 2007 11 12 Khan Riaz Inside rebel Pakistan cleric s domain Associated Press report as it appeared at USA Today Website October 27 2007 accessed November 7 2007 King Salman s Return to Brunei Two Decades Later 20 March 2017 von der Mehden Fred R 1 December 2014 Saudi Religious Influence in Indonesia Middle East Institute Retrieved 2017 07 24 Nurturing Sala manhaj A study of Sala pesantren in contemporary Indonesia 27 January 2014 Saudi Arabia Is Redefining Islam for the World s Largest Muslim Nation 2 March 2017 In Indonesia Madrassas of Moderation 10 February 2015 a b c d e f g h i Scott Margaret October 27 2016 Indonesia The Saudis Are Coming complete article behind paywall New York Review of Books Retrieved 17 October 2016 a b c d e f PERLEZ JANE July 5 2003 Saudis Quietly Promote Strict Islam in Indonesia New York Times Retrieved 21 August 2014 a b von der Mehden Fred R 1 December 2014 Saudi Religious Influence in Indonesia Middle East Institute Retrieved 17 October 2016 a b Varagur Krithika 16 April 2020 How Saudi Arabia s religious project transformed Indonesia The Guardian Retrieved 16 April 2020 Pipes Daniel 2009 1980 In the Path of God Islam and Political Power 5th ed Transaction Publishers p 314 ISBN 9781412826167 Retrieved 30 March 2015 When Prince Muhammad al Faysal of Saudi Arabia visited Malaysia in December 1980 he offered 100 million for an interest free finance corporation Not surprisingly the Malaysian finance minister responded by announcing that the government would study the possibility of establishing an Islamic economic system Two years later the Saudis helped finance the government sponsored Bank Islam Malaysia These actions led some cynics to argue that the expanded interest in Islam among Malaysian politicians reflects a desire to obtain economic aid from the Arabs or to guarantee continued oil during future embargoes Wahabism spreading among Malaysia s elite 14 January 2017 The radicalisation of Islam in Malaysia 28 August 2016 2071 0 Reflecting a Nation Reflecting Australia Stories from the Census 2016 Abs gov au Archived from the original on 2017 07 09 Retrieved 2017 06 27 Australian Bureau of Statistics 27 June 2017 Australia 2016 Census QuickStats Retrieved 27 June 2017 Kerbaj Richard 3 May 2008 Saudis secret agenda The Australian Retrieved 26 April 2017 Mosques hooked on foreign cash lifelines Smh com au 2002 11 25 Retrieved 2015 03 30 Revealed the Saudis paymaster in Australia The Sydney Morning Herald 10 September 2005 Retrieved 1 January 2015 Dorling Philip 20 June 2015 WikiLeaks Saudi Cables reveal secret Saudi government influence in Australia Sydney Morning Herald Retrieved 24 April 2017 National Household Survey NHS Profile 2011 Option 2 Select from a list Statistics Canada a b Solomon Lawrence 1 April 2016 We should arm the Saudis while protecting Canada against their influence Financial Post Retrieved 20 July 2017 a b c Bell Stewart 16 February 2012 Toronto s million dollar radical mosque National Post Retrieved 20 July 2017 Canadian Security Intelligence Service Summary of the Security Intelligence Report concerning Mahmoud Jaballah permanent dead link February 22 2008 a b FREEZE COLIN CHOWDHRY AFFAN 2 July 2015 Saudi government funding private Islamic schools in Canada documents show The Globe and Mail Retrieved 20 July 2017 SHEPARD William December 2006 NEW ZEALAND S MUSLIMS AND THEIR ORGANISATIONS PDF New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8 2 24 Retrieved 20 July 2017 SHEPARD William December 2006 NEW ZEALAND S MUSLIMS AND THEIR ORGANISATIONS PDF New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8 2 22 Retrieved 20 July 2017 WISHART IAN November 2003 THE ROCKING OF THE DOME www investigatemagazine com Retrieved 2017 07 20 Cleary John 9 July 2003 Transcript of Sheikh Khalid Yasin Sunday Nights With John Cleary Retrieved 20 July 2017 a b c WISHART IAN 12 February 2013 Preachers of Hate investigatemagazine co nz Retrieved 20 July 2017 ABBAS MO 15 July 2017 What Is the Muslim Brotherhood and What Does It Have to Do With the Qatar Saudi Split NBC News Retrieved 23 July 2017 BATH BROOKE 22 November 2016 Auckland Imam demands apology after backlash from anti Semitic speeches National Retrieved 20 July 2017 MARTIN HANNAH November 23 2016 Auckland Imam permanently stood down after anti Semitic speeches National Retrieved 20 July 2017 He changed became more isolated former New Zealand student allegedly inspired by death of friend to plan mosque attack NZ Herald 9 January 2017 Retrieved 2017 07 20 A new estimate of the U S Muslim population pewresearch org January 6 2016 Retrieved December 17 2016 How Saudi Arabia dangerously undermines the United States 16 April 2016 HARDEN BLAINE October 20 2001 Saudis Seek U S Muslims for Their Sect Retrieved 2 April 2015 Baran Zeyno 2011 Citizen Islam The Future of Muslim Integration in the West A amp C Black p 105 ISBN 9781441112484 Retrieved 7 May 2015 Helms Harry 2008 40 Lingering Questions about the 9 11 Attacks Harry Helms p 100 ISBN 9781438295305 Retrieved 7 May 2015 ARENSON KAREN W 13 December 2005 Saudi Prince Gives Millions to Harvard and Georgetown New York Times Retrieved 23 July 2017 Doiny Ezequiel 25 March 2016 The Link Between Saudi Donations to U S Universities and the Israeli Apartheid Week incl John Esposito Camput Watch Retrieved 23 July 2017 Ain al Yaqeen March 1 2002 a b c Stakelbeck Erick March 15 2008 Saudis Multi Million Dollar PR Agenda CBN Retrieved 23 July 2017 Meotti Giulio 23 June 2011 Islam Buys Out Western Academia Israel National News Retrieved 2017 07 24 Kaplan Lee 5 April 2004 The Saudi Fifth Column On Our Nation s Campuses Campus Watch www campus watch org Retrieved 2017 07 24 Books articles documents Edit Commins David Dean 2006 The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia PDF I B Tauris ISBN 1 84885 014 X Varagur Krithika 2020 The Call Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project Columbia Global Reports ISBN 978 1733623766 Gold Dore 2003 Hatred s Kingdom How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism Regnery ISBN 9781596988194 Kepel Gilles 2002 Jihad The Trail of Political Islam Harvard University Press ISBN 9780674010901 Jihad The Trail of Political Islam Roy Olivier 1994 The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press ISBN 9780674291416 Retrieved 2 April 2015 The Failure of Political Islam muslim world league THE INVOLVEMENT OF SALAFISM WAHHABISM IN THE SUPPORT AND SUPPLY OF ARMS TO REBEL GROUPS AROUND THE WORLD PDF European Parliament DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR EXTERNAL POLICIES OF THE UNION June 2013 Retrieved 12 May 2015 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism by region amp oldid 1169187236, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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