Saudi petrodollars laundered and popularized radical Islamist ideas worldwide

Evidence

Saudi Arabia was the original home of Islam; Islam’s holiest shrines are there; its language is Islam’s language; it has the world’s largest oil reserves and the resulting financial influence; and its government has shaped Saudi society along strictly Islamic lines. During the 1970s and 1980s Saudi Arabia was the single most influential force in Islam. It spent billions of dollars supporting Muslim causes throughout the world, from mosques and textbooks to political parties, Islamist organizations, and terrorist movements, and was relatively indiscriminate in doing so. On the other hand, its relatively small population and geographical vulnerability make it dependent on the West for its security. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 484

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Saudi wealth transformed Wahhabism into a global ideology under the guise of Salafism — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1842