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- Following the embargo by Arab oil exporters during the Israeli-Arab October 1973 War and the vast increase in petroleum export revenue that followed, the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunni Islam favored by the conservative oil-exporting Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam." The Saudi interpretation of Islam not only includes Salafiyya (often referred by outsiders as "Wahhabism") but also Islamist/revivalist Islam, and a "hybrid" of the two interpretations (until 1990s). From 1982 to 2005 (the reign of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia), over $75 billion is estimated to have been spent in efforts to spread Salafiyya Islam. The money was used to established 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1500 mosques, and 2000 schools for Muslim children in Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries. The schools were "fundamentalist" in outlook and formed a network "from Sudan to northern Pakistan". By 2000 Saudi Arabia had also distributed 138 million copies of the Quran worldwide. In the 1980s, religious attaches in the Kingdom's ~70 embassies around the world worked to "get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the dawah salafiyya". The Saudi Arabian government funds a number of international organizations to spread fundamentalist Islam, including the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and various royal charities. Supporting proselytizing or preaching of Islam (da'wah), has been called "a religious requirement" for Saudi rulers that cannot be abandoned "without losing their domestic legitimacy" as protectors and propagators of Islam. In the words of journalist Scott Shane, "when Saudi imams arrived in Muslim countries in Asia or Africa, or in Muslim communities in Europe or the Americas, wearing traditional Arabian robes, speaking the language of the Quran — and carrying a generous checkbook — they had automatic credibility." In addition to the Salafi interpretation of Islam, other strict and conservative interpretations of Sunni Islam directly or indirectly assisted by funds from Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf include those of Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. Salafism and forms of Islamism are said to have formed a "joint venture", sharing a strong "revulsion" against Western influences, a belief in strict implementation of injunctions and prohibitions of sharia law, an opposition to both Shiism and popular Islamic religious practices (the cult of `saints`), and a belief in the importance of armed jihad. Later the two movements are said to have been "fused", or formed a "hybrid", particularly as a result of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union, and resulted in the training and equipping of thousands of Muslims to fight against Soviets and their Afghan allies in Afghanistan in the 1980s. (The alliance was not permanent and the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden broke with Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Revivalist groups also disagreed among themselves -- Salafi Jihadi groups differing with the less extreme Muslim Brotherhood, for example.) The funding has been criticized for promoting an intolerant, fanatical form of Islam that allegedly helped to breed radicalism. The volunteers mobilized to fight in Afghanistan (such as Osama bin Laden) who became "exultant" at their success against the Soviet superpower, went on to fight Jihad against Muslim governments and civilians in other countries. (en)
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