Wahhabism in the US....

I'd like to know how many mosques the Saudis are funding here in Canada....

You would be excused for thinking that the Wahabbi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia and the religion guarantees of our First Amendment have no more in common than fire and water. But I think this oddest of odd couples helps to explain two recent events involving American Muslims and the rest of us -- instances of so-called “home-grown” Islamist terrorism, such as the Fort Hood murders, and the resentment being reported among American Muslims at FBI and other law-enforcement-agency activities at U.S. mosques.

To be sure, the religious values the First Amendment protects -- freedom of worship, the nonestablishment of a state church -- are diametrically opposed to the religious dispensation in the Saudi state. There, the free exercise of religion is not only not guaranteed; it is scorned, banned, and prosecuted. Christianity is a crime, and don’t even ask about Judaism. There, by all accounts, Wahabbi Islam is not merely the established state religion but also an institution whose control of Saudi life more nearly resembles a totalitarian government than the Anglican establishment, whose like the First Amendment forbade. The Saudi minister of the interior, His Royal Highness Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, who runs their religious establishment, recently ordered a 75-year-old woman flogged with 40 lashes for “prohibited mingling.”

But the First Amendment seems to be the Wahabbi establishment’s best friend here in the U.S. “First Amendment concerns” seem to be a principal reason why, for nearly 30 years, the U.S. government has turned a blind and even benign eye on the creation within the U.S. of a network of Wahabbist mosques and related Wahabbist entities paid for and frequently staffed by the Saudi establishment -- a network now bearing bitter fruit.

That such a network exists is beyond fair dispute. The website of the late King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz (Fayed’s brother) boasts of having funded mosques in prime and not so prime venues: New York; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles (two different ones); Chicago (three different ones); northern Virginia; Columbia, Mo.; Toledo, Ohio; and elsewhere. The total number of Wahabbi-funded mosques in the U.S. is huge: Hussain Haqqani, a recent Carnegie Endowment scholar and now Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., estimates that Wahabbis with pro-Saudi leanings dominate 800 of the estimated 1,200 mosques in this country. Stephen Schwartz, an Islam expert (and no relation to me), estimates the total number of Wahabbi-financed mosques at “only” 600. Business Week editor Paul Barrett’s carefully reported -- and liberally oriented -- study American Islam demonstrates that the lavish Saudi expenditures have given Wahabbism a hold on many American mosques, which is either impressive or appalling, depending on how you feel about flogging 75-year-old women.

Moreover, ancillary organizations created or maintained by Wahabbist funders include the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and others. Even non-Saudi-financed mosques often employ Saudi or other Arab imams who have been sent here by the World Muslim League, a vehicle created and financed by Saudis for spreading Wahabbism around the world. Barrett’s book further reports that the Saudis pay American converts to Islam -- mostly African-Americans -- to go to Saudi Arabia, receive Wahabbist instruction, and come back here to serve as imams at U.S. mosques.

Please read the entire article...