No doubt the Saudis want to spread their brand of Islam all over the world.
Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export Of Wahhabism – OpEd
Flag of Saudi Arabia. Photo by Ayman Makki, Wikipedia Commons.
BY JAMES M. DORSEY MARCH 7, 2016
There has long been debate about the longevity of the Saudi ruling family. My initial conclusion when I first visited Saudi Arabia exactly 40 years ago was: this can’t last. I would still maintain it cannot last even if my time line has changed given that the Saudi monarchy obviously has far greater resilience than I initially gave it credit for. One major reason for the doubts about the Al Saud’s viability is obviously the Faustian bargain they made with the Wahhabis, proponents of a puritan, intolerant, discriminatory, anti-pluralistic interpretation of Islam. It is a bargain that has produced the single largest dedicated public diplomacy campaign in history. Estimates of Saudi spending on the funding of Muslim cultural institutions across the globe and the forging of close ties to non-Wahhabi Muslim leaders and intelligence agencies in various Muslim nations that have bought into significant elements of the Wahhabi worldview range from $75 to $100 billion.
The campaign is an issue that I have looked at since I first visited the kingdom, numerous subsequent visits, when I lived in Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11, and during a 4.5-year court battle that I won in 2006 in the British House of Lords. It is an issue that I am now writing a book about that looks at the fallout of the campaign in four Asian, one African and two European countries.
The campaign is not simply a product of the marriage between the Al Sauds and the Wahhabis. It is central to Saudi soft power policy and the Al Saud’s survival strategy. One reason, certainly not the only one, that the longevity of the Al Sauds is a matter of debate is the fact that the propagation of Wahhabism is having a backlash in countries across the globe. More than ever before theological or ideological similarities between Wahhabism or for that matter its theological parent, Salafism, and jihadism in general and the Islamic State in particular are under the spotlight.
Continue reading at:
Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export Of Wahhabism – OpEd
Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export Of Wahhabism – OpEd
BY JAMES M. DORSEY MARCH 7, 2016
There has long been debate about the longevity of the Saudi ruling family. My initial conclusion when I first visited Saudi Arabia exactly 40 years ago was: this can’t last. I would still maintain it cannot last even if my time line has changed given that the Saudi monarchy obviously has far greater resilience than I initially gave it credit for. One major reason for the doubts about the Al Saud’s viability is obviously the Faustian bargain they made with the Wahhabis, proponents of a puritan, intolerant, discriminatory, anti-pluralistic interpretation of Islam. It is a bargain that has produced the single largest dedicated public diplomacy campaign in history. Estimates of Saudi spending on the funding of Muslim cultural institutions across the globe and the forging of close ties to non-Wahhabi Muslim leaders and intelligence agencies in various Muslim nations that have bought into significant elements of the Wahhabi worldview range from $75 to $100 billion.
The campaign is an issue that I have looked at since I first visited the kingdom, numerous subsequent visits, when I lived in Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11, and during a 4.5-year court battle that I won in 2006 in the British House of Lords. It is an issue that I am now writing a book about that looks at the fallout of the campaign in four Asian, one African and two European countries.
The campaign is not simply a product of the marriage between the Al Sauds and the Wahhabis. It is central to Saudi soft power policy and the Al Saud’s survival strategy. One reason, certainly not the only one, that the longevity of the Al Sauds is a matter of debate is the fact that the propagation of Wahhabism is having a backlash in countries across the globe. More than ever before theological or ideological similarities between Wahhabism or for that matter its theological parent, Salafism, and jihadism in general and the Islamic State in particular are under the spotlight.
Continue reading at:
Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export Of Wahhabism – OpEd
