Spreading Wahhabism

An article in Thursday’s Washington Post examines Saudi efforts to export Wahhabism, noting that the Kingdom’s "outreach is formidable. It pays the salaries of 3,884 Wahhabi missionaries and preachers, who are six times as numerous as the 650 diplomats in Saudi Arabia’s 77 embassies. [Islamic Affairs] Ministry officials in Africa and Asia often have had more money to dispense than Saudi ambassadors, according to several Saudi sources."

This support, moreover, "does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars in personal contributions made by King Fahd and other senior Saudi princes to the cause of propagating Islam at home and abroad, according to a Saudi analyst who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The real total spent annually spreading Islam is between $2 billion and $2.5 billion, he said."

The article also explores the effect of such efforts in the United States, observing that "Scholars of Islam find it difficult to precisely assess the impact of 40 years of Saudi missionary work on the United States’ multi-ethnic Muslim community – estimated at 6 million to 7 million. But survey data are suggestive."

"The most comprehensive study, a survey of the 1,200 U.S. mosques undertaken in 2000 by four Muslim organizations, found that 2 million Muslims were ‘associated’ with a mosque and that 70 percent of mosque leaders were generally favorable toward fundamentalist teachings, while 21 percent followed the stricter Wahhabi practices. The survey also found that the segregation of women for prayers was spreading, from half of the mosques in 1994 to two-thirds six years later."

To read the entire article click here.