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.
Krithika Varagur is an American journalist based in Indonesia. Her major project as a reporter has been investigating Gulf investments and influence in the Muslim world. She writes for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and The New York Review of Books. A graduate of Harvard, she has also written humor for The New Yorker and McSweeney's and has been a live correspondent for NPR, the BBC, and Democracy Now!, among other international media outlets. Her reporting has been funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the International Reporting Project.
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.
Author
Krithika Varagur is an American journalist based in Indonesia. Her major project as a reporter has been investigating Gulf investments and influence in the Muslim world. She writes for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and The New York Review of Books. A graduate of Harvard, she has also written humor for The New Yorker and McSweeney's and has been a live correspondent for NPR, the BBC, and Democracy Now!, among other international media outlets. Her reporting has been funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the International Reporting Project.
