The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project

by Krithika Varagur Narrated by Priya Ayyar

Overview

Journalist Krithika Varagur's Da'wa chronicles the House of Saud as it systematically transforms the Muslim world in its own image, in one of the major imperial projects in today's world, on par with China's economic diplomacy. Since 1979, Saudi Arabia has spent $1.8 billion per year, by one estimate, to propagate its puritanical brand of Islam, called Salafism or Wahhabism. It has kept scrupulous records of its religious activity in 27 countries, with over 4,000 Salafi preachers on its payroll worldwide. This is the cumulative scope of the Saudi campaign on three separate continents, told through the trial of a Christian governor in Indonesia; the emergence of Wahhabi influence in the Republic of Kosovo; and the death sentence of a Sufi priest in Nigeria.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In her important new book The Call, Krithika Varagur carefully and methodically investigates the sprawling Saudi proselytization efforts in two of the world’s most populous countries, Indonesia and Nigeria, and in one politically fragile country in the Balkans: Kosovo, formerly a part of Yugoslavia.... Varagur demonstrates that the Saudi dawa effort is both more complex and more influential than commonly believed.” —Times Literary Supplement

“An award-winning journalist follows the money to track the pervasive spread of Saudi Arabia’s particular brand of ultraconservative Islam.... In her three riveting, thoroughly researched case studies, Varagur investigates why the Saudi brand of Islam is so appealing: It is radical in its simplicity, clearly instructs behavior, provides direct access to important texts, and offers a sense of community to its believers worldwide.... Varagur wisely allows many voices to be heard—and shows how Saudi influence is now more transparent but still insidious.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Krithika Varagur’s The Call is an incisive, salient, and comprehensive exploration of the sort of philanthropy that comes with a heaping side of religious proselytizing. Varagur brilliantly captures the complexities and contradictions of Saudi Arabia’s export (intentional or incidental) of Salafism and portrays soft power for what it really is—messy, highly unpredictable, and a far cry from the puppet-master-like characterization it has recently received.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“The Call provides a first-hand deep dive into the facts of how Saudi Arabia spawned Salafi movements abroad that now are largely self-sustaining, as the kingdom yields to global pressure (and the reality of diminished oil revenues) by curbing its external spending to spread fundamentalist Islam. These days when so few journalists bother to dig for facts, preferring to pontificate, Krithika Varagur’s work stands out.” —Karen Elliott House, author of On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting

“A comprehensive analysis of Saudi Arabia's decades of proselytizing its ultra conservative Islamic views throughout the world. Based on meticulous research and field work, this is the best account in print of how our ally has spread its intolerance and extremism but also how that has evolved over time. A must read for Islam watchers.” —Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and the CIA’s former Saudi Arabia station chief

“An incisive, salient, and comprehensive exploration of the sort of philanthropy that comes with a heaping side of religious proselytizing. Varagur brilliantly captures the complexities and contradictions of Saudi Arabia’s export (intentional or incidental) of Salafism and portrays soft power for what it really is—messy, highly unpredictable, and a far cry from the puppet-master-like characterization it has recently received.” —Antoaneta Tileva, Washington Independent Review of Books

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-03-08
An award-winning journalist follows the money to track the pervasive spread of Saudi Arabia’s particular brand of ultraconservative Islam.

Varagur, who reports on Indonesia for the Guardian and other South and Southeast Asian countries for a variety of publications, scrupulously lays out three case studies in which Saudi Arabia has managed to export Wahhabism, often in violent ways. The author looks at vibrant Salafi (the global brand of Wahhabism) communities in Indonesia, where her work took her in recent years; northern Nigeria, which has produced numerous states run by strict Sharia law and given rise to Boko Haram; and Kosovo, a small country of 1.8 million people that has nonetheless “contributed more foreign fighters per capita to ISIS than any other country in Europe.” The leaders of these “thriving Salafi ecosystems” were originally trained (indoctrinated) in Saudi Arabia, specifically at the Islamic University of Medina, which was built in the early 1960s by King Faisal and has become one of the most significant instruments of Saudi “dawa,” or call to Islam that “refers to proselytization more generally.” With the injection of oil money in the 1970s and the perceived threat of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the kingdom endowed several powerful charities—e.g., the Muslim World League, which developed into a violent “intolerance factory.” In her three riveting, thoroughly researched case studies, Varagur investigates why the Saudi brand of Islam is so appealing: It is radical in its simplicity, clearly instructs behavior, provides direct access to important texts, and offers a sense of community to its believers worldwide. The author also chronicles how Faisal personally sponsored delegations from IUM to African nations and how Saudi charities were key elements in the effort to rebuild Kosovo after the 1998-1999 war.

Varagur wisely allows many voices to be heard—and shows how Saudi influence is now more transparent but still insidious.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177015637
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Series:	Columbia Global Reports
Edition description:	Unabridged

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