The Young Muslims Challenging Islam’s Status Quo

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A conservative religious movement, spread through social media, has taken hold among Indonesian youth. The government wants to curb its influence.

A boy band belted out songs about loving the Prophet Muhammad. A young woman wearing a full-face veil was moved to tears by the faith of new converts. Later, the crowd applauded as a 15-year-old girl converted to Islam before their eyes. Many posted selfies on social media, delighting in their shared faith.

The scene was an annual festival in Padang, part of a new conservative Islamic movement in Indonesia known as Hijrah that is attracting millions of believers, many of them young and drawn by celebrity preachers on Instagram.

Islamic conservatism has been on the rise in Indonesia for years, even as the government has long tried to maintain a secular, religiously diverse society. The current iteration in the Hijrah movement is distinct in its use of social media to spread the word, and in its appeal to the young. And its popularity is generating concern among government and religious officials, who fear it could erode a more moderate brand of Islam. » | Sui-Lee Wee | Wednesday, April 12, 2023

How Saudi Arabia Financed Global Terror

Funding Jihad? (2003) - Did the Saudi Royal Family really finance 9/11? Although a key Middle Eastern ally of America and Britain, the Wahhabist Saudi regime is nevertheless suspected of financing terror groups around the world.

How Saudi Arabia Financed Global Terror (2015)

Funding Jihad? (2003) - Did the Saudi Royal Family really finance 9/11? Although a key Middle Eastern ally of America and Britain, the Wahhabist Saudi regime is nevertheless suspected of financing terror groups around the world.

Inside Story: Are the Saudis Funding Extremism?

The diplomatic crisis in the Gulf has seen Qatar living under a blockade for more than a month now.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt accused Qatar of, among other things, supporting extremists - claims Doha strongly denies. Now, a report from a UK think tank is pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia for being a key figure in financing such groups. And raises questions about its role with armed groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant armed group.

There is also another report on the subject - from the British government, but its conclusions have not been made public. So, why is Saudi Arabia accusing other countries of sponsoring extremism? | Presenter: Sohail Rahman | Guests: Shafeeq Ghabra - Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University; Simon Mabon - Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Lancaster; Marwan Kabalan - Associate Analyst at the Doha Institute: Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies

Saudi Arabia’s Web of Hate Is Spreading One of the Worst Forms of Islam – and This Is Where It Leads

THE SUN: WHAT would make someone mow down pedestrians and then stab a policeman to death? One cause is clear.

Its roots lie in the Middle East and its web of hate spreads across the globe. But it is also here in Britain — and growing.

Since Wednesday’s carnage we have learned that 52-year-old Khalid Masood is believed to have converted to one of the worst forms of Islam.

Whether during his time in prison, or the years he spent in Saudi Arabia, Masood adopted Wahhabism. » | Douglas Murray, Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society | Saturday, March 25, 2017

Inside the Awkward US-Saudi Alliance Against ISIS | Confronting ISIS | FRONTLINE

Saudi Arabia Quietly Spreads Its Brand of Puritanical Islam in Indonesia

VOICE OF AMERICA: JAKARTA — When Ulil Abshar-Abdalla was a teenager in Pati, Central Java, he placed first in an Arabic class held at his local madrasa. The prize was six months of tuition at the Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA), a Jakarta university founded and funded by the Saudi Arabian government. At the end of six months, LIPIA offered him another six. He stayed on.

After that, it offered him four more years of free tuition to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Islamic law, or shariah. He accepted that too. In 1993, after five years at LIPIA, he was offered a scholarship to continue his studies in Riyadh. He finally said no. » | Krithika Varagur | Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Royal Family of Saudi Arabia | Documentary

Wahhabism: How Saudi Arabia Exports Ultra-Conservative Islam

The True Origins of Isis Ideology (Wahhabism/Salafism)

Al Fadi, a Wahabbi Muslim's Conversion: The Quran Dilemma - Al Fadi (CBN – Muslim Testimony)

A Stricter Islam Displaces Old Ways in Malaysia

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Conservative Wahhabi doctrines are redefining the way Islam is practiced; some rituals have been banned

KUALA LUMPUR—Kelana Indra Sakti is one of Malaysia’s most successful shamans. Framed testimonials from his customers hang from his office walls. In the driveway of his house he keeps a stretch Mercedes-Benz limousine given to him by a grateful client. His name, meaning “Adventurer, Heavenly Magic,” was bestowed on him by one of Malaysia’s wealthy sultans.

Lately, though, Mr. Kelana has supplemented his consultations with readings from the Quran.

“People just expect it these days, so I do it,” said the 70-year-old shaman.

Islam in Malaysia, and Southeast Asia, is taking a more conservative turn. The Muslim faith, brought here by Arab traders hundreds of years ago, has coexisted for generations with Malay customs such as shamanism, other forms of traditional medicine and the country’s sizable Buddhist, Christian and Hindu communities.

But more recently, conservative Wahhabi doctrines, often spread by Saudi-financed imams, are redefining the way Islam is practiced and, for some, eroding the tolerance for which the country has been known. » | James Hookway | Thursday, January 14, 2016

German Vice-Chancellor Accuses Saudi Arabia of Funding Islamic Extremism in the West

Sigmar Gabriel with German Chancellor Angela Merkel

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: In a highly unusual moment of a Western politician attacking a critical Arab ally, Sigmar Gabriel says the time has come to make it clear to Riyadh the time of looking away is over

The German vice-chancellor has publicly accused Saudi Arabia of financing Islamic extremism in the West and warned that it must stop.

Sigmar Gabriel said that the Saudi regime is funding extremist mosques and communities that pose a danger to public security.

“We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over,” Mr Gabriel told Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.

“Wahhabi mosques all over the world are financed by Saudi Arabia. Many Islamists who are a threat to public safety come from these communities in Germany.”

The allegation that Saudi Arabia has funded mosques with links to Islamist terrorism in the West is not new. But it is highly unusual for a Western leader to speak out so directly against the West’s key Arab ally. » | Justin Huggler, Berlin | Sunday, December 6, 2015

Saudis Spreading Radical Ideology, Causing Mass Murder, Destroying States: Ex-Iraqi Defense Minister

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is widely considered to have been a mistake, even by many policy makers in the US. But despite that recognition, the lesson was not learned and the pattern of catastrophic interventions in the region continued in subsequent years. How can the international community tackle the product of that chaos - the Islamic State, and could an all-encompassing regional agreement bring stability to the troubled region? Oksana is joined by Dr Ali Allawi, an Iraqi Cabinet Minister from 2003 to 2006, to analyse these issues.

How Saudi Arabia Exports Radical Islam

THE WEEK: Saudi Arabia has spent billions promoting its extremist version of Islam. What has it wrought? Here's everything you need to know:

Why do the Saudis proselytize?

To combat the spread of Shiite Islam and ensure that the Islamic world is primarily Sunni. In recent years, the ancient Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq, Yemen, and throughout the Middle East has grown more overt, bitter, and violent. Now that Iran has agreed to rein in its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international economic sanctions, Riyadh fears a newly enriched Tehran will be more aggressive in spreading its Shiite doctrine and promoting Shiite-led revolutions. A trove of Saudi diplomatic documents covering 2010 to 2015, recently released by WikiLeaks, shows a Saudi obsession with Iranian actions and Iranian influence. Saudi government agencies monitor Iranian cultural and religious activities, and try to muzzle Shiite influence by shutting down or blocking access to Iranian-backed media. Saudi diplomats keep close tabs on Iranian involvement everywhere, from Tajikistan, which has strong historical Persian ties, to China, where the tiny, beleaguered Uighur population — which is Muslim — is growing more religious.

How do the Saudis promote their religious views? By investing heavily in building mosques, madrasas, schools, and Sunni cultural centers across the Muslim world. Indian intelligence says that in India alone, from 2011 to 2013, some 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived bearing more than $250 million to build mosques and universities and hold seminars. "We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organizations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence," said Usama Hasan, a researcher in Islamic studies. These institutions and clerics preach the specifically Saudi version of Sunni Islam, the extreme fundamentalist strain known as Wahhabism or Salafism. » | Staff | The Week | Saturday, August 8, 2015

Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism

HUFFINGTON POST – THE BLOG: After witnessing the Islamic Republic of Iran violate human rights, persecute other religions, adopt sharia law, murder dissenters, and compel the judiciary to serve the Ministry of Intelligence, I am now convinced that the worst thing that can happen to a free Western country is to allow Islamic fundamentalists to have a say in government.

Most of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims pray in Arabic, but they do not speak Arabic as their mother tongue; that includes most Iranians. Yet the problem isn't in the translation, rather the problem rests with bad ideology.

Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian, two more were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. They were all from Arabic-speaking countries, and presumably the terrorists read Islamic scripture in the original Arabic. Muslim scholars did not unite to protest this act of terrorism. Instead, many celebrated a victory, because the Quran permits violence to expand Islam.

Most so-called Muslims are peace-loving, because they do not follow the rules. They practice Islam à la carte, a new religion. » | Janet Tavakoli * | Tuesday, November 11, 2014

* Janet Tavakoli is the author of Unveiled Threat: A Personal Experience of Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism, a newly-released non-fiction book about the current negative implications of Islamic fundamentalism for the United States.

Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam

FOREIGN POLICY: In Saudi Arabia, a new generation is pushing back against the government’s embrace of fundamentalism. But is the kingdom ready for nonbelievers?

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Ahmed al-Ghamdi's long, bushy beard and red-checked headscarf are emblems of his conservative approach to Islam, which is no surprise for a man who once supervised the Saudi religious police in the holy city of Mecca.

But it was something surprising about Ghamdi that brought me to his apartment in a scruffy, low-income section of Jeddah in the sweltering summer of 2011. I wanted to know why he had announced that, after extensive research, he could find no Islamic basis for Saudi society's most distinctive feature: its strict gender segregation.

As his wife, sister, and mother listened in with obvious pride, Ghamdi explained that he could no longer take "at face value" religious rulings that gender mixing is haram -- that is, religiously prohibited. "I wanted to go to their underpinnings, so I began collecting all the texts relating to this matter from the Quran and the Sunna [examples from the life and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed]," he said. "My conclusion was that not a single text or verse in the Quran and Sunna specifically says that mixing is haram. The word 'mixing' is not even in the Quran."

Instead, he said he found plenty of texts "that proved that mixing happened at the time of Prophet Mohammed" and that "it is just another part of normal life."

Ghamdi's declaration sparked weeks of impassioned national debate. It also got him fired from the religious police, which enforces the ban on mixing.

His story is but one example of how the religious landscape of Saudi Arabia -- often regarded as fixed and monochromatic -- is increasingly a landscape in flux.

We are not witnessing a Reformation in the birthplace of Islam. Mosque and state remain closely bound in Saudi Arabia, basic law is derived from sharia, and the king is known as the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," a reference to the holy places of Mecca and Medina.

But the religious attitudes of ordinary people are changing, as is the relationship between the House of Saud and its clerical establishment. This evolving religious scene is marked by less clerical control of social behavior, increasing diversity of religious thought, and more polarization between progressive and extreme right-wing versions of Islam. These changes have already diminished the monarchy's ability to use religion to enforce social conformity and political obedience. And as the kingdom struggles with questions over succession and the Middle East's escalating mayhem, these changes will bring added challenges to the House of Saud's grip on power. » | Caryle Murphy | Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Saudi Connection Linking the Boston Marathon to September 11
HAARETZ: Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

Almost 12 years have passed since that “great tragedy,” the attacks of September 11, and the United States has yet again experienced a national tragedy. Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

In September 2001 the terrorists were Saudis (15 out of 19) and Egyptian. This time, the culprits where to Chechen brothers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev. If it turns out that their motivations were religious, the context of their country of origin will not be coincidental. Until now there has not been any testament from the two, neither written nor filmed – which is generally common practice in the case of such attacks – nor has there been any claim of responsibility from Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Al-Qaida also tends to take responsibility for attacks to which it was unconnected at the operational level, if it shares an ideological bond with those responsible. Despite this, it is very likely that there is a strong, ideological and operational connection between the attacks of 2001 and 2013.

Back in the early nineties, Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan became a stronghold in the Caucasus region for the radical stream of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism. Mosques and madrasas were opened; training camps for young combatants were established to prepare them for the “jihad against the infidels.” Until this day, the teachings of Said Buryatsky, a charismatic, Wahhabist radical, are among the most downloaded files in Chechnya.

This radical Islamist movement was founded in the Arabian Peninsula and adopted by tribes that founded a kingdom in the 18 century, which later became Saudi Arabia. This puritan, aggressive movement is considered by orthodox Muslims as heretic. Many approached it with suspicion and rejected it, but the situation changed once the “black gold” began to flow from Saudi Arabia’s soil. Thus the Wahhabists gained their much-wanted recognition, and began to send money to religious institutions around the world, including in Chechnya and Dagestan. » | Ksenia Svetlova * | Saturday, April 20, 2013

* Ksenia Svetlova is a writer and analyst on Arab affairs for Channel 9, and has a doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Studies.

'Wahhabi Clerics Prop Up House of Saud'

Britain & Wahhabism