How Saudi Arabia exports Wahhabism

Bangladesh approved the construction on its territory of 560 mosques on Wednesday, April 26. The project is financed by the Saudi government to the tune of over a billion dollars.

Ottoman return of Mecca 1813 after being ousted by Salafis. / Berthault, engraving after L. N. de Lespinasse. / Wikipedia

For 50 years now, this strategy of donations for the construction of religious buildings abroad has enabled the Gulf kingdom to spread throughout the world a sectarian doctrine that fuels and inspires Sunni extremism.

In Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim Asian country, the project worries advocates of secularism and representatives of various religious minorities.

They fear these mosques might become new bases for spreading the very stringent version of Islam that the oil-rich Gulf monarchy advocates.

"The Saudi financing is worrying," Rezaul Haq Chandpuri, a member of a federation of Sufi Muslims, told AFP. The Saudi authorities "could use their money to promote Wahhabism".

Chandpuri is skeptical about the government of Sheikh Hasina's contention that these buildings will serve "to spread real knowledge of Islam" and will help to better monitor the emergence of Islamist extremism, which has been affecting this country of 160 million inhabitants for years now.

Striving to spread Wahhabism

Bangladesh is far from being the first country to benefit from the financial favors of Saudi Arabia for this type of project. For over 50 years now, the Gulf kingdom has been striving to spread Wahhabism.

This sectarian doctrine fuels Sunni extremism by supporting the construction of hundreds of mosques, schools or Islamist cultural centers throughout the world – from Brussels to Yvelines, from Kosovo to China, the United Kingdom, Afghanistan or Africa.

"Saudi Arabia is a land of preaching and, of course, it will never give up its creed, which is to finance and support Islamic action wherever the Islamic community is present," says political scientist Fatiha Dazi-Heni, a specialist on the Arabian peninsula. A researcher at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (IRSEM), she is also the author of Saudi Arabia in 100 questions.

More than 70 billion dollars in donations

Founded in Saudi Arabia around 1745 by Mohammed-Abd el-Wahhâb, the Wahhabi ideology spread abroad, mainly by following the main trade routes of the time, particularly in Africa.

The dynamic intensified between the 1970s and 1980s, when the oil monarchy, in the name of humanitarian aid, began to establish NGOs and schools transmitting that ideology on many continents.

According to British historian Charles Allen, one of the rare academics to study the economic aspect of Saudi religious diplomacy, the Gulf monarchy has reportedly spent more than 70 billion dollars (about 65 billion euros) since 1979 to finance such projects abroad.

Targeting fragile areas

Disaster zones or poor areas are particularly fertile ground for the implantation of Wahhabism. Just after Kosovo's war of independence, for example, Saudi Arabia financed the building of 240 mosques in the small Balkans republic.

A system of scholarships was also set up, enabling preachers from Kosovo to go and study for many months in Saudi Arabia.

Back in their home countries, these imams spread the strict vision of the Qu'ran that they were taught.

"According to my figures, 30,000 people have been trained in these Saudi Islamic universities," Pierra Conesa, a senior French Defence Ministry official, said in an interview with Le Point magazine in September. They are then found in the entire Sahelian strip, in Mali, Niger, Central African Republic.

"Every year the Saudis spend 7 to 8 billion dollars on their religious diplomacy," he estimated.

Money for veils

In many countries, Saudi representatives do not hesitate to attempt to directly convert or convince the local population.

"Along with many of my friends, we were approached early this year by a Saudi association that offered us money if we agreed to wear the full veil," Erina B., a 21-year-old Muslim Kosovar student from Mitrovica, about 50 km south of Pristina, told La Croix.

"I refused, and the members of the association did not insist, but some people around me agreed to do so last year."



