International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism

Starting in the mid- 1970s and 1980s, the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunni Islam favored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies has achieved what the French political scientist Gilles Kepel defined as a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam." Until the 1990s Saudi (& GCC) break-up with Muslim Brotherhood, interpretations included not only ''Salafiyya'' Islam of Saudi Arabia, but also Islamist/ revivalist Islam, and a "hybrid" of the two interpretations.

The impetus for the spread of the interpretations through the Muslim world was "the largest worldwide propaganda campaign ever mounted" (according to political scientist Alex Alexiev), "dwarfing the Soviets’ propaganda efforts at the height of the Cold War" (according to journalist David A. Kaplan), funded by petroleum exports which ballooned following the October 1973 War. One estimate is that during the reign of King Fahd (1982 to 2005), over $75 billion was spent in efforts to spread Wahhabi Islam. The money was used to establish 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, and 2,000 schools for Muslim children in Muslim and Non-Muslim majority countries.
The schools were "fundamentalist" in outlook and formed a network "from Sudan to northern Pakistan". The late king also launched a publishing center in Medina that by 2000 had distributed 138 million copies of the Quran (the central religious text of Islam) worldwide. Along with the millions of Qurans distributed free of charge came doctrinal texts following Salafi interpretations.

In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia's approximately 70 embassies around the world were equipped with religious attaches whose job it was to get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the ''dawah Salafiyya''. The Saudi 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. Supporting ''dawah'' (literally "making an invitation" to Islam)—proselytizing or preaching of Islam—has been called "a religious requirement" for Saudi rulers that cannot be abandoned "without losing their domestic legitimacy" as protectors and propagators of Islam.

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. While their alliances were not always permanent, Salafism and forms of Islamism are said to have formed a "joint venture", sharing a strong "revulsion" against Western influences, a belief in strict implementation of injunctions and prohibitions of ''sharia'' law, an opposition to both Shia Islam and popular Islamic religious practices (the veneration of Muslim saints and visitations of their tombs), and a belief in the importance of armed jihad. Later the two movements are said to have been "fused", or formed a "hybrid", particularly as a result of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union, and resulted in the training and equipping of thousands of Muslims to fight against Soviets and their Afghan allies in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The funding has been criticized for promoting an intolerant, fanatical form of Islam that allegedly helped to breed Islamic terrorism. Critics argue that volunteers mobilized to fight in Afghanistan (such as Osama bin Laden) and "exultant" at their success against the Soviet superpower, went on to fight jihad against Muslim governments and civilians in other countries. And that conservative Sunni groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are attacking and killing not only Non-Muslims ('' Kuffar'') but also fellow Muslims they consider to be apostates, such as Shia and Sufis; as of 2017, changes to Saudi religious policy have led some to suggest that "Islamists throughout the world will have to follow suit or risk winding up on the wrong side of orthodoxy".

Background

Although Saudi Arabia had been an oil exporter since 1939, and active leading the conservative opposition among Arab states to Gamal Abdel Nasser's progressive and secularist Arab nationalism since the beginning of the Arab Cold War in the 1960s, it was the October 1973 War that greatly enhanced its wealth and stature, and ability to advocate Salafi missionary activities.

Prior to the 1973 oil embargo, religion throughout the Muslim world was "dominated by national or local traditions rooted in the piety of the common people." Clerics looked to their different schools of ''fiqh'' (the four Sunni ''Madhhabs'', plus Shi'a Ja'fari):
* Hanafi in the Turkic lands, Eastern Mediterranean and South Asia;
* Maliki in the Sahara;
* Shafi'i in Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa;
* Hanbali in parts of the Arabian Peninsula
The first three schools "held Saudi inspired puritanism" (the Hanbali school) in "great suspicion on account of its sectarian character," according to Gilles Kepel. But the legitimacy of this class of traditional Islamic jurists had become undermined in the 1950s and 60s by the power of post-colonial nationalist governments. In "the vast majority" of Muslim countries, the private religious endowments ('' awqaf'') that had supported the independence of the Islamic scholars/jurists for centuries were taken over by the state and the jurists were made salaried employees. The nationalist rulers naturally encouraged their employees (and their employees interpretations of Islam) to serve their employer/rulers' interests, and inevitably the jurists came to be seen by the Muslim public as doing so.

In Egypt's "shattering" 1967 defeat, ''Land, Sea and Air'' had been the military slogan; in the perceived victory of the October 1973 war, it was replaced with the Islamic battle cry of '' Allahu Akbar''. While the Yom Kippur War was started by Egypt and Syria to take back the land conquered in 1967 by Israel, according to Kepel the "real victors" of the war were the Arab "oil-exporting countries", whose embargo against Israel's Western allies stopped Israel's counter-offensive. The embargo's political success enhanced the prestige of the embargo-ers and the reduction in the global supply of oil sent oil prices soaring (from US$3 per barrel to nearly $12) and with them, oil exporter revenues. This put Arab oil-exporting states in a "clear position of dominance within the Muslim world." The most dominant was Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter by far (see bar chart below).

Saudi Arabians viewed their oil wealth not as an accident of geology or history, but directly connected to their practice of religion—a blessing given them by God, "vindicate them in their separateness from other cultures and religions," but also something to "be solemnly acknowledged and lived up to" with pious behavior, and so "legitimize" its prosperity and buttressing and "otherwise fragile" dynasty.Gilles Kepel and Nazih N. Ayubi both use the term Petro-Islam, but others subscribe to this view as well, example:

With its new wealth the rulers of Saudi Arabia sought to replace nationalist movements in the Muslim world with Islam, to bring Islam "to the forefront of the international scene", and to unify Islam worldwide under the a single Salafi creed, paying particular attention to Muslims who had immigrated to the West (a "special target"). 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."

Non-Salafi Muslim influence

For Salafists, working with grassroots non-Salafi Islamist groups and individuals had significant advantages, because outside of Saudi Arabia the audience for Salafi doctrines were limited to the elites and "religiously conservative milieus," Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002: p.69 and majority of people were upon popular folk culture associated with local variants of Sufism. Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994: p.116 When Saudi first took control of the Hejaz, the Wahhabi Salafis in particular, made up less than 1% of the world Muslim population. Saudi Arabia founded and funded transnational organizations and headquartered them in the kingdom—the most well known being the World Muslim League—but many of the guiding figures in these bodies were foreign Salafis (including the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization defined as Salafi in the broad sense), not Arabian Wahhabis or Indian Ahl-e-Hadith. The World Muslim League distributed books and cassettes by non-Salafi foreign Islamist activists including Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Sayyid Qutb (Egyptian founder of radical Salafi-Jihadist doctrine of Qutbism), etc. Members of the Brotherhood also provided "critical manpower" for the international efforts of the Muslim World League and other Saudi backed organizations. Gold, ''Hatred's Kingdom'', 2003: p.126 Saudi Arabia successfully courted academics at Al-Azhar University, and invited radical Islamists to teach at its own universities where they influenced Saudis like Osama bin Laden.

One observer (Trevor Stanley) argues that "Saudi Arabia is commonly characterized as aggressively exporting Wahhabism, it has in fact imported pan-Islamic Salafism," which influenced native Saudi religious/political beliefs. Muslim Brotherhood members fleeing persecution of Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt and Syria were given refuge in Saudi and sometimes ended up teaching in Saudi schools and universities. Muhammad Qutb, the brother of the highly influential Sayyid Qutb, came to Saudi Arabia after being released from prison. There he taught as a professor of Islamic Studies and edited and published the books of his older brother Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002: p.51 who had been executed by the Egyptian government. Hassan al-Turabi who later became the " éminence grise" in the government of Sudanese president Jaafar Nimeiri spent several years in exile in Saudi Arabia. "Blind Shiekh" Omar Abdel-Rahman lived in Saudi Arabia from 1977 to 1980 teaching at a girls' college in Riyadh. Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was also allowed into Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, sometimes called "the father of the modern global jihad," was a lecturer at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after being fired from his teaching job in Jordan and until he left for Pakistan in 1979. His famous fatwa ''Defence of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation after Faith'', was supported by leading Salafi Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, and Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen. Muslim Brethren who became wealthy in Saudi Arabia became key contributors to Egypt's Islamist movements.

Saudi Arabia backed the Pakistan-based Jamaat-i-Islami movement politically and financially even before the oil embargo (since the time of King Saud). Jamaat's educational networks received Saudi funding and Jamaat was active in the "Saudi-dominated" Muslim World League. The constituent council of the Muslim World League included non-Salafi Islamists and Islamic revivalists such as Said Ramadan, son-in-law of Hasan al-Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Abul A'la Maududi (founder of Jamaat-i-Islami), Maulanda Abu'l-Hasan Nadvi (d. 2000) of India. In 2013 when the Bangladeshi government cracked down on Jamaat-e Islami for war crimes during the Bangladesh liberation war, Saudi Arabia expressed its displeasure by cutting back on the number of Bangladeshi guest workers allowed to work in (and sent badly needed remittances from) Saudi Arabia.

Scholar Olivier Roy describes the cooperation beginning in the 1980s between Saudis and Arab Muslim Brothers as "a kind of joint venture." "The Muslim Brothers agreed not to operate in Saudi Arabia itself, but served as a relay for contacts with foreign Islamist movements" and as a "relay" in South Asia with "long established" movements like the Jamaat-i Islami and older Salafi reform movement of Ahl-i Hadith. "Thus the MB played an essential role in the choice of organisations and individuals likely to receive Saudi subsidies." Roy describes the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis as sharing "common themes of a reformist and puritanical preaching"; "common references" to Hanbali jurisprudence, while rejecting sectarianism in Sunni juridical schools; virulent opposition to both Shiism and popular Sufi religious practices (the veneration of Muslim saints). Along with cooperation there was also competition between the two even before the Gulf War, with (for example) Saudis supporting the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria and Jamil al-Rahman in Afghanistan, while the Brotherhood supported the movement of Sheikh Mahfoud Nahnah in Algeria and the Hezb-e Islami in Afghanistan. Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994: p.119 Gilles Kepel describes the MB and Saudis as sharing "the imperative of returning to Islam's `fundamentals` and the strict implementation of all its injunctions and prohibitions in the legal, moral, and private spheres"; and David Commins, as their both having a "strong revulsion" against western influences and an "unwavering confidence" that Islam is both the true religion and a "sufficient foundation for conducting worldly affairs." The "significant doctrinal differences" between the MBs/Islamists/Islamic revivalists include the Brotherhood's focus on "Muslim unity to ward off western imperialism"; on the importance of "eliminating backwardness" in the Muslim world through "mass public education, health care, minimum wages and constitutional government" (Commins); and its toleration of revolutionary as well as conservative social groups, contrasted with the exclusively social conservative orientation of Salafism.

Salafi alliances with, or assistance to, other conservative non-Salafi Sunni groups have not necessarily been permanent or without tension. A major rupture came after the August 1990 Invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which was opposed by the Saudi kingdom and supported by most if not all Islamic Revivalist groups, including many who had been funded by the Saudis. Saudi government and foundations had spent many millions on transportation, training, etc. Jihadist fighters in Afghanistan, many of whom then returned to their own country, including Saudi Arabia, to continue jihad with attacks on civilians. Osama bin Laden's passport was revoked in 1994. In March 2014 the Saudi government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organization." The "Islamic State", whose "roots are in Wahhabism," has vowed to overthrow the Saudi kingdom. In July 2015, Saudi author Turki al-Hamad lamented in an interview on Saudi Rotana Khalijiyya Television that "Our youth" serves as "fuel for ISIS” driven by the "prevailing" Saudi culture. "It is our youth who carry out bombings. … You can see n ISIS videosthe volunteers in Syria ripping up their Saudi passports.” (An estimated 2,500 Saudis have fought with ISIS.)

Influence of other conservative Sunni gulf-states

The other Gulf Kingdoms were smaller in population and oil wealth than Saudi Arabia but some (particularly UAE, Kuwait, Qatar) also aided conservative Sunni causes, including jihadist groups. According to The Atlantic magazine “Qatar's military and economic largesse has made its way" to the al-Qaida group operating in Syria, "Jabhat al-Nusra”. According to a secret memo signed by Hillary Clinton, released by Wikileaks, Qatar has the worst record of counter-terrorism cooperation with the US. In March 2022, the Fourth High-Level Strategic Dialogue between the State of Qatar & the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) discussed strategic priorities and collaboration for effective United Nations support to Member States on counter-terrorism. The State of Qatar is the second largest contributor to the United Nations Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism out of a total 35 other donors. According to journalist Owen Jones, "powerful private" Qatar citizens are "certainly" funding the self-described "Islamic State" and "wealthy Kuwaitis" are funding Islamist groups "like Jabhat al-Nusra" in Syria. In Kuwait the "Revival of Islamic Heritage Society" funds al-Qaida according to US Treasury. According to Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, (an associate fellow at Chatham House), “High profile Kuwaiti clerics were quite openly supporting groups like al-Nusra, using TV programmes in Kuwait to grandstand on it.”

In mid 2017, tensions escalated between Saudi Arabia / UAE and Qatar, related to the way in which, and to what groups, Salafism is being propagated.

Examples of the result of influence

Scott Shane of the ''New York Times'' gives the high percentage of Muslim supporting strict traditional punishments (citing a Pew Research study) as an example of Salafi influence in those countries. The Pew Research Center study reports that as of 2011,
* 82% of Muslims polled in Egypt and Pakistan, 70% in Jordan, and 56% in Nigeria support the stoning of people who commit adultery;
* 82% of Muslims polled in Pakistan, 77% in Egypt, 65% in Nigeria and 58% in Jordan support whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery;
* 86% of Muslims polled in Jordan, 84% in Egypt, and 76% in Pakistan support the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion.
According to Shane the influence of Saudi teaching on Muslim culture is particularly and literally visible in "parts of Africa and Southeast Asia", more women cover their hair and more men have grown beards.

Types of influences

Pre-oil influence

Early in the 20th century, before the appearance of oil export wealth, other factors gave ''Salafiyya'' movement appeal to some Muslims according to one scholar ( Khaled Abou El Fadl).
* Arab nationalism, (in the Arab Muslim world) which followed the Arab Salafi-Wahhabi attack on the (non-Arab) Ottoman Empire. Although the Salafis strongly opposed nationalism, the fact that they were Arab undoubtedly appealed to the large majority of Ottoman Empire citizens who were Arab also;
* Religious reformism, which followed a return to Salaf (as-Salaf aṣ-Ṣāliḥ);
* Destruction of the Hejaz Khilafa in 1925 (which had attempted to replace the Ottoman Caliphate);
* Control of Mecca and Medina, which gave Salafis great influence on Muslim culture and thinking;

"Petro-dollars"

According to scholar Gilles Kepel, (who devoted a chapter of his book ''Jihad'' to the subject - "Building Petro-Islam on the Ruins of Arab Nationalism"), in the years immediately after the 1973 War, `petro-Islam` was a "sort of nickname" for a "constituency" of Salafi preachers and Muslim intellectuals who promoted "strict implementation of the sharia slamic lawin the political, moral and cultural spheres". Estimates of Saudi spending on religious causes abroad include "upward of $100 billion"; between $2 and 3 billion per year since 1975 (compared to the annual Soviet propaganda budget of $1 billion/year);Yahya Birt, an academic who is director of The City Circle, a networking body of young British Muslim professionals, quoted i
Wahhabism: A deadly scripture
Paul Vallely 01 November 2007 and "at least $87 billion" from 1987-2007.Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and the Spread of Sunni Theofascism
, By Ambassador Curtin Winsor, Ph.D. Funding came from the Saudi government, foundations, private sources such as networks based on religious authorities.

In the coming decades, Saudi Arabia's interpretation of Islam became influential (according to Kepel) through
*the spread of Salafi religious doctrines via Saudi charities;
*an increased migration of Muslims to work in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states;
*a shift in the balance of power among Muslim states toward the oil-producing countries.

The use of petrodollars on facilities for the hajj—for example leveling hill peaks to make room for tents, providing electricity for tents and cooling pilgrims with ice and air conditioning—has also been described as part of "Petro-Islam" (by author Sandra Mackey), and a way of winning the loyalty of the Muslim faithful to the Saudi government. Kepel describes Saudi control of the two holy cities as "an essential instrument of hegemony over Islam."

Religious funding

According to the World Bank, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates provided official development assistance (ODA) to poor countries, averaging 1.5% of their gross national income (GNI) from 1973 to 2008, about five times the average assistance provided by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states such as the United States. From 1975 to 2005, the Saudi Arabia government donated £49 billion in aid - the most per capita of any donor country per capita. (This aid was to Muslim causes and countries, in 2006 Saudi made its first donation to a non-Muslim country—Cambodia.)

The Saudi ministry for religious affairs printed and distributed millions of Qurans free of charge. They also printed and distributed doctrinal texts following Salafi interpretations. In mosques throughout the world "from the African plains to the rice paddies of Indonesia and the Muslim immigrant high-rise housing projects of European cities, the same books could be found," paid for by Saudi Arabian government. (According to journalist Dawood al-Shirian, the Saudi Arabian government, foundations and private sources, provide "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout the Muslim World.)Dawood al-Shirian, 'What Is Saudi Arabia Going to Do?' ''Al-Hayat'', May 19, 2003 The European Parliament quotes an estimate of $10 billion being spent by Saudi Arabia to promote Salafi missionary activities through charitable foundations such as the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), the al-Haramain Foundation, the Medical Emergency Relief Charity (MERC), World Muslim League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

Hajj

Hajj—"the greatest and most sacred annual assembly of Muslims on earth"—takes place in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia. While only 90,000 pilgrims visited Mecca in 1926, since 1979 between 1.5 million and 2 million Muslims have made the pilgrims each year. Saudi control of the Hajj has been called "an essential instrument of hegemony over Islam."

In 1984, a massive printing complex was opened to print Qurans to give to each pilgrim. This was popularly viewd as the evidence for "Wahhabi generosity that was borne back to every corner of the Muslim community." King Fahd spent millions on "vast white marble halls and decorative arches" to enlarge worship space to hold "several hundred thousand more pilgrims."

In 1986 the Saudi king took the title of the "Custodian of the Two Holy Places", the better to emphasize Salafi control of Mecca and Medina.

= Education

=

Saudi universities and religious institutes have trained thousands of teachers and preachers urging them to revive `Salafi` Islam. David Commins say they are propagating such doctrines frequently for "the idea of a pristine form of Islam practiced by the early Muslim generations". From Indonesia to France to Nigeria, the Saudi-trained and inspired Muslims aspire to rid religious practices of (what they believe to be) heretical innovations and to instill strict morality.

The Islamic University of Madinah was established as an alternative to the famous and venerable Al-Azhar University in Cairo which was under Nasserist control in 1961 when the Islamic University was founded. The school was not under the jurisdiction of the Saudi grand mufti. The school was intended to education students from across the Muslim world, and eventually 85% of its student body was non-Saudi making it an import tool for spreading Salafi Islam internationally.

Many of Egypt's future ''ulama'' attended the university. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, who later became the grand mufti of Egypt, spent four years at the Islamic University. 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."

According to Mohamed Charfi, a former minister of education in Tunisia, "Saudi Arabia ... has also been one of the main supporters of Islamic fundamentalism because of its financing of schools following the ... Wahhabi doctrine. Saudi-backed madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan have played significant roles" in the strengthening of "radical Islam" there.

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.

Following the October 2002 Bali bombings, an Indonesian commentator (Jusuf Wanandi) worried about the danger of "extremist influences of Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia" in the educational system.

= Literature

=
The works of one strict classical Islamic jurist often cited in Salafi books — Ibn Taymiyyah — were distributed for free throughout the world starting in the 1950s. Critics complain that Ibn Taymiyyah has been cited by perpetrators of violence or fanaticism: "Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj, the spokesperson for the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981; in GIA tracts calling for the massacre of `infidels`during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s; and today on Internet sites exhorting Muslim women in the west to wear veils as a religious obligation."

Insofar as curriculum used by foreign students in Saudi Arabia or in Saudi-sponsored schools mirrors that of Saudi schools, critics complain that traditionally it “encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the ‘other.’”

As of 2006, despite promises by then Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, that “...the whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom,” the Center for Religious Freedom found

the Saudi public school religious curriculum continues to propagate an ideology of hate toward the “unbeliever,” that is, Christians, Jews, Shiites, Sufis, Sunni Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine, Hindus, atheists and others. This ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years of the public education system, culminating in the twelfth grade, where a text instructs students that it is a religious obligation to do “battle” against infidels in order to spread the faith.

A study was undertaken by the Policy Exchange. Published material was examined from many mosques and Islamic institutions within the United Kingdom. The 2007 study uncovered a considerable volume of Salafi material. The preface-wording of the first (of 11 recommendations of the study) says, "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia must come clean about the publication and dissemination of this material abroad". The study report is entitled, '' The hijacking of British Islam: How extremist literature is subverting mosques in the UK''.

= Literature translations

=

In distributing free copies of English translations of the Quran, Saudi Arabia naturally used interpretations favored by its religious establishment. An example being sura 33, aya 59 where a literal translation of a verse (according to critic Khaled M. Abou El FadlAbou El Fadl, Khaled M. ''Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam'', (Lanham, MD, 2001), pp.290-293) would read:

O Prophet! Tell your wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to lower (or possibly, draw upon themselves) their garments. This is better so that they will not be known and molested. And, God is forgiving and merciful.

while the authorized version reads:

O Prophet! Tell your wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils) all over their bodies (i.e. screen themselves completely except the eyes or one eye to see the way). That will be better, that they should be known (as free respectable women) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

In the translation of the Al-Fatiha, the first surah, parenthetical references to Jews and Christians are added, speaking of addressing Allah "those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians)." According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University and the editor in chief of The Study Quran, these explanations of who makes God angry and who went astray have "no basis in Islamic tradition."

Passages in commentaries and Tafsir that Salafis disapproved of were deleted, such as a nineteenth century Sufi scholar's reference to Wahhabis as the "agents of the devil".

= Mosques

=

More than 1,500 Mosques were built around the world from 1975 to 2000 paid for by Saudi public funds.
The Saudi-headquartered and financed Muslim World League played a pioneering role in supporting Islamic associations, mosques, and investment plans for the future. It opened offices in "every area of the world where Muslims lived." The process of financing mosques usually involved presenting a local office of the Muslim World League with evidence of the need for a mosque/Islamic center to obtain the offices `recommendation` (''tazkiya''). that the Muslim group hoping for a mosque would present, not to the Saudi government, but to "a generous donor" within the kingdom or the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi-financed mosques did not local Islamic architectural traditions, but were built in the austere Salafi style, using marble `international style` design and green neon lighting. An example is Gazi Husrev-beg in Sarajevo whose restoration was funded and supervised by Saudis, was stripped of its ornate Ottoman tilework and painted wall decorations, to the disapproval of some local Muslims.

=Televangelism

=
One of the most popular Islamic preachers is Indian "televangelist",Shukla, Ashutosh
"Muslim group welcomes ban on preacher"
''Daily News and Analysis''. 22 June 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2011
Archived
7 August 2011.
Zakir Naik, a controversial figure who believes that then US President George W. Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
Naik dresses in a suit rather than traditional garb and gives colloquial lectures speaking in English not Urdu

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