Wahhabism and the World Understanding Saudi Arabia's Global Influence on Islam

353 Pages·2022·20.684 MB·English

by  Peter Mandaville (ed)

Wahhabism and the World
RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS
Series Editor
John L. Esposito
University Professor and Director
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-C hristian Understanding
Georgetown University
ISLAMIC LEVIATHAN MAPPING THE LEGAL BOUNDARIES OF
Islam and the Making of State Power BELONGING
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr Religion and Multiculturalism from Israel
to Canada
RACHID GHANNOUCHI
Edited by René Provost
A Democrat Within Islamism
Azzam S. Tamimi RELIGIOUS SECULARITY
A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State
BALKAN IDOLS
Naser Ghobadzadeh
Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States
Vjekoslav Perica THE MIDDLE PATH OF MODERATION
IN ISLAM
ISLAMIC POLITICAL IDENTITY
IN TURKEY The Qur’ānic Principle of Wasaṭiyyah
Mohammad Hashim Kamali
M. Hakan Yavuz
ONE ISLAM, MANU MUSLIM WORLDS
RELIGION AND POLITICS IN POST-
Spirituality, Identity, and Resistance Across
COMMUNIST ROMANIA
Islamic Lands
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu
Raymond William Baker
PIETY AND POLITICS
CONTAINING BALKAN NATIONALISM
Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia
Imperial Russia and Ottoman Christians
Joseph Chinyong Liow
(1856- 1914)
TERROR IN THE LAND OF THE Denis Vovchenko
HOLY SPIRIT
INSIDE THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
Guatemala under General Efrain Rios Montt,
Religion, Identity, and Politics
1982- 1983
Khalil al- Anani
Virginia Garrard- Burnett
POLITICIZING ISLAM
IN THE HOUSE OF WAR
The Islamic Revival in France and India
Dutch Islam Observed
Z. Fareen Parvez
Sam Cherribi
SOVIET AND MUSLIM
BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM
The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia
New Cultural Politics in the Global South
Eren Tasar
and North
Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera ISLAM IN MALAYISA
An Entwined History
CHURCH, STATE, AND DEMOCRACY IN
Khairudin Aljunied
EXPANDING EUROPE
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu SALAFISM GOES GLOBAL
From the Gulf to the French Banlieues
THE HEADSCARF CONTROVERSY
Mohamed- Ali Adraoui
Secularism and Freedom of Religion
Hilal Elver JIHADISM IN EUROPE
European Youth and the New Caliphate
THE HOUSE OF SERVICE
Farhad Khosrokhavar
The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way
David Tittensor ISLAM AND NATIONALISM IN MODERN
GREECE, 1821- 1940
ANSWERING THE CALL
Stefanos Katsikas
Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt
Abdullah Al- Arian
Wahhabism and
the World
Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Global
Influence on Islam
Edited by
PETER MANDAVILLE
1
3
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Contents
Preface vii
List of Contributors xi
Note on Transliteration xv
PART I. ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION
1. Wahhabism and the World: The Historical Evolution, Structure,
and Future of Saudi Religious Transnationalism 3
Peter Mandaville
2. Wahhabism and Salafism in Global Perspective 35
Natana J. DeLong- Bas
3. From Dirʿiyya to Riyadh: The History and Global Impact of
Saudi Religious Propagation and Education 53
Christopher Anzalone and Yasir Qadhi
4. Salafi Publishing and Contestation over Orthodoxy and
Leadership in Sunni Islam 76
Andrew Hammond
5. Transnational Wahhabism: The Muslim World League and the
World Assembly of Muslim Youth 93
Reinhard Schulze
6. Humanitarian and Relief Organizations in Global Saudi Daʿwa? 114
Nora Derbal
PART II. COUNTRY CASE STUDIES
7. Salafism, Education, and Youth: Saudi Arabia’s Campaign for
Wahhabism in Indonesia 135
Noorhaidi Hasan
8. Saudi Influence in Kyrgyzstan: Beyond Mosques, Schools,
and Foundations 158
Emil Nasritdinov and Mametbek Myrzabaev
vi Contents
9. Saudi Arabia: A South Asian Wrecking Ball 186
James M. Dorsey
10. “Working for a Living in the Land of Allah”: Labor Migration
from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and Remittances of Wahhabism 208
Nazli Kibria and Sultan Mohammed Zakaria
11. Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia: Between Proximity and Distance 221
Terje Østebø
12. Wahhabi Compromises and “Soft Salafization” in the Sahel 238
Alexander Thurston
13. Unpacking the Saudi-S alafi Connection in Egypt 255
Stéphane Lacroix
14. Arab Brothers, Arms, and Food Rations: How Salafism
Made Its Way to Bosnia and Herzegovina 272
Harun Karčić
15. The Shifting Contours of Saudi Influence in Britain 290
Hira Amin
Index 315
Preface
The idea that, for more than half a century, Saudi Arabia’s petrodollar- fueled
export of the austere and rigid breed of Islam known as Wahhabism has had
profound and far-r eaching effects around the globe is by now something of an
article of faith among observers of the contemporary Muslim world. For some,
the kingdom’s vast portfolio of global religious-p ropagation activities serves first
and foremost to disseminate ultra- conservative interpretations of Islam in ways
that generate cultural intolerance and also affect social attitudes toward (as well
as the status and precarity of) women and nonconforming religious groups in
receiving countries. Others, however, go much further, drawing direct links be-
tween Saudi support for religious causes and various forms of violent conflict,
militancy, extremism, and terrorism. Some even see in Saudi Wahhabism the
wellspring of the Salafi-j ihadi worldview associated with groups such as Al-
Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS). And while bold, often categorical declarations
regarding Wahhabism’s impact in various countries are commonplace, system-
atic research on Saudi religious transnationalism and its effects remains scarce.
The purpose of this volume is to provide an analytical portrait of the Saudi
global daʿwa (religious propagation or “call”) apparatus, explaining its history,
structure, evolution, and role within the kingdom’s broader portfolio of external
relations. Additionally, the various case studies offered in the following pages
seek to contextualize and assess the effects of Saudi religious transnationalism in
various and varying national contexts. Drawing on extensive fieldwork under-
taken by an international team of scholars across multiple world regions, this
study explores the complex—s ometimes counterintuitive and contradictory—
interplay between religious influences emanating from Saudi Arabia and local
religious actors and religious cultures in receiving countries. It offers assessments
of how transnational Wahhabism has affected various settings around the world
and provides analytic insights which help to explain how and why these effects
differ from context to context. In addition to presenting cross- cutting research
findings with respect to the broad field of Saudi religious transnationalism, this
study also engages with the debate on the kingdom’s export of Wahhabism as an
object of analysis in its own right and looks at some of the methodological and
epistemological challenges associated with gathering data, navigating indeter-
minate terminology, and identifying clear mechanisms of causality linking Saudi
religious influences to specific social, political, and security outcomes.
viii Preface
The timing of this study is also significant. It comes in the context of a polit-
ically ascendant crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman (“MbS,” the kingdom’s
most powerful figure by any measure other than his formal title), who has issued a
range of intriguing pronouncements and has undertaken actions that suggest he
may be preparing to throw the standard Saudi playbook on religion— or, at least,
aspects of it— out the window. However, in many dimensions of his ambitious
and aggressive agenda, MbS is forced to confront inevitable tensions between his
unorthodox instincts and the vast equities that have been built up around pre-
vious Saudi ways of doing business. This is no different with respect to religion
and the religious dimensions of the kingdom’s external relations. It is therefore
my hope that detailing and explaining the nature and evolution of Saudi religious
transnationalism over the past half century will also aid in assessing the extent to
which prevailing structures and norms may shape what MbS can (and cannot)
do in the realm of religion, both domestically and around the world.
While not usually one to self-c onsciously insert authorial position into my
writing, I do feel in this case an obligation to explain certain aspects of my per-
spective on the issues treated in this volume. As someone born in Saudi Arabia,
the third generation of my family to live and work in the kingdom as an American
expatriate, I grew up regularly hearing accounts of how Saudi Arabia nefariously
funded the “Wahhabization” of the Muslim world. My tendency was to regard
such narratives with skepticism, not least of all because they seemed so at odds
with my personal experience of most Saudis who—w hile certainly socially con-
servative and religiously observant—i nvariably came across as warm, kind, and
generous. So while I did not doubt that certain Saudi and Saudi-f unded reli-
gious activities outside the kingdom’s borders might have negative effects (after
all, I had had enough of my own run-i ns with the kingdom’s notorious mutawa,
or religious police, to know that rigid and aggressive religiosity was a reality in
Saudi Arabia), the idea that Saudi religious transnationalism was having a sys-
temic impact on global Islam struck me as rather far-f etched, or an idea most
likely to be promoted by political opponents of the kingdom. However, over the
years, and as my research on comparative Muslim politics took me to more and
more settings across the Muslim majority (and minority) world, I could not ig-
nore the fact that, almost everywhere I went, I encountered in local informants
and interview subjects some version of a narrative that talked about how things
“used to be” before the arrival of religious influence from Saudi Arabia, and how
things had changed as a result of those influences. And as pervasive as this dis-
course on global Wahhabization seemed to be, one was always hard pressed to
find much in the way of detailed and systematic analysis of the phenomenon.
I therefore felt the desire and need for a more thorough, objective, nuanced, and
research- driven analysis of Saudi religious export activity, and this is what led me
to embark on the process of producing this volume.
Preface ix
This volume would not have been possible without the support of a great
number of people and institutions, several of which I would like to acknowledge
by name. The Carnegie Corporation of New York made the project possible in
the first place, and I owe a great debt of gratitude in particular to Hillary Wiesner
for her encouragement and early championing of the core idea. She and her
Carnegie colleague Nehal Amer have been unwaveringly supportive throughout.
The Henry Luce Foundation and especially Toby Volkman also provided impor-
tant support that helped the project to get off the ground. I was fortunate to spend
a year at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World
Affairs while the project was in its most active phase. The Center’s leadership
and staff—p articularly Shaun Casey, Tom Banchoff, Michael Kessler, Claudia
Winkler, Randolph Pelzer, and Ruth Gopin— provided an incredibly warm and
supportive environment in which to work. My thanks also to Ray Kim and Grant
Marthinsen for their research assistance. Henry Brill shepherded the manuscript
through the copyediting process with amazing skill and efficiency. In addition
to benefiting from early brainstorming with Will McCants, several colleagues
offered valuable feedback at an author workshop in December 2019, namely
Nathan Brown, Duke Burbridge, Yasmine Farouk, Sarah Feuer, Shadi Hamid,
and Annelle Sheline. I owe special gratitude to Christopher Anzalone who, in ad-
dition to coauthoring one of the volume’s chapters, provided invaluable support
in preparing the final manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank Cynthia Read,
Drew Anderla, Brent Matheny, and the entire team at Oxford University Press.
Peter Mandaville
Washington, DC, September 2021