On the House . . . of Saud, that is: The kingdom's spending in America

National Review, April 8, 2002 by John J. Miller

The rap trio Native Deen won't climb to the top of the Billboard charts anytime soon, but you may be able to catch them providing "clean wholesome Islamic entertainment" (as their website puts it) at weddings, fundraisers, and other events. The performers don't dance, and they refuse to use instruments other than drums ("out of respect for the difference of opinion about the use of musical instruments in Islam"). But a good time, apparently, is guaranteed for all.

Even in an age of niche media, Wahhabi rap is about as narrow-brow as it gets, and its very existence demonstrates the distressingly large influence Saudi Arabia has had on the development of Islam in the United States. Worldwide, Islam is a grand and ramified religion that is no less diverse than Christianity; but Saudi Arabia's particular form of Islam, known as Wahhabism, happens to be that religion's most severe and anti-Western strain. The Saudis are committed to Wahhabism, the animating theology of Osama bin Laden, and for the last two decades they have steadily and purposefully built a network of institutions to increase what might be called the Wahhabi market share among American Muslims. It's a contest that the United States has a clear interest in seeing the Saudis lose.

Saudis spending money in the U.S. is, of course, nothing new. They're famous for making massive gifts to American universities, especially to establish and support Middle Eastern Studies programs. There's a King Abdulaziz Chair for Islamic Studies at the University of California and a King Fahd Chair for Islamic Shariah Studies at Harvard Law School. Sometimes these gifts have an overt political purpose: After Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 1992, for example, the University of Arkansas received a $20 million bequest from the Saudi government for its Middle Eastern Studies center. At other times the Saudis' motives have been murkier. Two years ago, the King Faisal Foundation's international scholarship competition honored Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson and the Human Genome Project's John Craig Venter for their scientific accomplishments, as well as an Egyptian university for "confronting trends of Westernization."

The Saudis also purchase influence in more conventional ways, by keeping several D.C. lobbyists on six-figure retainers, hiring others as needed, and handing out money to sympathetic policy groups. (The Council on American Islamic Relations is having a new headquarters underwritten by the Saudis.) Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar is called "the dean of Embassy Row" because he's represented his country in Washington longer than any other diplomat, and he's good at what he does.

All of these activities are more or less public: Saudi lobbyists must register as foreign agents with the Justice Department. Activity on behalf of Wahhabism, however, is much better hidden-and far more important. "We know it's something like $100 million over the last ten years or so," says one expert on Islam. That's $100 million on the construction of mosques and schools, the translation and distribution of Korans, and the training of imams-funneled through a web of governmental and private charities, almost none of it showing up in any public record, and virtually all of it aimed at promoting Wahhabism. This network's potential for sinister radicalism recently came to light in Bosnia, where U.S. troops-raiding a Saudi "charity"-seized photos of American military facilities and literature on crop-duster planes.

There's a dispute over how many Muslims actually live in the U.S., with estimates ranging between 2 million and 7 million. It's even less clear how many attend a mosque affected by Wahhabi doctrine. Muhammad al- Alahmari of the Islamic Assembly of North America has said that half of the mosques and Islamic schools in the U.S. were built with the help of Saudi money, a sure sign of Wahhabi influence. Another expert says that one-third of the country's approximately 1,200 mosques follow Wahhabi teachings.

Whatever the actual figures, a significant number of American Muslims now subscribe to Wahhabi doctrine-the same set of beliefs that has had such a fatal influence on madrassas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere. "The Saudis are very aggressive when it comes to promoting their ideas in the United States," says Ali Asani, a religion professor at Harvard. "They have a big propaganda machine." It works so well, in fact, that many Muslims who are exposed to Wahhabism don't even know it. That's because Wahhabis never refer to themselves as such. Instead, they speak of a "true Islam" or a "pure Islam," as if their version of the faith would be anything other than an exotic offshoot in the absence of massive Saudi oil wealth. Yet they write off any Muslim who doesn't subscribe to their interpretation of the Koran and their wholesale rejection of the intellectual heritage that has grown up around Islam.

Saudi money poured into mosques, schools, and cultural centers comes with lots of strings attached. "You can hardly go anywhere in the United States without meeting people who will complain bitterly of a fight they've had or a mosque that's been taken over by the Wahhabis," says one Muslim who's been involved in many such battles. Saudis who bankroll mosques may try to dictate architectural decisions, steering designers away from beautiful Ottoman traditions and toward a bleak aesthetic that supposedly focuses the mind on God. Sometimes they try to force a congregation of Muslims to accept a particular imam who has been trained in Wahhabism. Alternatively, they'll offer a scholarship to a young man in the community. He packs off to Saudi Arabia for a year or two of study, where he's indoctrinated in Wahhabi theology, and returns as a radical. In addition, Saudi universities, which are a mainstay of the Wahhabi movement, will fax sermons to imams in the U.S. They are then dutifully read to worshippers. "You can't even trust their translations of the Koran," says one author. "They are deliberately mendacious."